What's new?

Private dilution reports can be run on Carta.

How does it work?

Private company administrators will be able to run a dilution report that will provide them with diluted shares, average trading prices, and supporting tabs to back out the incremental shares tab. 

In this initial release, the following inputs will be available:

1. Average and weighted average trading prices, including the ability to add Fair Market Values on weekends and holidays
2. Diluted shares
3. Supporting tabs to help users recalculate their incremental shares tab

In the future, Carta will also support:

• Pre stock split values in dilution reports
• Weighted average shares outstanding (WASO)

What do I need to do to get started?

To participate in the beta and receive early access to this report, please reach out to us at 718@carta.com.

What's new

Employees who have access to Carta Tax Advisory through their employer now have access to on-demand educational content in their Carta portfolio. As an employee, you have the ability to re-watch your company’s recorded webinar, as well as view chapters of key concepts about your equity. The video chapters cover topics such as exercising your option, selling your options and other important topics.

Who this affects

This feature is available to employees who have access to Carta Tax Advisory through their employer. Employees will be able to view their company's recorded webinar once it has been completed.

Where to find it

As an employee, navigate to the Learn section of the Tax Advice page in your Carta portfolio. If you have any additional questions, please schedule a session with an Equity Tax Advisor.

What's new

Employees who have access to Carta Tax Advisory through their employer may now choose from up to four different tax advisory session types. This aims to provide transparency and flexibility so you can have the conversation that's right for you. 

Who this affects

US-based employees subscribed to Carta Tax Advisory through their employer

How it works

Scheduling a session

Log in to your  Carta employee account, navigate to the Tax advice tab.

From there, click on "Book a free session" to browse different session types. 

Once you're on the session type selection page, you'll see a brief outline on how to schedule and a selection of three to four different session types. 

Select the session type that's right for you and click "Schedule free session" to book a time with a tax advisor. 

If you're not quite sure where to start, we recommend starting with the "Understand equity basics" session type to learn about your equity and taxes at a high level.

Note: The "Discuss tender offer participation" session type only appears if your company is currently undergoing a tender offer. 

Preparing for a session

Session types: Discuss tender offer participation | Create tax scenarios

Once you've scheduled a time to speak with a tax advisor, you'll be prompted to upload a few documents. Tax advisors will create personalized tax scenarios using this information so you can have the most accurate tax picture. 

If you don't have these documents on hand now, you can skip this step for later. However, you must upload documents at least 24 hours before your session so advisors have enough time to prepare. 

You'll receive a calendar invite with a zoom link to attend your session at your scheduled time. You can also see this information in your tax advice tab in Carta, with the option to reschedule or cancel using the "View details" button. 

Session types: Ask a quick question | Understand equity basics

Once you've scheduled a time to speak with a tax advisor, there's nothing else you need to prepare ahead of your session.

You'll receive a calendar invite with a zoom link to attend your session at your scheduled time. You can also see this information in your tax advice tab in Carta, with the option to reschedule or cancel using the "View details" button. 

What’s new?

We have redesigned the way you review and accept your 409A valuation on Carta. This new design presents you first with a quick summary of the analysis along with a note from your analyst letting you know the next steps in finalizing your fair market value (FMV). Once you have reviewed the report, if you have any questions you can contact our team of valuation experts through the support module in the valuation review portal. Lastly, receive board approval from within or outside of Carta to finalize the current FMV on your account. 

How it Works

Once you receive an email notifying you that your valuation is ready for review, you can follow the link within that email to access the 409A ledger where you are able to review and download your valuation. Alternatively, you can navigate to the page within Carta at Compliance > 409A Valuation.

Review your valuation

From the 409A Ledger, once you select ‘Review 409A report’ you will be directed to the valuation review portal. Here you will find an overview of the analysis performed and the concluded FMV along with a note from your valuation analyst informing you of next steps and noting any details within the report that warrant extra attention. Once you have reviewed the analyst’s note and valuation summary, you can download the full report or access the support module from the valuation review portal to access support articles or get in touch with our team of valuation experts. 

Get board approval

Now that you have reviewed the valuation, the next step is to send it to your board for review. You can do so using the board consent feature within your Carta account to easily track acceptance from each board member within the Carta platform. Once all board members have submitted their board approval through the platform, your valuation will automatically be accepted on Carta. If you got approval outside of Carta, that’s great too, simply select ‘My board has approved’ to accept the valuation to finalize the current FMV in your account. Once finalized, the new FMV will be visible to your option holders on Carta.

What's new

New hire onboarding allows new hires to access their Carta account before they receive and accept their equity grant. By creating a stakeholder record for the employee, employees receive an email to register for a Carta account. This grants them access to Carta Tax Advisory.

If you do not add new hires they will need to wait to accept their equity grant in order to access Carta resources, which can take several months to approve and issue. 

New employees often have questions about their equity as soon as they join a company, Carta Tax Advisory gives them access to dedicated 1:1 support from equity tax experts from day 1 to help them understand their equity packages. 

