Users with holdings in private and public companies can now view their holdings details directly from the Portfolio screen for easy access.

Who this affects?

Shareholders with holdings in private and public companies.

What’s new?

With an objective to provide insightful experiences, we’ve redesigned the Portfolio Overview screen to surface important holding details for each company. This redesign introduces usability enhancements by eliminating extra clicks and effort required to find the information needed to view and understand equity. 

We know things like the quantity of option grants, vesting schedule, and values of securities are some of the most important metrics to have top of my mind when reviewing your portfolio. In the Portfolio Overview, each private company card will now present the following information with the ability to view further details when clicked:

• Details of your holdings in each company and their vesting schedule 
• Summary of your securities
• Current FMV if you have holdings in the company or have exercisable options 
• A vesting progress bar highlighting the number of options exercised in comparison to the amount granted 

Each public company card will now present the following information with the ability to view further details by clicking on the company name:

• Market Value
• Total number of shares held
• Total holdings value
• Net holdings value

Option exercising with Public companies is now easier than ever. 

The exercising experience for public companies has been improved. The exercise request is now a coherent workflow guiding users through each step and providing key information about the exercise. With this detail, users can be more confident with their selection at each step of the exercise request. If there are issues with the exercise, clearer banners explain how Carta calculates share amounts and market prices.

Who this affects: 🇺🇸 Public US companies

What's new:

• New experience for exercise requests:

  • Added explanations of exercise transaction methods
  • Clearer confirmation of address and payout method
  • Improved order details with indicators on maximum eligible options and clear explanation of order types
  • Incorporated review of taxes withheld and reminder of potential for additional taxes owed at end of the year
  • Summarized the exercise request clearly laying out the cost and transaction details so users understand what will be needed 
• Cashless exercising reflects issuer imposed trade limits

Action required: No action required

Timing: Released to 100% of all public companies on Jan 24, 2022

What's New

LPs subscribing to Funds and SPVs using Carta's Closings Tool can now E-Sign a pre-filled W-9 while filling out subscription documents. 

Having LPs submit a tax form is an important part of the closings process for any Fund or SPV to ensure tax teams correctly prepare LP K-1s. We received feedback from LPs about the friction of printing, signing, and uploading W-9s and wanted to streamline the process.

How it Works

For Individuals

For U.S. based LPs subscribing as an Individual, we can now optionally pre-fill a W-9 for them to review and E-sign in just three clicks. The W-9 is pre-filled based on the information the LP already provided as part of their subscription. 

For Partnerships and LLCs

For LPs subscribing as a partnership or through a LLC we'll ask some additional questions to ensure we are accurately representing the LPs federal tax classification on the W9.

With the initial release of this product we will not be pre-filling W-8s or W-8BEN-Es for non-US LPs but will still allow them to upload their own form.

Who this affects

This is now available to any LPs using Carta's Closings Tool. The Closings Tool gives LPs a quick and easy way to fill out Fund and SPV subscription documents. 

What's new?

Target Market Percentiles

Carta Total Comp will now show target data for the 25th, 50th, and 75th salary and equity percentiles.

How do I change my target market percentile for my compensation bands?

You can update your target market position to use the new percentiles either by:

1. Visiting the Plan page and clicking on the "Create plan" button in the Active Plan window. The Create Plan window contains a section called “Market position by job area” where you can specify your target salary and target equity percentiles.
   
   
2. Visiting the Bands page and clicking “Edit” under Target criteria. Once in edit mode, you can change the target market position by selecting the Percentile dropdown.

Market Position by Job Area

Carta Total Comp users will now be able to set their organization's target market positioning by element of compensation (salary + equity) and job area to make sure they're getting a view of market competitiveness that supports their overall talent strategy.

How do I update my Plan to define my market position by job area?

You can update your existing compensation philosophy by:

1. Visiting the Plan page and clicking on the "Create plan" button in the Active Plan window.
   
   
2. Under "Market position by job area" you will see a table containing your default salary + equity positioning.
3. Select the "+" icon to create additional market positions by job area.
   
   
4. Each additional market position will allow you to specify the job area, target salary percentile, and target equity percentile.

How does Market Position by Job Area affect the Employee Scorecard?

The compa-ratio is a quick way to compare an employee's compensation to your plan's target rate for a given job area, level, and location. A plan that specifies a market position for a job area adjusts the target rate for all employees in said job area. These changes can be previewed by selecting the “Save and preview plan” button on the Create Plan page.

Benchmarks version 2022-01-21

• Our market estimates now include measures of the 25th and 75th percentile by job area, level and peer group. 
• We've updated the Salary bands for all job areas to reflect market changes and improvements to our benchmarking model.

How do I update my plan to use the new benchmarks version?

You can update your compensation plan to use the latest benchmark versions either by:

1. Visiting the Plan page and clicking on the "Update available" link in the Active Plan window.
   
2. Navigating to the Bands page and clicking on the "Update" bubble in the top left.
   

You will have the opportunity to preview the new plan with the updated benchmarks version and assess their impact on your scorecard before accepting the new plan.

