The ICF Coaching Log, Explained (With a Free Template)

The ICF coaching log is the least glamorous document in a coach's business and the one most likely to decide whether a credential application goes through. It is also widely misunderstood. Coaches build elaborate spreadsheets with session topics and outcomes, and then discover that the ICF wants something simpler and that it never wanted the spreadsheet at all. It wants you to be able to produce a person.

This is what the log has to contain, what the ICF does with it, how an audit actually works, and a template you can download and start using today. Every rule is from the ICF's own log template and the 2026 ACC Candidate Guide, checked on 11 September 2026.

Download the template

Two formats, same columns. The spreadsheet has a totals row and a second sheet with the rules; the CSV opens anywhere.

• ICF client coaching log template (Excel)
• ICF client coaching log template (CSV)

Delete the two example rows before you use it. There is no sign-up and no email capture; it is a spreadsheet.

What the ICF actually asks you to record

The ICF publishes its own client coaching log template, and it asks for very little. Per client:

• Name and contact details. An email address or phone number you could still use.
• The dates you coached them. Start and end.
• Hours, paid and pro bono in separate columns. The ICF checks the paid minimum separately from the total, so mixing them defeats the purpose.
• Whether the coaching was individual or group.

That is the whole list. No session notes, no topics, no goals, no outcomes. Everything else coaches add is for their own practice, and it belongs in a different document, because the log may one day be seen by someone other than you.

The template above adds two columns the ICF does not require but an audit will make you glad you kept: a total, and a notes column for the date you obtained consent to store the client's details and, for internal or third-party coaching, the name of the person at the organisation who can verify the hours.

Every column in the template, with a worked row

Here is the template filled in for two clients who look nothing alike: a private client who pays you directly, and a group you ran inside a company as part of your job. Both are made up. The point is to see what a complete row looks like before you start typing your own.

Now each column, what goes in it, and the way people get it wrong.

Client name

The person's name as they would recognise it if an auditor said it to them. For a group, the group's name and its size in the same cell, because size is the fact that decides whether the hours count at all. "Leadership cohort, group of 9" tells the reader it was under the 15-person limit without anyone having to ask.

Do not use initials or codes to protect confidentiality. The ICF expects you to have consent to hold the details, and a coded log cannot produce a person. Confidentiality is handled by the consent line and your privacy policy, not by making the log unreadable.

Contact details

One email address or phone number that works today. Not the one from the intake form two years ago. For an internal or third-party client, this cell holds the verifier rather than the participant: the person at the organisation who is authorised to confirm your hours. Put their role beside their name so that if they move on, you know who to ask for instead.

Start date and end date

The first session and the last. If the engagement is still running, write "Ongoing" and replace it with a date when it ends. These two cells are what the recency check reads. A row with a start date and no end date says the hours are current; a row that ended three years ago says they are not.

One row per engagement, not per session. If Priya finished a six-month package, took a year off and came back, that is two rows with two date ranges. Merging them into one long row hides the gap and makes the recency arithmetic wrong.

Individual or group

One word. It exists because group hours have their own rules, and an auditor scanning a log wants to find the group rows quickly.

Paid hours

Hours for which anyone gave you anything of value. Direct payment, barter, coaching that is part of your salaried job, coaching delivered through a coaching company or an employer programme. Priya's 14.5 hours were invoiced, so they are paid. The cohort was delivered as part of the coach's role at the company, so those 8 hours are paid too, even though no invoice exists.

Pro bono hours

Hours you gave away. A friend, a charity, a volunteer scheme, a practice client you never charged. Kept apart from paid so that the paid minimum can be checked on its own. ACC wants 75 of its 100 hours paid; a log with 100 hours in a single column cannot show that.

The paid minimum is checked on its own. ACC needs 75 of its 100 hours paid, so a log with everything in one hours column cannot prove the thing the ICF checks first.

Total hours

Paid plus pro bono for the row. The spreadsheet version calculates this and sums the column at the bottom. It is there so you can glance at one number against the table further down this page.

Notes

Two things and nothing else: the date you obtained consent to store the client's details, and, for internal or third-party work, the verifier's name and the arrangement ("internal coaching via employer"). Session topics do not go here. If you want a place for what you actually talked about, that belongs on the client's record in whatever you use to run your practice, where the client and you can see it and an auditor never will.

You do not submit the log. Here is what happens instead.

