Perspectives · Investor relations
The new ILPA templates make investor reporting an operating-system problem
ILPA's updated Reporting Template is intended to replace the 2016 version for funds still in their investment period during Q1 2026 and for funds starting operations on or after 1 January 2026. Its Performance Template also starts with 2026-vintage funds. The visible output is a workbook; the real project is the controlled data and definitions behind it. This perspective is general information, not accounting, legal or investment advice.
The changeover
2026 is the implementation year
The updated ILPA Reporting Template is not a statute. It is an industry standard designed to make reporting on fees, expenses and carried interest more consistent. That distinction matters: a GP may not face a regulator on day one, but it can still face a clear expectation from LPs, consultants and data teams that the new fields will be delivered accurately and repeatedly.
The change is also broader than one file. ILPA's Performance Template standardises return-calculation methodologies and the cash flows supporting them for funds commencing operations from 1 January 2026. Together, the templates move the conversation from "can we populate a spreadsheet?" to "can we reproduce the same answer from governed source records each quarter?"
The spreadsheet illusion
Quarterly reporting starts long before quarter-end
A workbook can make fragmented data look organised for a few hours. It cannot remove the fragmentation. Fees may sit in a general ledger, cash movements with the administrator, transaction details in a closing bible, ownership changes in a company-secretarial file and explanations in an IR team's email archive.
When those sources use different names, dates or categories for the same event, quarter-end becomes an exercise in interpretation. The risk is not only a broken formula. It is that two teams answer the same investor question differently because they reconstructed the event from different evidence.
The vocabulary
One economic event needs one controlled definition
The most useful implementation work is a mapping exercise. Define the event types, source systems, owners and evidence that support each reported number. Decide which identifier follows a fund, investment, legal entity and cash movement across systems. Record where a judgement has been made rather than hiding it inside a cell comment.
This does not mean forcing the legal register, fund accounting system and investor portal to become one product. It means agreeing the joins between them. The acquisition funding approved by the investment committee, drawn from investors, moved through holding companies and recorded by the administrator should remain recognisable as the same chain of events.
The outcome
IR should explain the result, not reconstruct it
A controlled source model changes the character of investor reporting. IR can spend less time chasing the origin of a number and more time explaining performance, variance and portfolio developments. Finance can rerun checks without relying on the colleague who built last quarter's workbook. Legal and operations can answer structural questions without circulating a new organisation chart every time.
It also improves change control. If a definition is refined, the team can identify which reports, funds and historic periods are affected. That is a stronger control than silently editing a spreadsheet and hoping the same adjustment is remembered three months later.
In Alethia
The structure record sits upstream of the template
Alethia is not a fund-accounting engine and does not calculate ILPA performance metrics. Its role is upstream: the governed record of entities, ownership, instruments, transaction funds flows, documents and obligations that explains how a structure was built and changed.
Foundation keeps the deal funds flow as data rather than a drawing, while the entity register carries the legal structure forward after closing. That gives IR, finance and advisers a consistent answer to recurring questions: which entity received the money, under which instrument, on what date, with which approval and supporting document. The ILPA workbook still belongs in the reporting stack; it starts from a cleaner operating record.
Questions
The 2026 ILPA changeover, answered
Are the ILPA templates legally mandatory?
No. They are industry standards rather than legislation. Adoption may nevertheless become a commercial expectation through LP requests, side letters, internal policies or administrator practices.
Which funds are in ILPA's 2026 changeover?
ILPA says the updated Reporting Template is intended for funds still in their investment period during Q1 2026 and funds commencing operations on or after 1 January 2026. Funds no longer in their investment period as of Q1 2026 may continue with the 2016 template. The Performance Template is intended on a go-forward basis for funds commencing operations on or after 1 January 2026.
Does a governed entity register replace fund accounting?
No. Fund accounting remains the system of record for accounting and performance calculations. The entity and transaction record supplies structural context, identifiers, approvals and evidence that make the reporting output easier to reconcile and explain.
Give investor reporting a cleaner source record
Keep the deal, the funds flow and the entities it creates connected, so the reporting team can trace an answer instead of rebuilding it.