Accounting, NAV, Capital Calls, Valuation, Investor Reporting
Julian R. Sterling
These are the workbooks and documents that go with the book. The five original workbooks reproduce every
figure the book publishes, and the fifth computes the figures it defines and never publishes. Around them:
three of the models with the inputs emptied, four printable working documents, a question book that marks
itself, and three cases the book names and never takes to a number. Nothing is locked, protected or
watermarked.
Free to download. No sign-up, no email address, nothing to fill in.
Twelve workbooks, the printable documents and the read-me. Each group below can also be
downloaded on its own. Last revised 22 September 2026.
The five workbooks
These carry the book’s own figures, so that every number it prints can be traced to a live
formula.
Download these five97 KB
Chapter 30
Waterfall model
The whole-of-fund waterfall on $160m of proceeds against $100m of contributed capital, through all
four tiers, landing at $148m to the LP interests and $12m to carry. All fifteen published figures
reproduce exactly. The catch-up is the part worth opening the file for: the chapter solves
C ÷ ($10m + C) = 20% by hand and gets $2.5m, and the cell
contains that solution rather than the answer — change the carry rate to 25 percent and the
catch-up moves to $3.3m on its own. A separate sheet prices what the chapter says but does not
model: on the pre-filled profile an 8 percent preferred accrues $37.2m against a flat
$10m.
Waterfall_Model.xlsx · XLSX · 17 KB
Chapter 31
Quarter-end close
It is 30 September, the administrator's draft trial balance has arrived, and five things are wrong
with it. The file finds each one, carries its journal entry, and bridges from a draft partner
capital of $125m to a corrected NAV of $128.5m — cross-checked against the balance sheet,
which agrees. Both routes are computed independently and the sheet states out loud whether they
agree. Every correction is an input you can zero out.
Quarter_End_Close.xlsx · XLSX · 16 KB
Chapters 5 and 10
Capital calls, distributions and capital accounts
Enter the investor register once. The file allocates a call on participation percentages, tracks
unfunded commitments, allocates a distribution with its recallable treatment, and rolls every
investor capital account. Three reconciliations run automatically and each says so out loud when
it fails — including the tie of the investor subledger to net asset value, which is the one
that stops a bad quarter becoming a restatement.
Capital_Calls_and_Accounts.xlsx · XLSX · 20 KB
Appendix B
Operational checklists
All ten checklists and their 125 items: capital calls, distributions, management fee, expense
review, investment closing, valuation, NAV review, quarter-end close, audit readiness and the
first ninety days. Status dropdown, notes column, and a progress sheet that counts what is still
open by section.
Operational_Checklists.xlsx · XLSX · 15 KB
Chapters 5, 12, 14, 27, 28 and 29
The performance the book defines
Chapter 14 defines IRR, DPI, RVPI, TVPI and MOIC. Chapter 29, step 7, tells the controller to
update all of them at the exit. The book prints no value for any of them, anywhere — and
chapters 27 to 29 are one continuous case with every input needed. This file joins them up.
Atlas returns 1.833 times, 22.4 percent a year; the fund that owns it ends the
case at a TVPI of 0.892 and an IRR of −5.6 percent,
because 2 percent of $500m charges $32.5m of fee against a single $42m investment. Atlas's whole
gain pays for 10.1 of the thirteen quarters the case runs, and the fund would have had to be
$389.5m, not $500m, to leave investors whole.
Then the part worth opening the file for. The book says three times — twice in chapter 14
and again in answer C9 — that a subscription facility increases investor-level IRR. Its own
case does the opposite, and sheet 6 separates the two reasons: timing alone costs half a
point, and the $5.48m of interest costs 4.21 more. The condition the book omits is a threshold
— the facility helps only above a $96.68m sale, and the book sells at
$78.0m. Thirty-two live controls, twenty-five of which reproduce a figure the book prints.
The waterfall, the quarter-end close and the investor register, with the same formulas and every input emptied. Type your own fund into the blue cells and the model runs.
Blank set · three workbooks
Your waterfall, your close, your register
The waterfall takes proceeds, capital, the preferred return, the carry rate and the catch-up,
and a dated profile for the timing of the pref. The close takes the draft rollforward, the trial balance
and each correction with its journal. The register takes each investor’s commitment, fee rate, class
and exclusions, then a call and a distribution. Each workbook closes on a checks sheet that counts the
inputs still empty and runs the controls that hold on any fund: allocations that total the proceeds, a
catch-up that leaves carry at its rate, two routes to NAV that agree, participation that totals 100 per
cent, no call above an unfunded commitment.
