What's new?

Offer Letter is now available in BETA

Carta Offer Letter is a fully interactive offer statement that communicates the full picture of a job offer—from salary to equity, benefits, and work culture. Everything a candidate needs to evaluate their next career move.

Communicate the potential value of your equity to candidates 

Carta Offer Letter will showcase your company's brand and culture, accurately reflecting each relevant job detail while concisely educating the full value of your candidate's total compensation package.

With Offer Letter, you can:

Make it easy for candidates to picture the future

Allow candidates to explore their potential total compensation over time with powerful, interactive scenario modeling tools.

Fast track your job offer process

Quickly write, extend, approve, and send your offer process with a complete administrative workflow.

Share your company's unique vision

Make winning offers using a customized letter elevating your brand, ensuring compliance, and driving higher acceptance rates.

What do I need to do?

Activate Offer Letters with a few clicks

In Carta Total Comp, navigate to the Offer Letters page, then click Start to begin sending offers.

How do I learn more or get help?

Visit the below support center articles for more details:

Setup Offer Letters

Create an Offer Letter

Candidate experience

Have more questions about Offer Letter? Reach out to your Account Manager or contact our Support Staff for further details.

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?

Carta has made it easier for private companies running a tender offer to invoke IRS Revenue Procedure 2002-50, which is applicable to certain transactions involving the exercise of options and sale of the resulting securities during a transaction on the same day. This procedure allows for the exclusion of those same day option sales from Form 1099-B reporting if certain conditions are met. For example, this may apply to cashless exercised options in connection with a secondary transaction on Carta where there is no capital gain (Sale Price = Fair Market Value).

How does it work?

To make a Revenue Procedure 2002-50 election on an applicable transaction, company administrators may request an Officer Certificate template from Carta to complete and get signed by a Company Officer who has the authority to make decisions on the tax treatment of cashless exercises in a tender offer.

Fig 1: Sample of an Officer Certificate

The completed form can then be returned to Carta, who will then trigger the Revenue Procedure. 

Any employee whose transactions on Carta were excluded from 1099-B reporting as a result of Revenue Procedure 2002-50 will, if applicable, receive a supplemental Disclosure Statement detailing the fees and gross proceeds on cashless exercises of options so they can complete their Form 8949 reporting. Compensatory income from cashless exercises is reported as ordinary income on the W-2.  

This statement will be delivered electronically by February 15th of the following year in the same manner as all other tax documents on Carta. No such statement will be generated if the employee was not charged any fees by Carta.

Fig 2: Sample of IRS Revenue Procedure 2002-50 Disclosure Statement

The company administrator can also generate a new report of all the Disclosure Statements issued after the transaction. The Revenue Procedure Disclosure Statements Report will assist in auditing transactions ahead of the tax season to ensure completeness and accuracy for tax filing purposes. The report can be found under your Reports section in Carta.   

Fig 3: Sample of Disclosure Statements Report

Make tax reporting easier for same-day option exercises and sales during a tender offer by invoking Revenue Procedure 2002-50

The Revenue Procedure feature will:

• Remove an employee’s burden to reconcile their Form 1099-B and Form W-2 when determining their Taxable Income after a same day option exercise and sale
• Reduce the risk of paying capital gains tax on proceeds that were already taxed as ordinary income

Reach out to Carta to get the process started

Is your company running a tender offer? If so, the Revenue Procedure 2002-50 will be enabled on the platform after returning a completed and signed Officer Certificate to Carta. Companies who ran a tender offer previously in 2022 can retroactively upload the appropriate Officer Certificate to benefit from this feature until the end of 2022. Please contact your CSM or Liquidity representative for more information.

What’s new?

IT Job Area

Carta will now provide salary and equity benchmarks for the IT job area. Target salary and  equity benchmarks for the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles are accessible on the Bands page. Additionally, compa-ratios will be provided to all employees who are assigned to the IT job area.

How do I see benchmarks for the IT job area?

You can view benchmarks for the IT job area by:

1. Visiting the Bands page and selecting “IT” under Area. 
2. This will allow you to view salary/equity bands for levels 1 - 8 for the IT job area.  
   
   

How do benchmarks for the IT 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. The compa-ratios for an employee assigned to the IT job area will now be calculated using the target compensation for IT.