Who does this affect?

Companies subscribed to Carta Tax Advisory

US-based employees (new hires) at companies subscribed to Carta Tax Advisory

How can I give new hires access to their Carta account?

Important notes before starting: 

1. The new hire onboarding process only applies to companies subscribed to Carta Tax Advisory. 
2. Tax advisory sessions are only available to US citizens or residents
3. Adding an employee into Carta as a stakeholder provides them access to Carta services like Carta Tax Advisory. Ensure you only add employees you intend to issue equity to.

The Stakeholder ledger allows users with Company editor or Legal administrator permissions to view and modify information for a person that holds multiple securities across the company 

Navigate to Stakeholders > All Stakeholders

Under the Manage Stakeholders drop-down, admins can add stakeholders individually or in bulk

Individually add stakeholders

Select “Add stakeholder” in the Manage stakeholders dropdown list

A modal will appear requesting information about the stakeholder

Required fields:

• First name
• Last name
• Relationship (i.e. employee)
• Relationship effective date

• Add and save an address 

  • Country (3 digit) 
  • State (2 digit)

Tax ID, Employee ID, Payroll ID, and other address fields can be input as available, but are not required before equity grant issuance

Bulk add stakeholders

Select Bulk add stakeholders from the Manage stakeholders dropdown

Download the template spreadsheet to import stakeholders’ information, save, and upload the modified file. Carta will run a check on the data entered before saving the changes

Note: Admins should not add new columns or move columns in this sheet. They must use the template as is

Required columns: 

• First name
• Last name
• Relationship (i.e. employee)
• Relationship effective date (MM/DD/YYYY)
• Country (3 digit) 
• State (2 digit)

After the updated xslx sheet is uploaded, click “Submit changes” and a confirmation modal will appear

Confirm to complete stakeholder creation

What’s new?

We have redesigned the 409A Ledger Page where you come to request and review the 409A Valuations of your company and enter the Fair Market Value (FMV) of your company’s options. The goal of this refresh is to help you navigate the valuation process with ease and access resources quickly whenever you need assistance. 

With this updated design you will quickly and easily identify where you are in the valuation process and what to expect next. Carta is here to help you along the way with curated support articles and a variety of options to get in touch with us if you have questions not covered within the articles.

How it Works

Under Compliance > 409A you will find a number of new features designed to help you navigate the Carta Valuation process with confidence.

Valuation Status Tracker

The Valuation Status Tracker at the top of the page clearly indicates where your company is in the valuation request process. Whether you are in the middle of completing your request, if your draft is ready for review or if you are anywhere in between, the tracker will let you know what your next step is as soon as you land on the 409A Ledger page. Also included are tools and support articles to help answer common questions that you may have based on where you are in the valuation process.

Review and accept your valuation

Once you have received your valuation, you can download it for review directly from the Valuation Tracker on the 409A Ledger page. After you have had a chance to review the report and are ready to accept, you will be directed to the final step in The Valuation Tracker, the acceptance workflow. 

Get in touch with our team

Have a question? Navigate to our Support Module on the page and select the contact method that works best for you, our team of experts will follow up with a response typically within 1 business day.

Viewing your 409A Valuations

Now that you have completed the valuation process, your most recent valuation will be displayed at the top of the table at the bottom of the page along with any previous valuations saved to your Carta account. If you have any questions for our Valuation team in between valuations, simply navigate to the new 409A Ledger Page to access our Support model to get in touch with our team of Valuation Experts.

What’s New

Users with holdings in companies identified as Qualified Small Businesses (QSB) will now be notified of the potential tax benefit. Carta determines QSB eligibility when performing a 409A valuation and email notifications will be sent to all users associated with the company once the valuation is accepted. In addition, vesting emails will include information about the qualified small business stock (QSBS) tax benefit.

Furthermore, users can now find a banner in the company overview page within their portfolio that informs them about QSBS eligibility, linking to a blog post to learn more. Finally, users will be notified if their exercise qualifies for QSBS once they submit an exercise request.

Who this affects

US Companies using Carta for 409A valuations that are QSBS eligible and all their stakeholders, prioritizing “Vested” option holders. 

How it works

Email notifications

Emails are sent to all users associated with a company that qualifies as a QSB. If Carta determines the company is a qualified small business, emails are sent once the 409A valuation is accepted. Extra emails are sent to all users each time the company’s valuation includes eligibility. 

Vesting emails

Vesting emails will now include information about QSBS eligibility to help make a more informed decision about exercising. 

Company’s overview page

A banner informing users of the QSBS Eligibility Tax Benefit can be found next to the company’s name in their portfolio. This banner appears for companies identified as qualified small businesses, including information about the potential tax benefit from exercising and the expected timeframe of the company’s eligibility. 

Exercise submission message

Upon submitting an exercise request, the Congratulations page will inform users that the shares are QSBS-eligible. It summarizes the conditions and links to an Equity Education article to learn more (highlighted in red).