This is the part that surprises people. The 2026 ACC Candidate Guide says that applicants selected for audit "will not submit client logs directly to ICF." Instead, coaches selected for audit "will be required to access the contact information for their clients or, for confidential internal or third-party coaching, an individual within the organization who is authorized to verify their coaching hours."

Read that as the ICF intends it. The log is not evidence. It is the index that lets you find the evidence, and the evidence is a person who will confirm that you coached them for the hours you claimed. A perfect log with an email address that bounces is worth nothing in an audit.

The guide adds three obligations that most coaches have never thought about. You "should obtain and document clients' consent to store their information, have a policy on how that information will be protected and maintained, and have a system in place for tracking relevant data." Consent, a privacy policy, and a system. The template handles the third. The first is a line in your coaching agreement. The second is a paragraph on your website that says where client data lives and who can see it. If you use a platform, its privacy policy covers most of it; if you use a personal spreadsheet, you are the policy, and you should write it down.

An audit, walked through

Picture a coach applying for ACC with a log of 11 clients, 118 total hours, 84 paid, and 33 hours inside the last 18 months. Every number clears the threshold. The application is selected for audit. This is what the next two weeks look like, and where a log that looked fine on the totals row starts to wobble.

Day one. The ICF asks for contact information so the hours can be verified. The coach goes down the contact column. Eight of the 11 addresses are current. Three are not: one client changed jobs and the work email bounces, one was coached through a coaching company that has since closed, and one is an internal client whose named verifier left the organisation.

The bounced email. The coach has the client's phone number on their client record because the intake form asked for it. One text, one reply, one new email address. That row is saved because the record held a second way to reach the person. A log with only the original email would have lost 9 hours here.

The closed coaching company. The third-party arrangement was through a company that no longer exists, so the authorised verifier is gone. The coach still has the client's own details from the sessions, and the client is willing to confirm. The row survives, but it survives because the coach kept the participant's contact as well as the company's. If you coach through a third party, keep both.

The internal verifier who left. The notes column says "Verifier: Dana Okafor, L&D lead." Dana has moved on. Because the role is written beside the name, the coach emails the company's current L&D lead, explains the arrangement, and asks them to confirm the hours from the company's own records. That takes a week and it works. Without the role in the cell, it would have been a name and a shrug.

Run the arithmetic without those three rows and the coach has 8 clients and 91 hours, which passes the 8-client minimum with nothing to spare and fails the 100-hour total. The audit did not find a dishonest coach. It found an ordinary one with an ordinary contact column, which is why steps two and three of the monthly routine further down exist.

The log is an index, not evidence. The 2026 ACC Candidate Guide says audited applicants will not submit client logs directly to ICF; what they produce is a person who can confirm the hours.

Consent, a policy and a system, in practice

The three obligations in the candidate guide sound like a compliance project. They are three short pieces of writing and one habit. Here is the minimum version of each.

Consent: one sentence in the agreement

Add a line to your coaching agreement along these lines: "I agree that my coach may store my name, contact details and the dates and duration of our sessions for the purpose of professional credentialing, and may share my contact details with the International Coaching Federation if asked to verify coaching hours." The client signs the agreement, the date of that signature goes in the notes column, and the consent is documented. If the client is a group inside a company, the same sentence goes into the engagement letter with the sponsor, and the verifier's consent to be named goes in alongside it.

Policy: one paragraph you can point to

Your privacy policy needs to answer four questions in plain words: what client data you keep, where it lives, who can see it, and how long you keep it. A workable paragraph names the tool (a spreadsheet on an encrypted laptop, or a coaching platform), states that only you have access, and gives a retention period. If you use a platform, link to its privacy policy for the storage and security part and write the paragraph about your own practice. If you use a spreadsheet, you are describing your own laptop and your own backup, so be accurate about both.

System: the thing you actually update

The candidate guide asks for "a system in place for tracking relevant data." A spreadsheet you update monthly is a system. A spreadsheet you rebuild from your calendar the week before you apply is not, and that difference is what an auditor is testing when they ask for a contact and see how long it takes you to find it.

Internal and third-party coaching: who verifies

If you coach employees of the company you work for, or you deliver sessions through a coaching company or an employer programme, the ICF's audit wording changes. It no longer asks for the client's contact. It asks for "an individual within the organization who is authorized to verify their coaching hours." That person is your verifier, and choosing them well is the difference between an audit that takes a week and one that stalls.

