For fund CFOs, controllers & emerging managers
The quarterly close, and the letter that comes out of it.
River drives the close checklist, rolls NAV forward with a source on every line, marks the portfolio against your own written policy, reconciles every LP's capital account individually, sweeps the side letters nobody has re-read since closing, and reviews the package as an auditor would before it goes out. Nothing gets reported until it ties out.
Free account to start · Works alongside your administrator · Private to your account
What it does
Five things a good controller does every quarter
Not the judgment — the marks, the disclosures, what to tell an LP. The part that is checking the same figure in four places and being willing to stop the close when one of them disagrees.
NAV & Performance
A roll forward where every line says where it came from
Beginning to ending, tied three ways, with the management fee recomputed rather than accepted.
River builds the roll forward from the administrator’s trial balance, the capital activity log, and the marks sheet — with a source on every line. It recomputes the management fee from the LPA’s own basis rather than adopting the trial balance figure, applies fee offsets with their support, and checks ending NAV three ways: against the administrator, against the sum of every LP’s ending capital, and against beginning plus every movement. Then it computes gross and net IRR from dated cash flows, and TVPI, DPI, and RVPI on your LPA’s definitions rather than the textbook ones.
- Beginning NAV checked against both the prior workpapers and the statements LPs actually received
- Management fee recomputed from the LPA basis, with any variance to the administrator explained
- Change in unrealized tied to the marks sheet to the dollar, not approximated
- Carried interest run through the actual waterfall and reported as accrued, never as earned
- IRR computed from dated cash flows — quarter-bucketing is how two people get two answers
- Subscription line effect shown separately, because a sophisticated LP will ask
Close Management
Complete and tied out are different columns
And nothing in the reporting phase starts until both are true.
Most close checklists have one status column, which means a task marked done can mean the work happened or that the number agrees. Those are not the same thing, and the gap between them is where a close actually stands.
River dates the checklist off your real LPA deadlines, walks the dependency chain to find the critical path, and tells you the single item blocking the most downstream work — which is almost always the administrator’s trial balance or a portfolio company that has not reported. It checks the roll-forward tie-outs before anything else and stops the close on a break rather than carrying it. Then it produces the chase list already written so it can be sent, grouped by who owes what.
- The checklist dated off your LPA deadlines, not generic days-after-quarter-end defaults
- Critical path identified, with the one item holding up the most downstream work
- Roll-forward tie-outs checked first — a break stops the close instead of carrying forward
- A separate Tied Out column, so complete never gets mistaken for agreed
- The chase list written so it can be sent, grouped by administrator, companies, and internal
- Every estimate flagged in advance, because a labeled estimate is a disclosure and a discovered one is a restatement
Valuations
Every position marked, including the ones that do not move
Against your written policy, with a memo behind each one.
The question an auditor asks first is not why a mark moved. It is to see the impairment trigger review for the positions that did not — and the company held at cost for three quarters with four months of runway is the one they will find.
River runs the impairment trigger review across the whole portfolio before touching a valuation, then classifies each position by situation and applies the section of your policy that governs it. It checks whether a financing actually qualifies as an observable input under your own test rather than assuming it does, and adjusts for the preference stack when the round priced a security you do not hold. Every position gets a memo — including the flat ones — with each input carrying its source, its date, and a sensitivity band.
- Impairment triggers reviewed on every position, with the result recorded even when nothing fired
- A financing tested against your policy’s qualifying criteria, not accepted because it has a price
- Preference stack, participation, and ratchets worked when the priced security is not yours
- A memo for every position, with every input carrying its source and its date
- The mark pattern checked — nothing moving down in a quarter of missed plans is itself a finding
- The three marks most likely to be questioned, named, along with who will question them
Capital Accounts
Every LP checked individually, not just the total
Because offsetting errors net to zero at the fund level and get found by an investor.
A capital account statement is the most-kept document in the LP relationship. Reissuing one costs more trust than the delay would have, which is why the beginning balance gets checked against the statement they actually received rather than against the register.
River ties every LP’s beginning balance to their last statement one at a time, posts the quarter’s activity, and runs the allocations per the LPA — including side letter fee variations, mid-life admissions still carrying equalization, excused investments, and any default. It reconciles to the administrator LP by LP, reports every difference with its amount rather than adopting either version, and produces the statements in whatever format each LP is entitled to. It also drafts capital call notices with the purpose broken out and the notice period checked against the longest one that applies.
