Who This Affects

Any company who is a Total Compensation customer and has equity-holding international employees.

What’s new?

Total Rewards will illustrate foreign currency for international employees, visualizing 120 different currencies. This is done using real exchange rates loaded into Total Comp. The rates entered are stamped with an effective date/time and so are valid until a more recent record is entered for that currency pair and rate type. 

How does it work?

If an employee has their "local currency" set as anything other than $USD, then they will see the currency switcher in the top right of their Total Rewards Statement. The currency toggle will convert any $USD values (equity and benefits) to local currency along with their salary and any target variable pay. Employees can also convert base salary and target variable in local currency to $USD.

Benchmarks 2022-06-16

What changes can I expect from these benchmarks?

This version resolves an issue with level progression in the benchmark version released on 2022-06-09. If you did not update to the 2022-06-09 benchmarks you were not impacted by this bug. There are no other changes to benchmarks or specializations in this release.

Carta will now provide salary + equity benchmarks for the following engineering specializations:

• AI and Machine Learning
• Hardware
• Mobile
• Web Engineering

In addition, benchmarks data has been refreshed for the following existing engineering specializations:

• DevOps and Site Reliability
• Quality Assurance
• UX/Frontend

Note that for all of our specializations the sample size is smaller than job area benchmarks which could result in data volatility as we continue to update the data and grow our overall sample size.

What were the largest areas of movement from these benchmarks?

For existing specializations, salaries increased an average of approximately 3% compared to the previous version of the benchmarks. The largest increases are generally concentrated at more senior levels and in higher valuation peer groups. We also observed some decreases in the salary benchmarks, mostly at levels 1 and 2 at valuations below $50 million. While some of these changes are driven by market dynamics, some of the change is driven by the limited sample size for these roles. Equity benchmarks also reflect a mix of increases and decreases compared to the last benchmark version which are also being driven by a combination of market dynamics and sample size.

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.

How can I assign an employee to a specialization?

You can assign an employee to an engineering specialization by: 

1. Visiting the Employee Scorecard page for a particular employee and selecting “Edit” next to the employee’s role and then selecting “Job area and level” on the Update details page.

1. Select the “Specialization” dropdown to assign an employee to one of the listed specializations.
   
   

Note: specialization benchmarks are currently limited to AI and Machine Learning. DevOps + Site Reliability, Hardware, Mobile, Quality Assurance, UX/Frontend, and Web Engineering for the engineering job area.

How do I see benchmarks for engineering specializations?

You can view benchmarks for engineering specializations by:

1. Visiting the Bands page and selecting “Engineering” under Area. Once the engineering job area is selected, you can change the engineering specializations by selecting the Specialization dropdown.
   
   

How do engineering specializations 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. The compa-ratios for an employee assigned to the AI and Machine Learning, Hardware, Mobile, and Web Engineering specializations will now be calculated using the target compensation for the specializations.

What’s next?

Additional functionality around data transparency that will provide users insight into the underlying data used to generate benchmarks in Carta Total Compensation.

What’s new?

New Employee Scorecard

We’ve restructured the Employee Scorecard to increase legibility and improve comprehension of your employee’s role information and compensation details. 

The updated Employee Scorecard is broken down into logical groupings of information to help you quickly identify important information.

1. Employee Overview
2. Annual Compensation Breakdown
3. Equity Breakdown

Engineering Specializations Benchmarks 2022-06-09

What changes can I expect from these benchmarks?

Carta will now provide salary + equity benchmarks for the following engineering specializations:

• AI and Machine Learning
• Hardware
• Mobile
• Web Engineering

In addition, benchmarks data has been refreshed for the following existing engineering specializations:

• DevOps and Site Reliability
• Quality Assurance
• UX/Frontend

Note that for all of our specializations the sample size is smaller than job area benchmarks which could result in data volatility as we continue to update the data and grow our overall sample size.

What were the largest areas of movement from these benchmarks?

For existing specializations, salaries increased an average of approximately 3% compared to the previous version of the benchmarks. The largest increases are generally concentrated at more senior levels and in higher valuation peer groups. We also observed some decreases in the salary benchmarks, mostly at levels 1 and 2 at valuations below $50 million. While some of these changes are driven by market dynamics, some of the change is driven by the limited sample size for these roles. Equity benchmarks also reflect a mix of increases and decreases compared to the last benchmark version which are also being driven by a combination of market dynamics and sample size.

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.

How can I assign an employee to a specialization?

You can assign an employee to an engineering specialization by: 

1. Visiting the Employee Scorecard page for a particular employee and selecting “Edit” next to the employee’s role and then selecting “Job area and level” on the Update details page.

1. Select the “Specialization” dropdown to assign an employee to one of the listed specializations.
   
   

Note: specialization benchmarks are currently limited to AI and Machine Learning. DevOps + Site Reliability, Hardware, Mobile, Quality Assurance, UX/Frontend, and Web Engineering for the engineering job area.

How do I see benchmarks for engineering specializations?

You can view benchmarks for engineering specializations by:

1. Visiting the Bands page and selecting “Engineering” under Area. Once the engineering job area is selected, you can change the engineering specializations by selecting the Specialization dropdown.
   
   

How do engineering specializations 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. The compa-ratios for an employee assigned to the AI and Machine Learning, Hardware, Mobile, and Web Engineering specializations will now be calculated using the target compensation for the specializations.

What’s next?

