Calculating Passive Cash Flow for Goal-setting and Accounting

[Andrey Y.]

I was just calculating my cash flow related to real estate for 2019. The entirety of my real estate income and expenses flow through the same checking account. Usually about monthly, I transfer the excess cash to a savings account. So I tally all of these transfers for 2019.

For syndications (round numbers), I had 1 exit in 2019 that produced ~$6K of income and ~$20K of growth on my initial capital invested. My question is, should I be counting the $6K for the purposes of my cash flow, goal setting, and seeing how much cash flow I received?

Should I calculate neither, either the $6K in preferred returns or the $20K in capital growth, or both? My thinking is that the $6,000 at the very least should be included. We invest in active investments and passive syndications for the purposes of generating income, so I think it would be way too conservative (and silly) to assume that none of our investments would produce cash flow in the future.

Sure, we can't exactly predict exactly how much passive cash flow the syndicated investments will generate, however we can be fairly certain that they will generate some cash flow. And, since this income was "realized" in 2019, I am including the $6K from this exit as cash flow for 2019.

Would love your thoughts, guys! Interested in the perspective of both LPs and GPs in syndications.