Tracking an EIS portfolio in a spreadsheet: the columns you need, and where spreadsheets break
Tero team
The team behind Tero
2 min read
Updated 27 August 2026
SEIS & EISPortfolio strategy
Key takeaways
- Fourteen columns cover it. Company, company number, scheme, dates, amounts, certificate status and UIR, claim status, and the three computed dates: claim-by, three-year, and two-year IHT.
- The spreadsheet's enemy is events, not structure. Certificates arriving, companies dissolving, rounds repricing: the sheet only knows what you remember to type.
- Dissolutions are the expensive gap. A struck-off company appears in the register and nowhere else. A spreadsheet cannot notice; the loss-relief deadline runs anyway.
Tero for angel investors
Let AI do the checking, then keep watching
- Run due diligence on any UK company. Nine AI agents read the registers, the courts and the founders' histories. Every figure cited.
- Add a holding to monitoring. Every filing on it, the week it lands, with what it means for your stake.
- Upload your EIS and SEIS spreadsheet. Export it as CSV. Tero maps the columns, starts every clock and chases the certificates.
Companies HouseFCAGazetteCourtsSanctions
Check a company free First report free, then plans from £10 a month. Descriptive verdicts, never a recommendation.
Most UK angels track their EIS positions in a spreadsheet, and a good one gets you a long way. Here is the structure that actually works, followed by an honest account of where it stops working.
The columns
Per holding:
Company name and company number (the number is what lets you check the register; names change).
Scheme (EIS or SEIS) and advance assurance seen? (yes/no).
Investment date and share issue date (they differ; the issue date starts the clocks).
Tax year the investment belongs to (mind the 6 April boundary) and whether you carried back.
Amount subscribed, shares, and price per share.
Certificate status: received / chased on [date] / outstanding, plus the UIR once you have it.
Claim status: claimed in [tax year] / not yet claimed.
Three computed dates: claim-by (five years after the 31 January following the tax year), three-year date (clawback ends, CGT freedom begins), and two-year date (inheritance-tax relief, within the post-April-2026 allowance regime; see the 2026 rules).
Add a conditional-format rule that turns a row red when a certificate is outstanding past six months or a claim-by date is inside eighteen months, and you have a genuinely serviceable system.
Add a conditional-format rule that turns a row red when a certificate is outstanding past six months or a claim-by date is inside eighteen months, and you have a genuinely serviceable system.
Where it breaks
Three failure modes, and every experienced angel has met at least one:
Events happen off-sheet. The spreadsheet records what you knew when you last opened it. Certificates arrive (or don't), companies raise again at new prices, founders stop replying, and none of it updates a cell by itself.
Dissolutions are silent. A company that fails does not email its shareholders. The strike-off notice is published at Companies House and nowhere else, and the loss-relief claim has a deadline that runs whether or not you noticed. This is the single most expensive gap in every angel's spreadsheet.
Nobody maintains it. The sheet is perfect for the first five positions, wobbly at ten, and abandoned by fifteen, precisely as the sums at stake get bigger.
The automated version
The fix is connecting the record to the register so events update it. A better spreadsheet cannot do that. Tero's tax relief tracker holds the same columns (certificates, UIRs, clocks, claim windows) and fills them from Companies House filings: share issues price your holdings, strike-offs raise loss-relief flags, and the clocks compute themselves. For the one-off arithmetic (relief, true downside, CGT) the calculator stands alone. Information, not tax advice.
From the register
See it on a real filing history
Three UK companies whose priced rounds Tero has read from Companies House, with implied valuation at each allotment.
Questions this guide answers
- What columns does an EIS tracking spreadsheet need?
- Fourteen: company, company number, scheme, advance assurance, investment date, share issue date, amount, shares, certificate status, UIR, claim status, and the computed claim-by, three-year and two-year inheritance-tax dates.
- Why do EIS spreadsheets fail?
- Events happen off-sheet. Certificates arrive or do not, companies raise again at new prices, companies dissolve, and the sheet only knows what you remembered to type.
- How would I know if a portfolio company was struck off?
- Only from the Companies House record. Nobody writes to shareholders, and the loss-relief deadline runs regardless.
- Is there an alternative to the spreadsheet?
- Connecting the record to the register so that filings update it. Tero's relief tracker holds the same columns and fills them from Companies House: allotments, dissolutions and the clocks.
Tero runs these checks automatically.
Twelve sources, one gateway. Diligence in minutes, monitoring forever.