- Every beginning balance checked individually against the statement that LP received
- Side letter fee terms, excused investments, and equalization applied rather than averaged over
- Ending capital tied three ways — per LP, in total, and against fund NAV
- Unfunded commitment recalculated including recycling, within the LPA cap
- Per-LP TVPI, DPI, and net IRR, so no LP gets sent the headline when theirs differs
- Capital call notices with capacity checked against every LP’s remaining unfunded
LP Reporting
The letter, and the read it gets before an LP gives it one
Every figure that appears twice, cross-checked. Including against last quarter.
The side letter obligation nobody re-read since closing is the one that gets missed — and an LP entitled to look-through reporting is not satisfied by a portfolio summary that happens to be in the same package.
River drafts the quarterly letter from the reconciled numbers rather than a fresh calculation, includes the write-offs and down rounds in the narrative and not only in the table, and labels every performance figure gross or net. Then it reviews the whole package the way an auditor would: every figure that appears in more than one place cross-checked to the dollar, the roll forward tested against last quarter’s letter, every mark checked for a memo and an approval, and the disclosure language compared against the prior quarter. Separately, it sweeps the actual side letters — not a summary — for the obligations, deadlines, and MFN offers this quarter triggered.
- The letter built from reconciled figures, with a source checklist for every number in it
- Cross-checks to the dollar across the letter, the schedule, the register, and the workpapers
- A restatement caught when a figure changed from last quarter’s letter without a note
- Side letters read in full for enhanced reporting, accelerated deadlines, ERISA, VCOC, and notification rights
- The MFN check run against every new term granted, which is the one discovered late
- The five questions your sharpest LP will ask, and whether the letter answers them
Who it's for
Anyone who owns the quarter
Emerging managers get the most out of it, because at a first or second fund the CFO is usually a GP with a spreadsheet and a deadline.
Emerging manager GPs
You are the CFO. This is the close process a fund four times your size runs, written down, so the quarter does not depend on remembering what you did last time.
Fund CFOs and controllers
The mechanical half — tie-outs, allocations, cross-checks, obligation sweeps — done first, so the week goes to the marks and the letter instead of the reconciliation.
Finance teams at growing funds
One close process that survives a team change. The checklist, the valuation policy, and the workpapers are documents rather than someone’s habits.
Funds between administrators
An independent recomputation of the fee, the NAV, and the capital accounts — which is exactly what you want when you are evaluating or transitioning a provider.
Investor relations
LP answers drafted from figures that were actually reported, using that LP’s own numbers, checked against what they were told last quarter.
First-time audit preparers
The impairment trigger review, the valuation memos, and the sensitivity bands an auditor asks for — produced during the close, not reconstructed in March.
What you get
The whole workspace, set up in one click
A configured workspace with twelve runnable playbooks, four working spreadsheets, seven documents, five automations, and the AI rule that keeps an untied figure out of an LP document.
AI Skills and Playbooks you can run
12- Run the Quarterly Close — dates the checklist, finds the critical path, writes the chase list
- Roll Forward NAV — beginning to ending with a source on every line
- Calculate Fund Performance — gross and net on your LPA’s definitions
- Pre-Send Review — the auditor’s read before the package goes out
- Mark the Portfolio — triggers reviewed on every position, policy applied
- Write a Valuation Memo — every input with its source, date, and sensitivity band
- Reconcile Capital Accounts — every LP checked individually, tied three ways
- Build Capital Account Statements — one per LP, in the format their side letter requires
- Draft a Capital Call Notice — purpose broken out, capacity and notice period checked
- Draft the Quarterly LP Letter — built from reconciled figures, bad news included
- Side Letter & Obligation Sweep — the actual documents, plus the MFN check
- Answer an LP Question — from reported figures, consistent with last time
Documents and automations
16- Fund Profile — terms, deadlines, and the LPA definitions every playbook reads
- Valuation Policy — the document your auditor asks for first
- Close Checklist — 38 tasks with dependencies and a separate Tied Out column
- Portfolio Marks — every position with methodology, level, and evidence date
- LP Register — commitments, allocations, and per-LP performance
- Capital Activity Log — every call and distribution with its split and notice period
- Close Workpapers — the roll forward, tie-outs, and open items
- Valuation Memos — the record of why each company is carried where it is
- Quarterly LP Letter — the working draft, with prior quarters kept below it
- Reporting Obligations — standing, side letter, and MFN obligations with a delivery log
- LP Inquiry Log — every question, answer, and the figures you cited
- Reconcile before you report — the space rule that governs every playbook
- Close Runner — advances the close one step and names the blocker
- Quarter-End Countdown — weekly — what must start now for delivery to hold
- Portfolio Watch — weekly — events that would change a mark
- Mark Logger — describe a financing, get a marks row and a memo stub
Fill in your Fund Profile, upload last quarter's letter and the administrator's schedule, and run the close. The checklist dates itself off your real deadlines and tells you the one thing blocking delivery.