Put the book’s inputs back, listed in the archive, and the book’s figures come back with
them: 148 and 12 on the Chapter 30 waterfall, 128.5 by both routes in the Chapter 31 close.
Eight pages to print and take into a meeting. A4, with margins wide enough for US Letter.
Chapters 5, 10, 30 and 31 · Appendix B
Four working documents
The ten operational checklists of Appendix B, 125 items with a box for the evidence. A waterfall
review: the four tiers and the nine controls, signed as tested or as judgement. A quarter-end close sheet:
the findings log with each journal and the control that was missing, and both routes to NAV side by side.
And a capital call notice review: the build of the amount, and the allocation checked three ways.
A workbook that marks itself. Answer in the yellow cells; the marking fills in as you go.
All parts of the book
Thirty numerical, ten multiple choice
The numerical questions work the book’s own figures: the register, the call and the
distribution of Chapters 5 and 10, the Chapter 30 waterfall and its catch-up, the Chapter 31 close by both
routes, the currency translation of Chapter 12, and the performance figures and facility effect of
Appendix F. They are marked against a tolerance, so a reasonable rounding passes. The score sheet counts
the wrong answers by part of the book.
Nothing is hidden. The marking sheet holds every answer, every tolerance, and the reason for
each answer.
New material, not a restatement. Three situations the chapters name in passing and never take to
a number. Each case is one workbook: the note is the first sheet, the model is the rest, and a
checks sheet closes it. Type your own figures in and every finding recomputes.
Case one · extends subsequent closings in Chapter 3
The second close
A new investor commits 50 when 80 is already invested for the first-close investors. It pays 16 at cost, 0.96 of interest and a fee true-up, and every investor ends at 32 per cent paid in. But the investments have risen 15 per cent: the new investor gets 18.40 of value for 16.96. Equalisation at cost plus 8 per cent is fair only at a 6 per cent rise.
Case two · extends fee step-downs in Chapter 7
Where the fee base steps down
One agreement, three readings of the base after the investment period. On net invested capital the fee is 8.53 over five years, on NAV 12.01, on invested cost never reduced 15.80. The largest error is invisible in the first year, when the readings agree, and grows as the portfolio is sold.
Case three · extends unfunded commitment in Chapter 5
The distribution that can come back
A distribution of 30, 12 of it recallable. The fund can still ask for 42, not 30; the investor pays in 112 on a commitment of 100; the interim DPI falls from 0.43 to 0.29 when the recall comes, with no change in the portfolio. Until the right lapses, a recallable distribution belongs on the unfunded line.
Why the close file has two routes to the same number
Two routes to the same NAV is not redundancy; it is the control. A close that agrees with itself only
one way has not been checked. None of the five findings in Chapter 31 was a modelling error
— every one came from a control that did not exist, and every one was found by connecting two
records that should have agreed and did not.
The entries and allocations are simplified illustrations, exactly as in the text. Account names,
treatment and waterfall mechanics vary by accounting framework, legal structure and governing
document. These files model the arithmetic; they do not model your documents.
Reader list
Optional. One email when a companion file is corrected or a new worked case goes up, and a short note when a new book comes out. Nothing on this page needs it.
The Private Equity Fund Controller Playbook develops the complete framework behind these models, with the assumptions, trade-offs and worked examples tied together.
The workbooks open in Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc, Google Sheets and Numbers. They use
no macros and no add-ins, so nothing needs to be enabled or trusted. If your spreadsheet asks
to update links on opening, decline — there are none.
What changed, and when
22 Sep 2026
Blank model set, four printable working documents, the question book and three new cases added. Read-me rewritten.
Articles on this book
Two of the calculations in these workbooks, worked out in full.
All articles.
How the GP catch-up is actually solvedThe catch-up is an equation, not a number: C / (pref + C) = carry rate. Worked on a $160m distribution, at three carry rates.
The other books with companion files. The full list of titles is on the
author page.
How to Read a Commercial LeaseThe three refinements chapter 19 names and never performs, and the renewal rate below which the mark-to-market is worth nothing.
How to Read a Real Estate Loan AgreementThe cure ratio in closed form, the four-point window in which the cheap cure works, and the cure sized to the wrong threshold.
The CBAM Compliance HandbookWhat 2027 really costs, how big the buffer should be, and the term the surrender formula counts twice.
Private Markets PerformanceThirty-one of the thirty-three figures chapter 19 publishes reproduce exactly — and the two that do not are named rather than quietly adopted.
