VC Portfolio Monitoring Template
Three documents and three sheets that convert every founder's reported runway into a cash-out date computed from that company's own as-of date.
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Reporting Standard
[Fund] — What We Ask Portfolio Companies To Report
Sent to every company once, then referenced rather than restated. Each metric carries its definition and not just its name, because the name is where the divergence lives.
Cadence and timing
Who reports monthly, who reports quarterly, the working day it is due, and the as-of date it has to be measured on.
Cash, burn and runway
| Field | The definition we use | Commonly reported instead |
|---|---|---|
| Cash | — | — |
| Monthly net burn | — | — |
| Runway | — | — |
Revenue, retention and margin
| Field | The definition we use | Commonly reported instead |
|---|---|---|
| Annual recurring revenue | — | — |
| Net dollar retention | — | — |
| Gross margin | — | — |
| Headcount | — | — |
What to do when you cannot meet a definition
Report your own figure, say which definition produced it, and leave the restatement to us. A company guessing at our definition is worse than a company telling us it used its own.
The third column is what makes a portfolio addable. Runway reported on each company’s own basis cannot be compared across nine of them, and summing it produces a number that belongs to nobody.
Draycott Mobility reports 18.0 months of runway, the longest of nine portfolio companies. Marrowfield Labs reports 13.2 months. Put both on one definition of burn and count from each company's own as-of date, and Marrowfield runs out of cash on 8 November 2026 and Draycott on 24 December 2026. They are the first two in the portfolio to run out. Both cleared a twelve-month threshold, and the one that looked safest ranked ninth of nine on reported runway and second on the date.
Every portfolio monitoring template on page one has a Runway Months column you paste a number into. That single column carries three distortions at once: whether burn includes capitalised development, whether cash includes an undrawn facility, and how old the figures are. Draycott's 18.0 months contained all three. Restating nine companies onto one definition moved portfolio monthly burn from 5,110,000 dollars to 6,130,000, an understatement of twenty per cent, and no company had done anything improper. The same gap opens at the first meeting, which a pitch deck analysis is built to catch.
Two primary documents already measure liquidity the way this pack does. Item 303(b)(1) of Regulation S-K sets the short-term horizon at twelve months from the most recent fiscal period end rather than from today, and asks for unused sources of liquid assets separately from cash. PCAOB AS 2415.02 gives an auditor a going-concern window ending one year past the date of the statements being audited. Both anchor to a period end. A reported runway figure anchors to nothing.
What is in the pack
Metric Register
One row per company per metric carrying the reported value, the definition it was computed on, the restated value, the definition it was moved to, and the adjustment in words
Runway and Burn Tracker
A cash-out date per company computed from that company's own as-of date, with the portfolio ranked twice, on reported runway and on the date, and the movement between them
Reporting Compliance Log
Days silent, periods missed and the age of the figures beside each company's cash-out date, with compliant and stale as a status of its own
Reporting Standard
The definition of every metric you ask companies for, written to close the specific ambiguities where nine finance leads diverge rather than to list metric names
Escalation Criteria
Three tiers of trigger written against dates and counts, so a company lands on the watchlist by rule rather than when somebody happens to read its update
Portfolio Review Note
What goes to the partnership: what the restatement changed, who is inside the going-concern window, the ranking before and after, and the calls to make
Missing update sweep
Runs the cadence against what has actually arrived and flags a second consecutive miss on the day it happens rather than at the next quarterly review
How it works
- 1
Send the reporting
Founder updates, board decks, reporting packages, bank statements where you get them, and any facility agreements. Whatever format they arrive in.
- 2
Restate onto one definition
Each figure gets the definition that produces it, then the standard definition, then both stay on the row. Capitalised cost back into burn, undrawn facilities out of cash, one-off inflows out of both.
- 3
Convert runway to a date
Cash divided by restated burn, added to that company's own as-of date. Then rank the portfolio on the reported figure and on the date, and read the difference.
- 4
Log who has gone quiet
Days silent and figures age beside every cash-out date. A company that has stopped reporting and has an early date is the first call, before any number is read.
Frequently asked questions
Why a cash-out date instead of runway in months?
Because months do not say from when. Twelve months of runway as of 31 December is eight months of runway by April, and the reported number never changes to say so. A date can be sorted across a portfolio whose companies closed their books on four different dates.
Is an undrawn credit facility really not cash?
It is a source of liquidity and it belongs in the pack, in its own column with the drawdown conditions and covenants. It is not a bank balance. Two of the nine companies here fold one into cash, and both of them report a runway figure that cannot be compared with the other seven.
Our companies will not adopt a reporting standard. Does this still work?
Yes, and that is the normal case. The restatement happens on your side, from whatever arrives. Sending the standard makes next quarter cheaper, but nothing here depends on a founder changing anything. The register records the definition each company used and moves the figure itself.
What if all we get is a monthly founder email?
Then more rows are marked not restatable, and the register says so rather than guessing. Burn against a plan cannot be turned into actuals without the accounts. Reading a single update against the prior months for what quietly stopped being reported is the job that still works with only email. The quarterly version, read against the board minutes, is board meeting prep.
How is this different from a portfolio dashboard?
A dashboard has a Runway Months column you paste a number into, which is where the three distortions enter. This restates first and stores a date. The dashboards are better at charts. Neither is a substitute for the investment committee memo written when the position was taken.
Does it mark positions or produce fund performance?
No, and the boundary is deliberate. It normalises operating reporting and names who to call. Marks, capital accounts and performance figures are a different discipline with its own audit trail, which is what the quarterly LP reporting pack is for, and reserve calls get priced in follow-on and reserve analysis. Whether a specific piece of help worked is tracked in the portfolio company support pack.
What format are the downloaded files?
Word documents for the reporting standard, escalation criteria and review note, and CSV for the three sheets. The documents open in Word, Pages and Google Docs. The sheets open in Excel, Numbers and Sheets with the columns intact, and no conversion step in between.
Find out which of your companies runs out of cash first
Send the last few months of founder updates. The first pass restates burn onto one definition and gives you a cash-out date per company.
Normalise my portfolio