Private Equity Business Information Model
A structured inventory of the business data entities a private equity firm runs on — fund, investor, commitment, capital call, portfolio company, valuation, distribution — in editable Word, with a guide.
About This Business Information Model
A Commitment Is Not a Contribution, and Neither Is an Investment
Private Equity Business Information Model is a structured inventory of the business data entities a private equity firm runs on — fund, investor, commitment, capital call, contribution, investment, portfolio company, valuation, distribution — organized into foundational, transactional and informational layers, in an editable Word document with a guide to business data modeling.
Private equity data lives in spreadsheets because the entities were never written down. An investor commits capital, contributes it in tranches against calls, is allocated a share of investments made from those contributions, and receives distributions calculated through a waterfall. Five distinct quantities, routinely all referred to as "the LP's money".
The investment side has the same layering. A portfolio company can be held by more than one fund, through more than one holding entity, with co-investors alongside. Ownership percentage means something different at each level, and the version that appears in the LP report is a calculation nobody has documented.
This model names those entities and their relationships. It is a business information model rather than a database design — it states what the firm means, which is the prerequisite for ever getting off the spreadsheet.
The Distinctions This Is Meant to Make
Three definitional problems that keep private equity reporting manual.
Commitment, call, contribution, or allocation? These are four separate quantities on four separate clocks. Conflating them is why unfunded commitment, paid-in capital and invested capital rarely reconcile across a firm's own documents.
What is the ownership percentage? At holding entity level, at fund level, at investor look-through level, fully diluted or as-converted — each is a different number for the same investment. Naming them separately is the whole exercise.
Which valuation is the valuation? Cost, latest round, mark, fair value under the accounting policy, and the number in the LP report are related but not identical. A model keeps them from silently substituting for each other.
Why This Matters Now
Reporting expectations have outgrown the spreadsheet, and the spreadsheet was hiding the modeling problem.
Standardized LP Reporting Assumes Defined Quantities
Reporting fees, expenses and performance in a standard template requires the underlying entities to be unambiguous. Where they are not, each period is reassembled by hand.
Fund Administration Systems Impose Their Own Model
Adopting a fund administration platform means accepting a vendor's entities unless the firm has written down its own first.
Continuation Vehicles Break Single-Fund Assumptions
A company held across an original fund and a continuation vehicle needs an ownership model that never assumed one fund per investment.
The core deliverablesWhat Is Included
Two files:
Who This Is Built For
This model pairs with the Private Equity Capability Model, which states what the firm does; the information model states what it does it to. Neither substitutes for the other.
How to Put It to Work
- Separate commitment, call, contribution, allocation and distribution as distinct quantities.
- State which ownership percentage each report means, at which level.
- Model a portfolio company as capable of being held by more than one fund.
- Use it as the firm-owned target when evaluating a fund administration platform.
Where Firms Typically Start
Getting LP reporting to reconcile. Fix the entity definitions before rebuilding the report that exposes them.
Selecting a fund administration platform. Evaluate vendors against your model rather than adopting theirs by default.
Standing up a continuation vehicle. Make sure the ownership model can express a company held across two funds.
Moving off spreadsheets. Write down what the spreadsheet was implicitly modeling before replacing it.
What You Are Actually Buying Is Time
A private equity finance team is small, and the person who would write this is also the person closing the quarter. That, more than the difficulty, is why it never gets written.
- The first draft is the expensive part. Reviewing a proposed set of entities is a different task from inventing one, and a much shorter one.
- Disagreement becomes visible immediately. A written definition of paid-in capital surfaces the difference between the LP report and the accounting record in the first pass.
- It outlives the project that prompted it. The same model serves a platform selection, a reporting rebuild, and an LP diligence response.
Definitional sessions across finance, investor relations and deal, in a team with no spare capacity.
A data architecture engagement producing a comparable model.
Immediate download. Editable Word. Take it into your next working session.
Those first two columns describe what comparable efforts tend to involve, not a quoted benchmark — your figures depend on scope and who does the work.
Built From Real Engagements
We are software entrepreneurs and business consultants who have delivered business architecture and transformation work across financial services firms. This model is the distilled, reusable output of that work rather than a theoretical exercise — which is also why it carries the limits described below.
Read before you buyAn Honest Note on Fit
This is a generic model designed as a starting point. Customization is expected, not a sign that something went wrong.
Specifically:
Terms You Should Know Before Purchasing
Read the description above in full before you buy. Delivery is immediate and the files are yours to keep, which is also why we cannot take returns, issue refunds, or swap a purchase for a different product once it has been downloaded. What you receive is what is listed — no warranty beyond that, and no bundled customization, implementation help, or support. A Enterprise License covers everyone inside one organization; if you intend to reuse the material across several clients, the Consultancy License is the one you need. The full digital product terms govern the sale.
What's Included
At a Glance
- Private equity business data model (Word, editable)
- Foundational, transactional and informational entities
- Bonus: Business Data Modeling Guide (PDF)
Enterprise License
Consultancy License
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