The Private Credit InvestorThe two coverage ratios are not measured on the same thing: the erosion is 47.7 per cent, not the 28.7 the headline implies.
The Distressed Debt InvestorWhere the fulcrum security actually breaks, and what an 80-cent recovery is worth once composition and time are priced.
The Real Estate Debt InvestorThe margin against the return on capital, the floor priced, and what prepayment protection buys.
The Fund Finance ProfessionalChapter 8 builds the reported-to-eligible NAV bridge; chapter 9 computes every ratio without it. Two points at every state — and what a subscription line does to the IRR.
Office Real EstateA six per cent yield that returns 3.2 per cent once the re-letting cycle is paid for, and the headline-to-net-effective rent arithmetic.
Real Estate FinanceFour people look at one building and reach four numbers; the lender is whole only above 105,109,489, twelve per cent below today’s value rather than forty.
Retail Real EstateThe occupancy cost of every unit in a centre, the sixteen per cent of the rent roll no tenant can sustain, and the right-size-convert-or-hold decision priced.
Sale and LeasebackA €179.5 million transaction end to end, with rent cover measured on the entity that actually signs the lease.
Self-Storage Real EstateThe cohort engine behind a 590-unit store, and the rate increase on existing customers priced against the move-outs it causes.
Financial Risk ManagementA fund inside every limit that cannot meet a redemption — and the number that decides it is the one with no currency attached.
Business ValuationThree advisers land 26.8 per cent apart on one company, and the whole gap turns out to be 1.96 points of perpetual growth.
Quantitative FinanceThree models agree to a quarter of one per cent about a number that one unobservable input moves a hundred and three times as much.
Asset ManagementFour people quote four returns for one mandate, all correct and 2.7017 points apart — forty-eight times the manager’s net skill.
Alternative InvestmentsA manager reports 13.29 per cent and the endowment earns 6.26 — both correct, and only a third of the advertised advantage arrives.
Credit AnalysisFour defensible EBITDAs on one borrower give leverage from 3.19x to 6.47x — and the add-back argument is fifty times the covenant headroom.
Venture CapitalOne company out of twenty-eight returns 56.7 per cent of the fund, and half the capital goes in after the decision — at half the return.
Machine Learning for FinanceFive people quote the accuracy of one credit model, all five are right, and the number that decides how much money it makes is none of them.
Commercial Real Estate InvestingThe equity earned 8.6647 per cent and the investor received exactly 8.0000 — the preferred return, and nothing above it.
Mergers and AcquisitionsThe board paper says the deal creates 13,436,667 of value. The arithmetic says it destroys 17,530,855. Nobody is lying.
DerivativesThe treasury report says the hedge cost 1,233,698. That is the interest differential, not a cost.
Treasury ManagementFive cash balances for one company, all correct and 145,600,000 apart — and the revolver that is two-thirds of the liquidity leaves at a revenue fall of 8.4127 per cent.
Financial Planning and AnalysisRevenue 3.0190 per cent above budget and operating profit 16.3209 per cent below it, in the same quarter, with every figure correctly stated.
Energy TradingA position report that is 91.7031 per cent hedged and correctly computed, on a book that is short 2,542,000 MWh — and a margin call of 198,400,000 the next morning.
Construction Cost ControlA contract sum of 26,301,102 became a final account of 29,153,363 on the building that was drawn — and 85.8 per cent of what was lost was knowable on the day it was signed.
Trade FinanceSix routes to payment on one 4,200,000 export order cost between 178,040 and 223,268, a spread worth 14.8 per cent of the margin, and a day of buyer credit costs 1,031.76.
Cost AccountingOne factory costed twice on the same 13,440,000 of overhead, and 4,053,091 moves between four product families.
Pricing StrategyA list price of 148.00, a pocket price of 112.51, and the nine deductions in between — with what one point of price is actually worth.
Contract ManagementA bid 5.50 a unit cheaper, signed on paper worth 9.81 a unit more — and 94.68 per cent of it was knowable on the day of signature.
Capital MarketsFour defensible readings of one bond, the cost of an issue under each convention, and the placement discount computed at a constant discount.
Financial RegulationThree ratios pass and the fourth is in breach by 1,956.0 million: the output floor, the liquidity buffer after encumbrance, and the loan split.
Bank ManagementFour defensible readings of one balance sheet, the deposit beta measured two ways, and the liquidity that lasts 3.9 days.
The Real Estate WorkoutFour ways out of one broken loan, discounted to today, and the 58.7 cents at which a payoff beats enforcement.
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