Pick someone whose job includes knowing that the coaching happened. A head of learning and development, an HR business partner who commissioned the programme, or the coaching company's operations lead who assigned you the clients. Not the client's line manager, who often does not know how many sessions took place, and not a colleague who happens to like you.

Then do three things at the start of the engagement, not the end.

• Tell the verifier they are the verifier. One email: "If I apply for an ICF credential and the application is audited, the ICF may ask you to confirm I delivered these hours. Are you happy to be named?" Keep the reply.
• Write their name and role in the notes column. The role is what saves you when the person leaves, because it tells you who inherited the responsibility.
• Keep the participants' contact details as well, where the engagement allows it. The verifier is the ICF's route. The participants are your fallback if the verifier disappears, as in the audit above.

When you leave a company, the hours you coached there stay valid, but your access to the verifier does not. Before your last day, confirm the verifier's personal or ongoing contact route and note it. An internal coach who logs 200 hours across three years and then changes employer without doing this has a log that is complete and unverifiable at the same time.

Which hours go in, and which do not

The log is only as good as the rules you apply when filling it. These are the ICF's, not ours. If you are still choosing a credentialing body, compare the main coaching associations first.

Only hours after your training started. The ICF counts client coaching delivered after the start of coach-specific education, defined as an ICF-accredited programme of at least 30 hours, or a non-accredited or CCE programme of at least 30 hours where at least 80 percent is on the Core Competencies. Find the enrolment date of your first qualifying programme and do not log anything before it.

Paid is broad. Direct payment, barter, internal coaching you do as part of your job, and coaching delivered through a third party such as a coaching company or an employer programme all count as paid. Pro bono is coaching you gave away or volunteered. If you are unsure, the test is whether anyone gave you anything of value for that session.

Group coaching counts once. Groups of 15 or fewer count in full. Larger groups need a co-coach, and with a co-coach present the time is split between you. An hour with twelve people is one hour in the log, not twelve. Record the group as one row with the group size in the name.

Some things that feel like coaching are out. Mentor coaching, coaching supervision, and going over an assessment's results with a client are not client coaching hours. Practice sessions inside your training programme with fellow students, trainers or mentors are excluded unless the session was outside the classroom, with a real client, and separate from your training credits.

Ten sessions and where each one lands

Rules are easier to apply as a list of cases. Ten sessions a working coach might have delivered in one month, and what happens to each in the log. The durations are examples; the rules are the ICF's.

Ten sessions, twelve hours and fifteen minutes of your time, 6.25 hours in the log: 5.5 paid and 0.75 pro bono. About half of what felt like coaching does not count in this month, which is why the totals row of a properly kept log is usually lower than the number in your head.

One row per group, never one per person. An hour with twelve participants is one hour in the log, and a group larger than 15 does not count at all without a co-coach.

How much you actually need

The totals the log has to support, as of September 2026:

The recency column is why the log needs dates and not just totals. A coach with 600 lifetime hours and a two-year gap can fail the PCC's 50-hour window while passing everything else, and the only way to see that coming is a log with a date on every row.

A worked ACC check against the totals row

Take a fictional totals row: 112 total hours, 68 paid, 44 pro bono, 9 distinct clients, 31 hours dated inside the last 18 months. Check it against the ACC line.

Three passes and one fail, and the fail is invisible in a log that keeps hours in one column. This coach has done more than enough coaching; they have done too much of it for free. The fix is 7 more paid hours, which at one paid session a week is under two months away. A coach who did not know that would apply, be declined, and lose the application fee and the wait.

Now the same coach a year later, applying for PCC after a busy period: 610 total hours, 470 paid, 26 clients, but only 38 hours dated inside the last 18 months. Total, paid and clients all clear the PCC line. The recency check fails by 12 hours. Nothing in the totals row shows that; only the dates do, which is the argument for one row per engagement with real start and end dates.

Recency has a window. PCC needs 50 hours inside the last 18 months, and a totals-only log cannot show whether you have them.

What a platform can count for you, and what it cannot

If your sessions are booked and delivered in Coachful, two of the four checks are already running. The Coach development panel under My Data counts completed session hours and distinct clients and shows them against the ACC, PCC and MCC thresholds. It does not know which hours were paid, when your coach-specific training started, or which sessions were mentor coaching, because none of those facts live on a calendar. The paid column, the training start line and the exclusions still come from the log, which is why the log and the panel are companions rather than substitutes.