Benchmarks version 2022-08-15

What changes can I expect from these benchmarks?

Benchmark changes in this release reflect a labor market that continues to see increased salaries, though potentially slowing from what we observed earlier this year across a number of job areas. While most data points moved within +/-3% versus April benchmarks, those that are decreasing by statistically significant amounts are those with either Low or Medium sample sizes.

What were the largest areas of movement from these benchmarks?

With this benchmark update we observed larger than expected movement across a few job areas, driven largely by market dynamics but also changes in our underlying sample. Many of the decreases we observed continue to be in lower valuation ranges, generally concentrated in valuations of less than $25M. We observed significant decreases in the benchmark for Support Level 1 roles across most peer groups, driven in large part by companies re-mapping employees in this role to other job areas/levels. While the underlying sample for this role has changed significantly, the updated benchmark is more recent and fits our model better than the previous version. The increases in benchmarks that we observed are more evenly distributed across peer groups and levels. 

Looking by job area, we saw the largest average increases (ranging from 4% - 5%) and decreases (1%-2%) in the following job areas:

Increases:

• Research
• Project Management
• Strategy

Decreases:

• Administrative
• Finance

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.

1. 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?

Carta Total Compensation is working updates and improvements to our equity benchmarks in order to reflect the current labor market.

Admins can now easily transfer interests from one holder to another in the event of a secondary transaction or sale of shares.

Transfer interests and maintain a record of the transaction

When transferring an interest, you’ll need to input the recipient, date of transfer, price, quantity, reason, and add any acceptance documents and additional fields for issuing the new interest. Only outstanding and vested units can be transferred to other interest holders. 

Once an interest transfer is completed, your cap table is automatically updated and transfer events are appended to the interest history so there is a clear record of the transaction.

Get started

Start an interest transfer by selecting items on the Interests and Interest Types page, then clicking the Actions button. Only full-administrative users can transfer interests. For more information, visit our support site.

The new dashboard provides you visibility into valuations completed by Carta, the board, or investors.

Streamline valuations and audits

The new dashboard streamlines valuations and audits by allowing you to:

• Request a 409A valuation from Carta and see the status of the request
• Gain visibility into the latest valuation, including the per unit value and expiration date
• Record an investor or board determined valuation and upload the valuation document
• Gain visibility into all previously completed or recorded valuations in the valuation ledger

Get started

Admins can find the new dashboard under the Valuations tab. For more information, visit our support site.

You can now include any option grants in the waterfall and customize vesting conditions.

Easily model future scenarios with more options for waterfall modeling

When running a waterfall, Rights and Preferences now include option grants so that they can participate in the waterfall and you can determine their payout. Option grants participate in the waterfall based on their strike price or per unit threshold value.

Additionally, you can now set the exit date when running a waterfall and choose a vesting treatment to either include all interests fully vested or only vested quantities as of exit date. Setting an exit date in the future and choosing the vesting treatment allows you to more accurately model future scenarios.

Get Started

You can find these enhancements under the Valuations tab > Exit modeling. For more information, visit our support site.

What's new?

After reviewing customer feedback, Carta made several user experience enhancements in the Form 3921 dashboard.

The enhanced user experience also allows company stock administrators to download the Manage Stakeholder Details report to review all stakeholder records at once instead of in a paginated view within the Administrator Experience. Companies with 50+ stakeholders now have enhanced filter and sorting capabilities (e.g, select one or multiple years to download the Stakeholder details ledger) to better analyze historical data.

There is a new tab for “Exclude Transactions” for further flexibility if company administrators need to suppress reporting on individual option exercises. 

How does it work?

The new Form 3921 Dashboard is available now to all companies subscribed to this feature.

Reach out to Carta to get the process started

Reach out to your CSM to enable Form 3921 reporting if you are interested in upgrading your subscription. Public Market companies will have this enabled by default.

What's new?

Before Carta cap table customers take their companies public, they can allow their employees (or Participants) to begin preparing themselves to sell their hard-earned company equity using the Participant Trade Readiness (PTR) feature. This feature allows the Participants to ensure they have the proper permissions in place to sell company shares as soon as a company’s lockup period ends. 

The PTR feature is a 3-step process which allows Participants to upload important personal, contact, and tax information as well as documentation required to verify their identities under current Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements. 

How does this work?

