Where Did My Money Actually Go? Real P&L Tracking for Private Markets

The NAV Illusion

You open your quarterly report. Fund ABC shows NAV of $12 million. You invested$ 10 million. Simple math: you're up $2 million, right?

Wrong.

That $10 million didn't all go in at once. You made capital calls over 3 years. You received distributions along the way. You reinvested some. You moved cash between accounts. The fund marked some positions up, then down, then up again.

Your actual P&L? It's buried somewhere in the gap between what you put in, what you took out, and what's left. And that gap is where most investors get lost.

What Traditional Reporting Gets Wrong

Most portfolio tools—and most family office Excel models—make the same mistake: they treat NAV as the answer.

Problem 1: Ignoring the Timing of Cash

Consider this timeline:

Year 1: Capital call of $3M
Year 2: Capital call of $4M, distribution of$ 1M
Year 3: Capital call of $3M
Today: NAV is $12M

Simple calculation: $10M in,$ 1M out, $12M NAV =$ 3M profit?

Actually: That $3M you invested in Year 1 has been working for 3 years. The$ 3M from Year 3 has only been deployed for months. Time-weighting matters enormously.

Problem 2: External Cashflows Disappear

Where does your capital call money come from? A distribution from Fund XYZ? A sale of public securities? Cash sitting in your operating account?

Traditional reporting tracks what happened inside each fund. It doesn't track your actual cash movements between funds and accounts.

So when you ask "what's my real return on this $50M I allocated to private markets?"—you can't answer it. The cashflows linking your funds to each other and to your liquidity sources are invisible.

Problem 3: Multi-Currency Confusion

You committed €10M to a European fund. Over 3 years:

EUR/USD moved from 1.10 to 1.05 to 1.15
The fund called capital at different rates
Distributions came back at different rates
Your NAV is now €13M

What's your actual USD return? It depends on when each cashflow happened, not just the current exchange rate.

Most tools convert everything at today's rate—which completely misses the FX impact on your realized returns.

The Real Question: What Did I Actually Make?

Let's reframe what you're really trying to understand:

Capital deployed: How much of my money is actually working in private markets right now?
Capital returned: How much has come back to me (distributions, exits)?
Unrealized value: What's the current NAV of what's still invested?
True P&L: After accounting for timing and external flows, what's my actual profit or loss?

This is harder than it sounds. It requires tracking:

Every capital call and when it was funded
Every distribution and where it went
External inflows to your private markets allocation
External outflows (tax payments, liquidity needs)
FX rates at each transaction

How Nagare Approaches P&L Tracking

We rebuilt portfolio tracking from scratch to answer these questions properly.

Time-Aware Capital Tracking

Every cashflow is timestamped and tracked through the system:

Capital calls reduce your available capital at the call date
Distributions increase your available capital at the distribution date
External inflows (from public holdings, cash accounts) are tracked separately
External outflows (taxes, withdrawals) are accounted for

This lets us calculate true time-weighted and money-weighted returns—not just the simplified "NAV minus cost" that most tools show.

Period-by-Period Accuracy

Instead of one number ("you're up $2M"), we show you:

Q1 2024: +$400K (strong distributions from Fund ABC)
Q2 2024: -$200K (mark-downs in VC portfolio)
Q3 2024: +$150K (exit in Fund DEF)
Q4 2024: +$350K (year-end marks)

You can trace exactly when and where value was created or destroyed.

The Net Position View

We renamed "Net Gain" to "P&L" across the platform because that's what it actually represents: your profit or loss after accounting for all capital movements.

The formula is simple in concept:

P&L = Current NAV + Total Distributions - Total Capital Invested + External Flows

But executing it correctly requires tracking hundreds of transactions with proper timestamps, currencies, and account mappings.

A Practical Example

Before Nagare:

"My private markets allocation is worth $50M. I've invested about$ 40M over the years. So I'm up roughly $10M?"

After Nagare:

"Across my 25 private funds:

Total capital called: $38.2M

Total distributions received: $12.8M

Current NAV: $42.1M

External inflows to PM allocation: $5.0M

External outflows (taxes, etc.): $2.3M

Net P&L: $9.4M (24.6% on deployed capital)

Breakdown by vintage:

2019 vintage: +$4.2M (48% return, fully realized)

2020 vintage: +$3.1M (31% return, mostly unrealized)

2021 vintage: +$1.8M (15% return, early stage)

2022 vintage: +$0.3M (4% return, too early to judge)"

The second answer tells you something actionable. The first is a guess.

Why This Matters for Decisions

Accurate P&L tracking changes how you make decisions:

Commitment Decisions

"Can I commit $10M to this new fund?"

Without proper tracking: "I think so? Let me rebuild my Excel model."

With proper tracking: "My current deployed capital is $38M. Expected distributions over next 12 months:$ 8M. Expected calls: $12M. Net cashflow impact of new commitment: -$ 14M by Q4 2025. That exceeds my liquidity buffer—I should either reduce the commitment or plan a partial sale of public holdings."

Manager Evaluation

"How has Manager XYZ actually performed?"

Without proper tracking: "TVPI is 1.6x, that seems okay?"

With proper tracking: "Manager XYZ has 1.6x TVPI but most of it is unrealized and came from one lucky exit. IRR is only 8% because of slow deployment. Comparable managers with same vintage delivered 14% IRR. This is underperformance, not success."

Tax Planning

"What's my tax exposure from distributions?"

Without proper tracking: "I'll have my accountant figure it out in April."

With proper tracking: "I've received $12.8M in distributions this year, of which$ 8.2M is return of capital (non-taxable) and $4.6M is gains. Expected tax liability:$ 1.1M. I should make estimated payments in Q4."

Getting Started

If you're currently tracking P&L in Excel or not tracking it at all, here's what changes when you move to proper tracking:

Import historical transactions: Capital calls, distributions, and NAV updates going back to inception
Map your accounts: Which funds connect to which liquidity sources
Set up external flows: Track inflows and outflows to your private markets allocation
Configure currency: Base currency and historical FX rates for multi-currency portfolios

The result: A single source of truth for "where did my money actually go?"

The Bottom Line

Fund NAV is not your P&L. It never was.

Real P&L tracking requires understanding:

When money moved, not just how much
Where it came from and where it went
How currency impacts actual returns
The difference between realized and unrealized gains

Most investors are making commitment decisions, manager evaluations, and liquidity plans based on incomplete information. They're using NAV as a proxy for returns—and it's leading them astray.

Nagare tracks real P&L because that's what actually matters for decisions. Not the number your GP reports. The number that represents what you actually made.

Ready to see your real P&L? Request a demo and we'll show you how Nagare tracks returns across your entire private markets portfolio.