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Fundclair Learn · A course in eight modules

Fund Administration 101

How an Indian AIF is run day to day, from the regulations that govern it rather than from the way it is usually described.

Module 1 published 3 of 27 articles Source: SEBI AIF Regulations, 2012, as amended to 14 July 2026
What this is

A course for the people who run funds and the people who invest in them. Each article answers one question, in order, and cites the regulation it rests on rather than asking to be taken on trust.

It is written for an administrator’s working day. Where market practice and the regulations differ, both are given, and which is which is said plainly.

Three sections

Module 1 · Basics #

What an AIF is, the form it takes, and who holds which authority inside it. Three articles, about seventeen minutes end to end.

1 What an AIF is, and what the three categories change 5 min The SEBI definition against the way the market uses the word, and what each category changes in day-to-day administration. 2 Why an AIF is almost always a trust, and what that changes 6 min The trust form is usually explained by its tax treatment. Section 115UB does not support that explanation. The reason is operational. 3 Who does what in an AIF, and who signs 6 min The five parties inside a trust-form AIF, the external parties around it, and who signs which document.

What comes next #

Seven further modules, published a module at a time rather than an article at a time, so each one reads as a whole.

2 The fund’s own books in preparation What an AIF records, in what order, and why the sequence is the part that goes wrong.
3 The investor’s money in preparation Commitment, drawdown, capital account and distribution, followed end to end for one investor.
4 Reporting to investors in preparation What goes out, on what cycle, and what an investor is entitled to ask for.
5 Filings and the regulator in preparation What an AIF files, to whom and when, and how to read a SEBI circular.
6 Fees, expenses and carry in preparation Management fee, trusteeship fee, fund expenses and the waterfall, with the arithmetic shown.
7 Valuation and the auditor in preparation The independent valuer, the annual audit, and what each needs from the fund.
8 Winding up in preparation Tenure, extension, liquidation and the records that outlive the fund by five years.

How this series is written #

Every regulatory statement is read out of the consolidated SEBI (Alternative Investment Funds) Regulations, 2012, as amended to 14 July 2026, and is cited to the regulation that carries it. Where a point rests on a circular rather than on the regulations, the article says so, because a circular can change a format without the regulation changing.

Market practice is marked as market practice. The division of work between a fund’s service providers, the fee streams and the signing conventions are not set by the AIF Regulations, and an article that presented them as though they were would be wrong in a way that is hard to catch.

Dates are given as they stand on the day an article is published, and each article carries the date it was last checked. This is educational material, not legal or tax advice.

Checked against the source. Regulatory statements in this series come from the SEBI (Alternative Investment Funds) Regulations, 2012 as amended to 14 July 2026, read in the consolidated text. Last verified 18 October 2026.

Fundclair is the investor-facing layer the work in this series ends up in: onboarding, capital accounts, statements and the record of who approved what. See how it works

Fundclair Learn · Fund Administration 101. Citations are to the SEBI (Alternative Investment Funds) Regulations, 2012 as amended to 14 July 2026. Educational material, not legal or tax advice.