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LP Reporting — Overview & Concepts
LP Reporting is where you manage your funds and Limited Partners (LPs) — tracking commitments, calling capital, recording distributions, and generating LP-facing statements.
What problem it solves
Fund administration usually runs on a spreadsheet per fund: commitments in one tab, calls and distributions in another, and every LP's share worked out with formulas that break when an LP is added. Quarterly statements are then assembled by hand.
| Feature | The problem | What Cairn does |
|---|---|---|
| Funds and LPs | Commitments and fund metrics are spread across files | Each fund's LPs and commitments in one place, with called capital, dry powder, NAV, and TVPI/DPI/RVPI |
| Capital calls | Working out each LP's share of a call by hand invites mistakes | Enter the total; Cairn splits it across LPs by commitment |
| Distributions and fees | The same split has to be redone for every payment and fee | Distributions and management fees are split the same way automatically |
| Partnership expenses | The fund's own costs (audit, legal, administration) sit in the accounts system, and each LP's share is worked out again at year end | Record each expense once by category; Cairn splits it across LPs by commitment |
| ILPA reports | The quarterly report in the ILPA layout is rebuilt in Excel every quarter, LP by LP, from several systems | A report per fund and quarter built from Cairn's records and your NAV and carry, as an Excel workbook and a PDF, with each LP shown only their own figures |
| LP letters | The quarterly letter takes days to write, and its numbers are copied by hand from several files | A letter per fund and quarter with its figures filled in and fixed, commentary drafted by Cairn Intelligence from those figures only, and approval before anything goes out |
| Capital account statements | Each LP's statement is assembled by hand every quarter | Generate a PDF statement for any LP and period, with opening balance, contributions, distributions, and closing balance |
| LP portal | LPs email to ask for last quarter's statement again, and documents go out as attachments nobody can track | Each LP's people get their own sign-in to see their capital account and download the documents you share with them, and you can see who downloaded what |
The examples below use a made-up firm and companies to show how each feature is used.
Example: a capital call. Fund II has $100M committed: an endowment with $40M, a pension with $35M, and a family office with $25M. The firm calls $10M for a new investment. The analyst enters one call of $10M; Cairn allocates $4M, $3.5M, and $2.5M. At quarter end, they generate each LP's capital account statement for the quarter and send the PDFs.
Funds and LPs
Everything in this module is scoped to a fund. Use the fund selector to choose which fund you're working with, then manage its LPs, capital calls, distributions, and management fees.
A fund's summary shows:
| Metric | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Gross TVPI | Total value relative to capital called, before fees/carry |
| DPI | Distributions relative to capital called |
| RVPI | Residual (unrealized) value relative to capital called |
| Committed | Total capital LPs have committed to the fund |
| Called Capital | How much of that commitment has been called so far |
| Dry Powder | Committed capital not yet called |
| NAV | Current net asset value of the fund |
| Net IRR | Annualized return net of fees — shows "Not yet calculable" until enough cash-flow history exists |
| Distributions | Total capital distributed back to LPs |
Key terms
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| LP (Limited Partner) | An investor who has committed capital to your fund |
| GP (General Partner) | Your firm, managing the fund |
| Commitment | The total amount an LP has agreed to invest |
| Capital call | A request for LPs to fund part of their commitment |
| Distribution | A payment back to LPs from fund proceeds |
| Called capital | The portion of commitments actually called so far |
| Dry powder | Committed capital not yet called |
| Vintage year | The year a fund began making investments |
| TVPI / DPI / RVPI | See table above |
| MOIC | Multiple on Invested Capital |
| IRR | Internal Rate of Return |
| Carry | The share of profits your firm earns above return of capital |
| LP letter | A quarterly letter to a fund's LPs: fund performance, a paragraph per portfolio company, and an outlook. Its figures are fixed when it's created |
| Approved letter | A letter a Partner or Admin has signed off. It's locked and has a final PDF; corrections become a new version |
| LP portal | Where an LP's people sign in to see their capital account and the documents you've shared with them. They don't join your firm and can't see anything else in Cairn |
| Portal contact | A person you've invited to an LP's portal, by email. Shown as Invited until they sign in, then Active |
| Shared document | A statement, notice, or approved letter you've chosen to show in the portal. Nothing is shared until you share it |
| Partnership expense | A cost the fund itself pays, such as its audit, legal, or administration fees, recorded by category and shared across LPs by commitment |
| Fee offset | A credit against the management fee, such as transaction or monitoring fees the GP shares with the fund |
| Fee waiver | Part of a management fee the GP chose not to charge |
| Call split | What a capital call pays for: investments, management fees, and partnership expenses. Optional; a call without one counts as investments in ILPA reports |
| ILPA report | A quarterly report in the layout of ILPA's Reporting Template: the change in each partner's capital, fees, expenses and carried interest, the schedule of investments, and performance |
| Accrued carried interest | Carried interest the GP has earned on paper but not yet been paid. You enter it on each ILPA report |
| Carried interest allocation | The carried interest charged to partners in a period: the change in accrued carry plus what was paid |
| Net gain or loss | In an ILPA report, the change in NAV that the other lines don't explain, so each period adds up to the NAV you give |
| Pro-rata allocation | Splitting a capital call, distribution, or fee across LPs in proportion to their commitment |
What you can manage here
- Funds — create and edit fund records.
- LPs — add LPs to a fund and track their commitment and activity.
- Capital calls — request capital from LPs, automatically split pro-rata by commitment.
- Distributions — record payments back to LPs, also split pro-rata.
- Management fees — record and allocate fees, with any offsets and waivers.
- Partnership expenses — record the fund's own costs by category, split across LPs by commitment.
- ILPA reports — prepare each quarter's report in the ILPA layout, approve it, and share each LP's copy.
- LP letters — write each quarter's letter to a fund's LPs, with commentary drafted by Cairn Intelligence, and approve it.
- Capital account statements — generate a PDF statement of an LP's activity over a period.
- LP portal — invite people at each LP to sign in, choose which statements, notices, and letters they can see, and see who has access. It's on each LP's page, under the LP portal tab.