A routine that takes ten minutes a month

The log fails when it is reconstructed. Memory is generous and calendars are not, and the gap between them is where audits find problems. The fix is a small habit rather than a big effort.

1. Once a month, add or update one row per client you coached. Dates from your calendar, hours from your session records, paid or pro bono from your invoices.
2. Check the contact column still works. If a client changed email, update it now, while you can still ask.
3. Note consent. If a new client signed your agreement this month, the date goes in the notes column.
4. Glance at the totals row against the table above. That is the whole review.

If your sessions are booked and run in Coachful, steps one and two are mostly reading, not typing. Every completed session is already on the client's record with its date and duration, the client's email is on the same record, and the Coach development panel under My Data shows your running hours and client count against all three thresholds. The panel does not know which sessions were paid or when your training started, which is exactly what the log's paid and date columns are for. The longer version of that method is in our guide to tracking ICF coaching hours, and the click-by-click steps are in the help article.

Where each fact lives, screen by screen

The four steps above ask for five facts per row: dates, hours, contact, paid status and consent. Here is the screen each one comes from when your practice runs in Coachful, in the order you would open them on log day.

Dates and hours: the Sessions calendar. Filter the month, and every completed session sits on its date with its type and its length. For an ongoing client, the start date is their first session and the end date stays "Ongoing". For a group, the group's sessions appear under the group's name, so one row's worth of hours is one glance at one colour.

Contact details: the client's record. Open the client from the Clients page. Their email is on the record, alongside every completed session and the phone number from their intake form if you asked for one. Copy it into the contact column, and if it has changed since last month, this is where you find out.

Distinct clients: the Clients overview. The ICF counts people, not sessions. The Clients overview lists everyone on one screen, which is the number to check against the 8, 25 or 35 in the clients column. A group of nine is nine distinct clients for this count, but one row in the log.

Paid or pro bono: the Payments tab. Every invoice names the client, the product and the amount. If there is an invoice, or a subscription, or a payment plan, the hours are paid. If there is no payment against the client and no employer or third party in the picture, the hours are pro bono. Barter and internal coaching will not show up here, so those rows get their paid status from the notes column instead.

Consent date: the Agreements tab. Shown earlier in this article. The signed agreement sits on the client's record with its date, and that date is the consent date in the notes column. If the client signed a paper agreement, drop the scanned PDF in the same place so the log and the document agree.

The totals check: the Coach development panel. Step four. Open My Data, compare the hours and clients the panel shows with the totals row of your log. They should be close but not identical, because the panel counts everything that happened and the log excludes mentor coaching, sessions before your training start, and groups over 15 without a co-coach. If the panel is far ahead of the log, you have sessions to add. If the log is ahead of the panel, you have sessions that were never on the calendar, which is what the next paragraph is for.

Sessions that happened somewhere else. Not every session is booked through a platform. A coffee-shop session, a call arranged by text, a session from before you set the platform up. On the client's page in Coachful, "Log a past session" adds it to the record with its date and duration so the panel and the client's history include it. Do this on log day for the month, while you still remember which Tuesday it was.

Spreadsheet, platform, or both: what each setup can prove

Coaches ask whether a platform replaces the log. It does not, and neither does the log replace the platform. They hold different facts. Here is what each setup can produce on its own when the candidate guide's three obligations and the four threshold checks are put to it.

Read the middle column honestly and the answer is clear. A platform on its own is a very good session record and a poor log, because three of the ICF's rules depend on facts a calendar cannot hold. A spreadsheet on its own is a complete log that is only as accurate as your memory on the day you fill it in. Together, the platform supplies the dates, hours, contacts and consent documents, and the log applies the ICF's rules to them once a month.

Moving an existing log onto a platform without losing rows

If you have been keeping a spreadsheet for two years and you are moving your practice onto Coachful, do not throw the spreadsheet away and do not try to make the platform pretend those sessions happened last week. Four steps, once.

1. Keep the spreadsheet as the log. It is already the document with paid status, the training start line and the exclusions applied. The platform is joining it, not replacing it.
2. Add each active client to the platform with their current email, and send them your agreement so the consent date on the platform matches or updates the one in the notes column.
3. Backfill recent sessions with "Log a past session" on each client's page, starting with the last 18 months, because that is the window the recency check reads. Older sessions can stay in the spreadsheet alone; the log already has them.
4. Compare the panel with the log once and write down the difference. From then on, the difference should only grow by the sessions you deliberately exclude.