Additional functionality around data transparency that will provide users insight into the underlying data used to generate benchmarks in Carta Total Compensation.

Who This Affects

Users without a verified secondary email address

What’s New

Additional emails are required to assist users with providing a secondary login credential in case access to their primary email address is lost. As part of our efforts to improve our clients' account security, we are updating the process of adding and verifying your additional email address. 

As part of this release, we will be notifying all users without a verified additional email address to add or verify the email they have listed. This subset of users will be receiving an email notification, as well as an outstanding task in their Carta account’s task manager. 

Timing

• This update is available to 25% of randomly selected Carta users
• General availability for all users by the end of Q2

What's new?

Benchmarks version 2022-05-26

What changes can I expect from these benchmarks?

Geographic adjustments have been updated to reflect current cost-of-labor data across the US. There have been no changes to the underlying benchmarks that were released on April 13, 2022, details of which can be found here.

Given the current sample size of Carta Total Compensation we are now able to rely on data from Total Compensation customers, representing the broad tech industry, to determine cost-of-labor differentials in 33 cities (previously 17 cities). For all other US metropolitan areas we continue to rely on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) which is based on a wider set of industries and type of employee.

What were the largest areas of movement from these benchmarks?

For most of the largest markets in Carta Total Compensation we’ve observed an increase in pay relative to the San Francisco Bay Area. Some of the changes to key markets include the following (SF Bay Area = 100%):

* Data source for Miami has changed from BLS to Carta Total Compensation due to our increased sample size.

Outside of our largest markets we observe a mix of increases and decreases relative to Bay Area compensation levels, but on average there has been a slight increase.

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.

Improvements to MSA borders

Carta Total Compensation currently defaults employees who are not in a supported Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) to a geographic adjustment factor equal to your plan’s threshold value. With this update, Carta Total Compensation will now use the adjustment factor for the nearest supported MSA.

What’s next?

Additional functionality that will allow users to apply a level-based approach to geographic adjustments.

General partners now have the ability to view and track capital calls from the Carta Android app. Investment firms can now track the progress of on-going and completed calls along with investor details, on the go, straight from the Carta mobile app.

Who this affects

• Fund administration clients

Supported platforms

• Android (Previously available on iOS)

What's new

Fund Administration clients can now access their capital call details and investor information from the Carta Android app.

• The home screen now provides a summary of active capital calls with the ability to view individual call details.
• Navigating to a capital call allows you to view further call and investor details along with a full investor list which can be filtered by Paid and Unpaid calls.
• The Fund Details page now also provides a capital summary and the ability to view a list of Active, Drafted, and Completed calls.

Carta users will now be able to perform a Cashless Hold Exercise and Cashless Sell Exercise on the mobile app. 

Who this affects

• Public Markets Users

Supported Platforms

• iOS and Android

What’s new

Users with holdings in public companies on Carta will now be able to exercise and sell their shares via a Cashless Hold or Cashless Sell transaction while on-the-go through the Carta mobile app. These features were previously available to users via desktop, and this launch closes the previously existing gap in functionality between the Carta web experience and the Carta mobile app. 

Carta mobile app users will now be able to login using a web-browser on iOS and Android. Web-login gives us the benefits of browser-based authentication, and better security, without disrupting the user experience.

Who this affects

Employees and Investors

Supported Platforms

iOS & Android

What’s New

In an effort to bring login and authentication together across all Carta platforms, we are launching browser-based login on mobile. The web-login experience will use Safari on iOS and a default browser on Android.

What's New?

Carta fund admin users can instantly be notified about share price updates for portfolio companies with their cap tables on Carta. As Carta companies publish new share classes or file updated Articles of Incorporation (AOI), funds with basic or higher cap table access may receive notifications about these updates. In addition, users will have the option to apply these updates to their Schedule of Investments (SOI) immediately.

When a Carta company raises a new round and publishes it on their cap table, firms with appropriate access can be notified, and Carta will automatically mark their share value to the latest price on the AOI.

How it Works

When a company has their cap table on Carta and raises funding through an equity round, they update their cap table by sharing the publicly filed Articles of Incorporation and revising their cap table data to reflect the new ownership and share price.

The Fund Administration team reviews these updates when a new share class is authorized with a filed state incorporation document amendment. Fund admin users who a Carta company has granted basic, advanced, or detailed access to the cap table will be notified of updates through email. The email will contain a link to information such as share class, share price, and impact on fund metrics. 

Who This Affects

Firms who have requested and been granted basic, advanced or full detail level access to the cap tables and financing history for their Carta portfolio companies will be notified of new filings.

Why This is Awesome

Carta serves a powerful network of equity and ownership data, which provides a single source of truth for companies and VC firms. This enables accurate data to be leveraged in multiple places, reducing discrepancies, confusion, and manual updates of investment valuations.

Employees registering their account on Carta for the first time can now provide their personal information as part of the onboarding process to complete their user profile. 

With an objective to provide insightful experiences, we’ve revamped the employee onboarding process to allow users to complete their user profile. Every employee registering with Carta for the first time to accept their first RSU or ISO/NSO option grant will now have the ability to provide the following information:

• Personal details such as name, date of birth and country of citizenship 
• Tax ID 
• Address

Capturing these details upfront allows employees to be transaction ready for events such as exercising.

 

After successfully completing their user profile details, users will be directed to the Tasks page where they can accept their security.  

Timing

• Available now to 20% of randomly selected Carta customers 
• General availability for all Carta customers coming by the end of Q2