Timing

• General availability for all 409A customers by the end of Q1

Additional Resources

• Support Article: Defining QSBS
• Blog: QSBS & Carta Support for QSBS

What’s new

Companies using our newest version of the financial reporting tool can now report following International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). 

This is the first release of our IFRS reporting that includes:
1. Tranche based valuations
2. FIN28 amortization
3. Correct relationship valuation methodology (differs from US GAAP)
4. Stakeholder country field added to reports
5. Disclosures
6. Stock-based compensation expense journal entry
7. Report error validations specific to IFRS reporting

Later releases will include:
1. In-app custom assumption overrides
2. Forfeiture rate by grouping

How it works

When going to create a new expense scenario, there is now an additional step where users can select which reporting standard they want that scenario to follow. Users have the ability to create multiple scenarios to support both IFRS and US GAAP.

Once the scenario is created users can create both SBC expense reports and disclosure reports that follow the standard and give supporting calculations. 

Who this affects

Private and public companies using our new financial reporting tool. 

Timing

Available for legacy V1 IFRS users and beta customers. If you have a customer that is interested in being a beta user, reach out to Jess Carthey via slack. 

GA will begin with the second release which includes in-app custom assumptions. 

What’s new

Companies using Carta for 409A will now be additionally assessed for qualified small business eligibility at no extra cost to the company.

Certificates issued by a qualified small business as determined by Carta will have a "QSBS" tag in the product to indicate that the shares represent Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS). The goal of these tags is help stakeholders make more informed selling decisions.

The IRC’s definition of a qualified small business is restrictive yet vague and open for interpretation at the edges, so potential holders of QSBS should consult their tax advisor before making decisions to sell and claiming the QSBS tax benefit.

How it works

Based on company-provided information during the valuations process, Carta will assess the following criteria for qualified small business eligibility:

• Company's gross assets are $50M USD or less
• Company is an active business
• Company is a C-corp
• Company does not operate in excluded industries

If a company is identified as a qualified small business, a new badge will appear in the 409A dashboard:

If a stakeholder receives a certificate from a qualified small business but hasn't yet met the 5 year holding period for QSBS, they'll see a "QSBS eligible" tag in their portfolio:

Drilling into the security, the stakeholder will see some additional information about the QSBS status of the certificate:

Stakeholders who have held shares issued by a qualified small business for 5 years will see a "QSBS" tag in their portfolio instead:

Additional Resources

For detailed information about QSBS in Carta, please refer to our QSBS support article.

Who this affects

Companies using Carta for 409A and their stakeholders.

Timing

• Available now to 50 randomly selected 409A customers
• General availability for all 409A customers coming in two weeks

We are making it easier for companies to keep employees, investors, and other stakeholders informed about their holdings and company changes. 

Companies have historically been able to grant viewing permissions to their stakeholders via our Cap Table Sharing page and features. This experience, however, was burdensome for many company administrators who found themselves having to change sharing settings as new stakeholders were added to their cap table or existing stakeholders changed their relationship to the company, such as an employee leaving the company or an investor exiting their position.

With our new Shareholder Experience page, company administrators can designate what type of information they want to share with their different stakeholders and set rules based on these preferences. By setting permissions by rules instead of a stakeholder-by-stakeholder process, we make it easier for company administrators to get the right stakeholders the appropriate information and reflect their information sharing philosophy.

Companies can choose to enable a specific shareholder experience based on the relationship of the stakeholder to the company. For example, companies can choose what information founders, investors, employees, and former employees, and other stakeholders access on Carta. We’ve renamed, updated, and simplified our access levels to Restricted, Basic, Advanced, and Full Details. We include a “Recommended” level for different relationships (e.g. Investors = Advanced) to help guide founders and other company administrators on setting up their Shareholder Experience based on user feedback. 

We’ve also added a new rule where former stakeholders--those who no longer have an active investment or holding in the company--will automatically be downgraded to Restricted automatically. This means that as stakeholders enter and exit the cap table, their respective shareholder experience will update automatically.

New Shareholder Experience page: Group levels

We know that sometimes it’s important for company administrators to create experiences specific to a single stakeholder or user. The new Shareholder Experience feature allows companies to set overrides for specific stakeholders in the “Individual levels” tab. We also provide information on that stakeholder’s relationship and holdings information.

New Shareholder Experience page: Individual levels

To help ensure company administrators set access levels that best fit the needs of their stakeholders, our access level guide is clickable from either the Group Level or Individual Level views of the new Shareholder Experience.

Access level guide

We appreciate our users’ feedback on how to make this page clearer and easier to use. We hope these improvements save company administrators valuable time and help them mirror their company information sharing philosophy in our software.

Who is this available for?

The cap table sharing page is available currently via a limited release to select Carta companies. In the coming weeks, we will begin to allow additional companies to migrate to the new Shareholder Experience feature set. This new product is not limited by subscription tier.

Companies with the new Shareholder Experience features enabled can visit Stakeholders > Shareholder Experience. 

If you’d like to enable the new Shareholder Experience page for your company, you can also contact us.