Two honest limits. Coachful does not have a self-serve import that turns your spreadsheet into session records, so backfilling is one past session at a time, which is why the advice is to start with the recency window rather than the whole history. And the export, when you want it, is a full ZIP of your data rather than a document shaped like the ICF's template, so the log stays the log.

Five mistakes the log will not save you from

• Multiplying group hours by participants. One row, one set of hours, group size in the name.
• Logging sessions from before your first qualifying programme. Draw the line at the enrolment date.
• Putting paid and pro bono in one column. The ICF checks them separately.
• Keeping a client whose contact details are gone. If you cannot reach them, an auditor cannot either.
• Storing client details without consent or a policy. The candidate guide names all three obligations. A log that breaks your own privacy promise is a bigger problem than a missing hour.

The line is the enrolment date. Nothing before the start of your first 30-hour qualifying programme belongs in the log, however good the coaching was.

Frequently asked questions

What should an ICF coaching log include?

Per client: name and contact details, the start and end dates of the coaching, hours with paid and pro bono in separate columns, and whether the coaching was individual or group. That matches the ICF's own client coaching log template. Session notes and topics are not part of the log.

Do I have to send my coaching log to the ICF?

No. The 2026 ACC Candidate Guide states that applicants selected for audit will not submit client logs directly to the ICF. Instead you must be able to produce contact information for your clients, or an authorised person at the organisation for confidential internal or third-party coaching, so the hours can be verified.

Does the ICF contact your clients?

If your application is selected for audit, the ICF requires you to provide client contact details so the hours can be verified. The candidate guide also expects you to have your clients' consent to store their details and a policy for protecting that information. Not every application is audited, but every application is subject to it.

How many coaching hours do I need for ACC, PCC and MCC?

ACC needs 100 total hours, 75 of them paid, across at least 8 clients, with 25 hours in the last 18 months. PCC needs 500 total, 450 paid, 25 clients and 50 hours in the last 18 months. MCC needs 2,500 total, 2,250 paid and 35 clients, with no published recency window. The log has to be able to show all four numbers for the credential you are applying for, which is why paid and pro bono are separate columns and every row carries dates.

Do group coaching hours count in the ICF log?

Yes, for groups of 15 or fewer. The time counts once per session, not once per participant. With a co-coach present, the time is split between the coaches. Larger groups do not count without a co-coach.

Do barter and internal coaching count as paid hours?

Yes. The ICF's definition of paid covers direct payment, barter, coaching you deliver as part of your salaried job, and coaching delivered through a third party such as a coaching company or an employer programme. Only coaching you gave away or volunteered is pro bono. For internal and third-party rows, write the arrangement and a verifier's name and role in the notes column, because that is who the ICF will ask.

Can I count coaching hours from before my training?

No. Only hours delivered after the start of coach-specific education count, which the ICF defines as a qualifying programme of at least 30 hours. Sessions before that date are excluded regardless of how good they were.

What happens if a client on my log cannot be reached?

The hours are still real but you cannot verify them, and in an audit that is the same as not having them. Keep a second contact route on the client's record, such as a phone number from the intake form, and check the contact column once a month while you can still ask the client for an update. If a client is permanently unreachable and the row is not needed to clear the minimum, leave it in with a note; if it is needed, you need more hours from clients who can be reached.

Does Coachful produce an ICF coaching log?

Not in the ICF's template shape, and it would be misleading to claim otherwise. Coachful keeps every completed session on the client's record with its date and duration, stores the signed agreement and the client's contact details on the same record, and the Coach development panel under My Data counts hours and distinct clients against the ACC, PCC and MCC thresholds. It does not know which hours were paid under the ICF's definition, when your training started or which sessions were mentor coaching, so you still keep the log from this page and fill it from those screens once a month.

Is there a free ICF coaching log template?

Yes. The ICF publishes its own template on its website, and the Excel and CSV versions at the top of this article use the same fields plus a totals row and a notes column for consent. Neither requires an email address to download.

Join Coachful now

The log is ten minutes a month if the dates, durations and client emails are already somewhere you can read them. Coachful keeps every session on the client's record and counts your hours and clients against the ACC, PCC and MCC thresholds as you go, so the log stops being a reconstruction and becomes a copy.