Capital calling is a fundamental process in fund management where you request committed capital from investors. Depending on your fund's strategy, you may require 100% of the capital upfront or call it in stages over the lifecycle of the fund.
This guide explains how to set up your payment structure and manage both fully funded and staged capital calls.
Setting the payment structure
When you create a new Capital Raise, you must select a Payment Structure in the configuration settings. This setting determines how the platform handles payment notices and capital calls for that specific raise. Note: Existing capital raises are set to "fully funded".
Caruso supports two structures:
Fully funded: Select this option if investors are expected to fund 100% of their commitment immediately upon confirmation of the investment application.
Workflow: When you confirm an an investment application request, the Payment toggle is enabled by default.
Outcome: The system automatically creates a capital call with a single subscription and emails a "Fully funded" payment notice to the investor.
Capital call: Select this option if the fund will call capital over time through separate, staged capital calls (common in Private Credit, VC, or PE funds).
Workflow: When you confirm an investment application, the Notification (Order approved) toggle is enabled by default, but the Payment toggle is disabled.
Outcome: The investor only receives an order confirmation without a payment request. Payment will be requested later via the Capital Calls tab.
1.Managing a fully funded capital raise
If you selected the fully funded structure, you can continue to call capital when confirming an investment application.
Confirm the investment application
The confirm modal is set to "Send payment notice". You can choose to also send an additional confirmation email.
2. The investor will receive the following Application Payment Notice email and notice.
3. The investor can view the notice in the investor portal.
Note: On a fully funded raise, an approved investment application's Capital Called To Date reflects its full committed amount, whether or not a payment notice was sent when the application was confirmed. This means historical commitments backfilled without a payment notice show consistently against Capital Contributed To Date, rather than sitting at zero.
2.Managing a capital raise with bulk capital calls
If you selected the Capital call structure, you can call capital from multiple investors simultaneously when required.
1. Confirm investment applications
Continue to manage the book build and confirm investment applications when they are ready.
In this payment structure, the confirm modal is set to "Send confirmation email" and the payment notice is disabled as you will likely call capital in bulk later on.
The investor will receive the Order Approved email.
2. Initiate the call
Navigate to the Capital Calls tab and click Create Capital Call.
Enter a Capital Call Name (for internal reference). This appears as the Batch Name in the capital calls table.
Select the Payment Deadline (optional) and add any Commentary you wish to appear on the notice.
3. Select a calculation method You must choose how the system calculates the amount to call from each investor.
Call Up To %: Calls a specific percentage of each investor's committed capital. If an investor has already contributed more than the entered percentage, no capital is called for them.
Catch-up Call: Automatically equalises all investors to match the investor with the highest percentage called. This is useful when new investors join a fund later than others.
Reviewing the draft and equalisation
Once created, the capital call enters a Draft status. Here, you can review key metrics such as Capital Called to Date and Capital Remaining to be Called. Managing Equalisation In the draft table, you can edit the Equalisation Amount for specific investors.
This feature allows you to adjust the amount payable to ensure fairness among investors (for example, compensating for returns accrued before a late investor joined).
Entering an amount here updates the Amount Payable but does not affect the investor's Capital Committed or Capital Contributed calculations.
Confirming and publishing
Before sending, you can download a Capital Calling Report audit file to verify all calculations. If you have approved new investment applications since creating the draft, you must click Recalculate to incorporate the new data.
When you are ready:
Click Confirm to lock the capital call.
Ensure Notify by Email and Publish Statement to Portal are selected according to your preferences.
Once confirmed, capital calls cannot be modified.
The investor will receive the Capital Call Notice
The investor can access the Capital Call Notice on the investor portal
Note: Confirming a capital call batch updates Capital Called To Date on the capital raise's holdings table. Adding a payment updates Capital Contributed To Date; payments do not change the called figure.
If you have any questions or need help at any stage, please contact our Caruso Support team either by email or live chat.