Companies can request Carta to enable this feature for their Participants. Once enabled, employees will see a banner at the top of their Carta account profiles with clear instructions for required tasks, a checklist, and success messages as they proceed through the process. Participants will be asked to:

• Complete their employee profiles by uploading their latest W-8 or W-9 form. This triggers  a KYC/AML check, which typically takes several business days, to verify their identities and avoid potential trading delays;
• Read and accept Carta’s end user terms; and

• Connect their personal bank accounts. 

  
  

  

Once all three steps are complete, the Participant will see a success message confirming they have finished all required tasks. Participants are now ready to trade once your company’s lockup period ends, which could be as soon as Day 1 of your IPO if your company elects to have an early lockup release. 

Allow your employees to get trade ready ahead of going public

The PTR feature:

• Prepares employees in advance to trade their company equity, avoiding delays in trading capabilities; 
• Improves the employees’ trade readiness experience through a simple 3-step process; and 
• Streamlines the data collection process 

Overall, the process of taking your company public is an exciting and busy time for both you and your employees. Previously, employees did not find out they were unable to trade shares due to missing documents and signatures until after the IPO date - resulting in potentially delayed trading ability for several weeks. The PTR feature avoids these issues by streamlining collection of information well before the IPO date - guiding employees on all actions they need to take every step of the way.  

Reach out to Carta to get the process started

Are you preparing to go public? Reach out to Carta’s public markets team (carta.public@carta.com) to begin planning your IPO journey.

The Participant Trade Readiness feature can be enabled by getting in contact with Carta at the email above.    

What's new?

Valuation Updates: Easily mark up or down SAFEs or convertible notes!

What’s important or valuable about this change? 

We've expanded the capabilities of our valuation update flows to enable clients, where appropriate, to mark up or down SAFEs or convertible notes. We created an addition to the flow which highlights audit and other considerations clients should have when marking up or down convertible assets, and given them the ability to complete this when applicable for their use case.

What do I need to do?

Check out a step by step guide on updating your valuations in-app here.

Here is a summary of how it works: 

1. Login to Carta, navigate to investments, and click “Update Valuation”
2. Add a new share price or holding value (the full value of your investment in the asset) for each investment you want to mark up/down
   1. Optional: submit any supporting documents like cap tables/purchase agreements
3. Carta will check your input for accuracy and automatically post successful changes to your SOI, IRR, and financials. Otherwise, we will review the update first and reach out as needed.

As a reminder, here is a walkthrough of in-app valuation updates:

1. Log into Carta and navigate to the fund with the investment that you want to update. 
2. Go to the Investments tab on the top navigation bar and select the Update Valuation option in the top right side of the page. 
3. Select the portfolio company (or companies) for which you want to update the asset values.

Note: Convertible assets are not able to be selected for marking up or down. For common questions about types of valuation updates, see this FAQ in the Valuations 101 support article, highlighted below,

1. For each investment, specify the new price per share. For assets without shares, specify the new total holding value. You can observe the change in gain or loss based on the new value. 
   1. Value per share vs total holdings value: Assets that have shares can be marked up or down by share price, or by total value of the asset. These include preferred and common equity.
      Assets that do not have shares and change in value can be marked up by total holdings value. These include Partnership interest and membership interest. Reach out to your fund administrator if you have a specialty asset type and need assistance.
   2. Document support: Supporting documentation is strongly encouraged, but may be added later by emailing your fund administrator. Stock Purchase Agreement is preferred, however any documentation from the company that indicates the new value/value per share and is credible should be included otherwise for your FA to review. For unaudited funds, a screenshot of an email from the founder, for example, can also be provided for review, in absence of other documentation.
2. Next, confirm which funds you want to apply this valuation update to. All funds in your firm that hold the portfolio company will be listed. In most cases, all funds should be selected. 
3. You will repeat steps 4 and 5 for each portfolio investment you selected to update. 
4. On the final review screen, confirm all the updates you made for each investment. Click Back to revise, or Submit if everything looks correct.
5. After submitting, Carta will automatically check that the update is within reasonable range. If it passes, the changes will show immediately on the investment tab. If further review is required, a task will be generated for your fund administration team. If they need more information, they will reach out directly within 3-4 business days.  

Additional Resources:

FAQs for Updating Valuations