The hypothetical scanning (HS) method is a general approach for calculating the absolute entropy S and free energy F by analyzing Boltzmann samples obtained by Monte Carlo or molecular dynamics techniques. With HS applied to a fluid, each configuration i of the sample is reconstructed by gradually placing the molecules in their positions at i using transition probabilities (TPs). At each step of the process the system is divided into two parts, the already treated molecules (the "past"), which are fixed, and the as yet unspecified (mobile) "future" molecules. Obtaining the TP exactly requires calculating partition functions over all positions of the future molecules in the presence of the frozen past, thus it is customary to invoke various approximations to best represent these quantities. In a recent publication [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 101, 9235 (2004)] we developed a version of HS called complete HSMC, where each TP is calculated from an MC simulation involving all of the future molecules (the complete future); the method was applied very successfully to Lennard-Jones systems (liquid argon) and a box of TIP3P water molecules. In its basic implementation the method provides lower and upper bounds for F, where the latter can be evaluated only for relatively small systems. Here we introduce a new expression for an upper bound, which can be evaluated for larger systems. We also propose a new exact expression for F and verify its effectiveness. These free energy functionals lead to significantly improved accuracy (as applied to the liquid systems above) which is comparable to our thermodynamic integration results. We formalize and discuss theoretical aspects of HSMC that have not been addressed in previous studies. Additionally, several functionals are developed and shown to provide the free energy through the analysis of a single configuration. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.