Why your mutual fund value differs between the dashboard and the donut on Console

If you hold mutual funds through Zerodha and you have ever looked closely at Console , you may have noticed something odd: the mutual fund value on the account value dashboard does not quite match the value shown in the holdings donut and its profit and loss. It is not a bug, and it is not a rounding quirk. The two figures are simply calculated as of different dates. The dashboard uses a T-2 value that arrives from the depository, while the donut and its P&L use a T-1 value that is one working day more recent. This guide explains exactly why the gap exists, walks through what “T-2” and “T-1” mean in practice, and tells you which number to rely on for which purpose.

Conflict-of-interest disclosure. This guide is published by the WebNotes Editorial Team for informational purposes and is written independently. WebNotes operates a Zerodha account-opening referral programme, disclosed on the pages that carry the referral link; this guide does not carry it and earns no referral commission from anything described here.

The two places your mutual fund value appears

On Console, your mutual fund holdings surface in more than one view, and the two that most often disagree are these.

The account value dashboard shows a single headline worth for your whole portfolio, blending equity holdings, funds and your mutual fund value. It is the number that feeds the account value line and the performance curve . The mutual fund slice of this total is the figure that Zerodha receives from the depository.

The holdings donut, along with the profit and loss shown beside it, is the more investment-specific view of your mutual funds. It is what you look at to see how each fund is doing and what the day’s movement has been.

Both are correct, and both are drawing on your genuine holdings. The difference is entirely about the date of the net asset value each one uses.

What T-2 and T-1 actually mean here

Mutual fund units do not trade on an exchange tick by tick. Each scheme declares a single net asset value at the end of a business day, and that NAV is what your units are worth for that day. Getting that value onto your Console screen, though, involves a short pipeline, and the two views tap that pipeline at different points.

• Dashboard account value uses T-2. Zerodha receives your mutual fund holdings value from the depository, and that feed carries a two-working-day lag. So the mutual fund figure inside your account value is a T-2 value: it reflects the NAV as of two working days ago.
• Donut and P&L use T-1. The holdings donut and its profit and loss are built from a T-1 value, reflecting the NAV as of one working day ago.

Because one view is a day behind the other in NAV terms, the two mutual fund values you see on the same screen, on the same afternoon, will usually differ by roughly one NAV day’s movement. That is the entire mystery, and once you know it, the “mismatch” stops being alarming.

A concrete illustration

Picture yourself opening Console on the 18th of a month, with the days before it being ordinary working days.

• The donut, being a T-1 figure, reflects the NAV declared for the 17th.
• The dashboard account value, being a T-2 figure that comes from the depository, reflects the NAV declared for the 16th.

So on the 18th you are looking at two mutual fund values that are each accurate, but one is as of the 17th and the other is as of the 16th. If the fund’s NAV rose between the 16th and the 17th, the donut will read a little higher than the dashboard; if it fell, the donut will read a little lower. The size of the gap is nothing more than one day’s NAV movement, scaled to how many units you hold.

Note that “working day” matters. Because the lag is counted in working days, weekends and market holidays stretch the calendar gap between the two figures without changing the underlying rule that the dashboard is T-2 and the donut is T-1.

Why the depository feed is T-2

The reason the dashboard sits a step behind is structural rather than a Zerodha choice made in isolation. Your mutual fund units, whether bought through Coin or held in demat form, are recorded at the depository. When Zerodha builds the account value, it takes the mutual fund holdings value as reported by the depository, and that consolidated depository valuation is published with a two-working-day lag. Using it keeps the dashboard consistent with the official depository record, which is exactly what you want when you are reconciling against a statement. The trade-off is that this figure is, by its nature, a couple of working days old.

The donut can afford to be fresher because it is oriented toward the investment view rather than the depository-reconciliation view, and it works off the more recent T-1 value. Same holdings, different freshness, different job.

Which number to trust, and for what

Neither figure is more “true” than the other. The right one depends on the question you are asking.