Get the free workspaceHow it stays honest
Built so the audit finds nothing new
Nothing reported until it ties out
The rule is enforced on the agent, not promised in marketing. Complete and Tied Out are separate columns on the close checklist, and no reporting task starts until every valuation and capital task behind it is both. A break stops the close rather than carrying forward.
Differences get reported, never plugged
An unexplained variance is reported as an unexplained variance with its amount — not absorbed into an "other" line and not called immaterial. Materiality is a judgment for you and your auditor, not a reason for the workpaper to stay quiet.
Private by default
Your workspace is private to your account. LP names, commitments, capital accounts, portfolio marks, side letters, and your LPA are not used to train models and are not shared with anyone.
Not an administrator, auditor, or counsel
River is a close-management and drafting workspace. Your administrator’s records govern, your auditor’s review controls, and every mark is the general partner’s determination under your own written policy. LPA and side letter readings are drafts for fund counsel, never legal advice.
Common questions
Does this replace my fund administrator?
No, and it is not designed to. The administrator maintains the books and their records govern. What this does is give you an independent recomputation and a real review layer: the management fee calculated from your LPA basis rather than accepted from the trial balance, capital accounts checked LP by LP against the statements those LPs actually received, and every figure cross-checked before the package goes out. Funds that use it tend to catch differences during the close rather than during the audit.
Is it doing my accounting?
No. Nothing it produces is accounting, audit, or tax advice, and nothing is final until your administrator and auditor have reviewed it. It manages the close, recomputes what can be recomputed, ties figures to their sources, and drafts documents. The judgment — the marks, the disclosures, what to tell an LP — stays with you.
How does it handle valuations?
It applies the valuation policy you write, section by section, rather than a generic methodology. It runs the impairment trigger review across every position before touching a valuation, tests whether a financing actually qualifies as an observable input under your own criteria, adjusts for the preference stack when the priced security is not the one you hold, and writes a memo for every position including the flat ones. Marks are your determination under your policy — the workspace produces the record that supports them.
What about side letters and MFN?
The sweep reads the actual documents, not a summary, and builds one row per obligation rather than per LP. It looks specifically for enhanced reporting, accelerated deadlines, format requirements, ERISA and VCOC provisions, notification and consent rights, co-investment offer mechanics, and fee variations — then checks each triggered obligation against what is actually in this quarter’s package. Every new term granted gets run against the MFN thresholds. Anything ambiguous is flagged for fund counsel with the exact language rather than interpreted.
Can it write the LP letter?
It drafts it from the reconciled numbers, and it will not draft from preliminary ones. It labels every performance figure gross or net, includes write-offs and down rounds in the narrative rather than only in the table, and gives you a checklist of every figure with its source. Then the pre-send review reads the whole package the way an auditor would. Counsel and compliance still review it before it is sent, and the output says so.
What size fund is this for?
It is built for funds where one to three people run the close — roughly $25M to $500M, venture or private equity, with an outsourced administrator. Smaller funds get the most out of the checklist and the valuation policy structure. Larger funds tend to use it for the review layer: the cross-checks, the obligation sweep, and the independent fee recomputation. If your administrator produces everything and the letter is your only quarterly deliverable, the lighter Quarterly LP Letter workspace is the better fit — it does the letter and nothing else.
Does it work with my administrator’s reports?
Yes. Upload the trial balance, the capital account schedule, the schedule of investments, or whatever your administrator sends, and the playbooks read them directly. There is no integration to configure — the workspace reads documents the way you do, and reconciles against them rather than replacing them.
What does it do between quarters?
Portfolio Watch scans your companies weekly for financings, shutdowns, departures, and comp moves — filtered against your own impairment triggers rather than a general notion of news — and flags positions carrying marks on stale evidence. Quarter-End Countdown tells you what has to start this week for the LP delivery date to hold. Mark Logger turns a financing you describe in one sentence into a marks row and a memo stub, so the quarter’s events are in the record before the close starts.
Do I need to pay or sign up to try it?
You need a free account. The link on this page takes you to sign up, then provisions a fully configured workspace you can keep. No paid plan required to start.
Close the quarter with the tie-outs done
Upload last quarter's letter and the administrator's schedule, and get the close plan, the roll forward, and the list of everything that does not yet agree.
Get the free workspaceFree account required. Your workspace is ready as soon as you sign up.