What’s next? 

We will be expanding our benchmarks to include salary and equity data for the following Engineering Specializations: DevOps, Frontend, QA, and Software Engineering.

What’s new?

Valuation updates can now be submitted directly in Carta!

We kicked off EoY reporting by launching Schedule of Investments (SOI) review emails with in-app flows for Fund Managers approve their valuations, markup their investments, or request other updates right in Carta. This is the first step in a set of functionality for making the quarterly and annual reporting process easier than ever.

How it works:

Rather than Fund Admins having to comb through investment valuations for every entity and curate one-off email threads with Fund Managers to ask for reviews and updates, they can now kickoff these emails with just a few clicks in Carta, and easily track where each entity is in the reporting process.

Fund Managers will be sent a link to their SOI for review and approval, where they can approve on the spot or request changes directly in app. For markups or markdowns, they can go through a fully in-app flow to complete the updates. They no longer need to go download their SOIs and itemize every change through email, to send back to their Fund Admin.

Any approvals or requests for changes will automatically be queued for Fund Admins to review and push through, while markups and markdowns that pass health checks will push through updates directly and be routed to Carta's Deal Docs team, so they can review and catalogue supporting documentation.

Who does this impact?

Fund Admins now have quicker, more efficient ways to send out SOIs to kickoff financial reporting, and track where each of their entities are in the process. They can spend less time keeping track of multiple email threads and keeping mental lists of which assets are ready to go and which need to updated.

Fund Managers can also view their SOIs by fund and directly request changes at any time, within Carta as needed, ensuring asset valuations are up to date throughout the year.

What’s next?

The team is working to add more in-app methods for funds to easily to keep their investment valuations up to date, such as note conversions, further reducing the time delays from back and forth emails, and ensuring better expediency and accuracy for valuation updates. 

What's new?

You can now select how equity value is displayed in the Scorecard and communicated to employees in Total Rewards in the new Equity Settings section in the General Settings page.

How to use

Navigate to Settings in the top navigation and then click on the General Settings tab on the left-side navigation.

In the Equity Settings section, there are two options:

• Equity share price - Set the value of the share price either using the Last Preferred Price or set a custom value.
• Equity value calculation - There are two options to choose from to determine how equity value is calculated:
  1. Net equity value - The in-the-money value of all equity grants (i.e. net of any exercise costs). RSUs assume a strike price of zero. This is the recommended setting for most situations.
  2. Notional equity value - This is the gross value of the equity (i.e., shares granted times the equity share price).

NOTE: When using the Net equity value option on the Bands page, Total Comp will always display the notional (face) value of equity according to your set equity share price as exercise costs are only taken into consideration for individual equity awards.

Prior to this update, all equity value was calculated only using the notional value method. We recommend customers review compensation philosophy with their teams to make the determination on the best methodology for your unique circumstances.

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?

We've updated the Salary bands for the Engineering, Data, and Research job areas to reflect market changes and improvements to our benchmarking model.

How do I update my plan to use the new benchmarks version?

You can update your compensation plan to use the latest benchmark versions either by:

1. Visiting the Plan page and clicking on the "Update available" link in the Active Plan window.
   
2. Navigating to the Bands page and clicking on the "Update" bubble in the top left.
   

You will have the opportunity to preview the new plan with the updated benchmarks version and assess their impact on your scorecard before accepting the new plan.

What's next?

On January 21, we will be launching a new enhancement to the Plan feature that will let you set your target market position (25th, 50th, or 75th percentiles) for salary and equity by job area. Stay tuned for this major release!

What’s new?

There is a new way for Cap Table Admins to manage Employee IDs.
This is more than just an import; it is a matching tool that will make it easier to match the Employee ID with the indented Stakeholder in Carta. 

Why is this important?

The Employee ID can clearly indicate that employee #123ABC on the HRIS or another system is the same as the Stakeholder #123ABC on Carta.

The Employee ID matching tool will compare Employee ID, First Name, Last Name, and email from an external source to the records in Carta. If all of the data between the two sources match exactly, then the Employee ID will be automatically saved in Carta. If some of the data matches, like Last Name and Email but not First Name, then those matches will be shown as a pending match some the Cap Table admin to confirm if the records are the same across two systems. 

How it works

This tool is available to a user with the role of Legal admin or Company Admin. It is under the Stakeholders dropdown > Stakeholder Updates > Employee ID Matching.

Step 1: Add External data

Download the template, and populate it with employee IDs, First Name, Last Name and email from the Employee ID source system (typically an HRIS or Payroll system). Upload this data into Carta as a CSV file, or Copy/paste directly into the matching tool.

Employee ID, First Name, Last Name, and email are all required for this upload. 

Step 2: External Data Source

Once the data is uploaded, it will run through the automatic matching process. If the data is the same between the external source and Carta, then the Employee ID will automatically be updated. 

Step 3: Review Pending Matches

If the data from the external source matches the data in Carta, then approve the suggested match. There is also an option to select a different Stakeholder or to clear it. 

Step 4: Review and save