For the freshest worth and the day’s P&L, read the donut. Because it is T-1, it is one NAV day closer to today than the dashboard. If you want the most current sense of what your funds are worth and how they moved, the donut is your figure. It is also the view aligned with the day-level profit and loss you would track alongside your equity holdings .

For reconciliation against the depository, read the dashboard. When you are matching Console against a consolidated account statement or the depository record, the dashboard’s T-2 value is the one that will line up, because it is drawn from that same depository feed. Trying to reconcile the donut’s T-1 figure against a depository statement will leave you chasing a one-day difference that was never an error.

For long-term return, neither timing matters much. When you look at your portfolio XIRR and CAGR or the performance curve , a one-day NAV lag is noise. Return measures computed over months and years are effectively unaffected by whether the endpoint is T-1 or T-2.

Common questions this raises

“Has my order not been processed?” The dashboard-versus-donut gap is about NAV date, not about whether a purchase or redemption went through. If you are actually missing a transaction, that is a different matter, and the Coin order and statement views, or a downloaded mutual fund statement , will show the true state of your order.

“Will the two figures ever agree?” Yes. As each new working day passes, both figures roll forward. On any settled, non-volatile stretch the gap shrinks to almost nothing, and the two agree closely once they are pointing at the same NAV date.

“Is this the same as equity holdings differing between screens?” It is a cousin, not a twin. Equity holdings mark to the latest traded price, so their differences come from price feeds and screen timing, covered in why holdings value differs between Console and Kite . Mutual funds differ because NAVs are declared once a day and reach Console through the depository with a lag. The symptom looks similar; the cause is not.

How to sanity-check your own numbers

If you want to confirm the T-2 versus T-1 story for your own account, do this.

• Note the mutual fund value on the dashboard and the value in the donut on the same day.
• Look up the scheme’s declared NAV for the last two working days, for example on the AMC or a NAV lookup.
• You should find the donut tracking the more recent day’s NAV (T-1) and the dashboard tracking the day before that (T-2).

Doing this once removes the doubt permanently. After that, whenever the two figures diverge by a small amount, you will recognise it for what it is: two accurate snapshots taken a working day apart, not a mistake in your portfolio.

Why even the donut is not live

It helps to remember that no mutual fund value on Console can be truly real time, and this is a property of mutual funds themselves rather than of Zerodha. Unlike a share, whose price updates continuously through the trading day, a mutual fund is valued only once per business day. The scheme totals up the market value of everything it holds after the market closes, divides by the number of units outstanding, and publishes a single net asset value for that day. Your units are worth that one number until the next day’s NAV is declared.

Because of this once-a-day rhythm, the freshest figure Console can possibly show you is the most recently declared NAV, and even that has to travel from the fund to the depository and on to your screen. The donut catches this pipeline one working day in (T-1) and the dashboard catches it two working days in (T-2). So the distinction is not “live versus delayed”; it is “one day old versus two days old”. Both are backward looking by design, which is normal for mutual funds and is why intraday movement in your funds is simply not a thing you can watch the way you watch equities.

This is also why chasing the small gap between the two figures is rarely worth your time. What matters for an investor is the trajectory of your holdings over months and years, and at that horizon a one working day NAV difference is invisible. The gap is a curiosity to understand once, not a metric to monitor.

The bottom line

Zerodha Console can show two mutual fund values because the account value dashboard uses a T-2 figure received from the depository, while the holdings donut and its P&L use a T-1 figure that is one working day fresher. The gap between them is simply one NAV day’s movement, scaled to your holding. Read the donut when you want the most current value and the day’s profit and loss; read the dashboard when you want to reconcile against the depository record; and ignore the gap entirely when you are judging long-term return. Understanding this one timing rule turns a confusing mismatch into a feature you can use with confidence.

See also

• Account value vs the performance curve on Zerodha Console
• Why holdings value differs between Console and Kite
• Portfolio XIRR and CAGR on Zerodha Console
• How to compute XIRR for your mutual fund portfolio
• What the applicable NAV is for a mutual fund
• Zerodha Coin: investing in mutual funds
• How to download your Coin mutual fund statement