What’s new?

We have two exciting updates now available in Carta Total Comp. You can now use: 

• International salary and equity adjustments on the Plan and Bands pages
• Total cash compensation benchmarks for the Customer Success job area

International adjustments

Users will now be able to view salary and equity benchmarks on the Bands page based on adjustments from our US benchmarks. In this initial release, users will have access to adjustments for 44 countries.

How do I see international adjustments?

You can view international adjustments by:

1. Visiting the Plan page and scrolling down to International Market Adjustments. This section will show you suggested adjustments for salary and equity across 45 countries. These suggested Adjustments are based on Carta data and our knowledge of local market practices.
   
2. You can override these suggested adjustments to better match your company’s comp philosophy. Click into them to edit, and save your new adjustment by clicking the check box.
   
3. Visit the Bands page to view the adjusted salary & equity benchmarks. Find any of the 45 countries by selecting it from the Location dropdown.
   

Total cash compensation benchmarks for Customer Success

Carta will now provide total cash compensation benchmarks for the Customer Success job area. Total cash compensation is defined as base salary plus target variable compensation. 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile data are accessible on the Bands page. No other benchmarks have changed in this update.

How do I see total cash compensation benchmarks for the Customer Success job area?

You can view Total Cash Compensation benchmarks for the Customer Success job area by:

1. Visiting the Bands page and selecting “Customer Success” under Area. 
2. Select “Total Cash” for compensation type.
   
   
3. This will allow you to view total cash compensation bands for levels 1 - 11 for the Customer Success job area.  
   
   

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 "Update" 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.

Learn more

Have additional questions? Reach out to your Account Manager or contact our Support Team.

What’s next?

Carta Total Comp is working on updated salary and equity benchmarks for all job areas and specializations.

What's new?

You can now generate fully executed legal agreements when issuing interests with Carta LLC.

What's important or valuable about this change?

With the new Agreement Execution functionality, you can simplify the end-to-end issuance workflow, increase efficiency, and auditability:

• Set up interest agreement templates and automatically populate them with data from Carta, such as each interest holder's information, interest type, number of units, and more
• Send these interest agreements to the holder to collect their signature directly on the PDF
• Save the fully executed agreement in Carta with the interest so you and the interest holder can access it for audits, personal finance, or tax use cases

What do I need to do?

To get started with Agreement Execution, you will need to first work with our team to set up a new interest agreement template. Get started by navigating to Documents > Templates.

Request a new template by clicking on the button on this page.

You need to provide us with the following items to set up a new template:

• An interest agreement template document in .docx format

  • Include a line for where the holder should sign
  • Include a pre-populated company signature, if applicable (Carta does not populate any signatures besides that of the holder)

• A list of fields for Carta to auto-populate in the document

  • Today, we can populate any issuance and holder data and certain data relevant to the account and entity

Once your template has been set up, Carta Staff will notify you and you can use it to issue new interests. Watch our demo video to learn more.

How do I learn more or get help?

For more information on interest agreement templates, please read our support article.

What’s new?

We're introducing an easy way for new Carta Total Comp users to send their first offer letter in just a few clicks. With our new guided onboarding experience, you can get the most out of CTC immediately.

The setup guide will be marked as complete for users with Offer Letters already set up. 

Get started 

You must have "Full Admin" permissions to set up Offer Letters.

1. Navigate to the Offer Letters page and click “Get started.”
   
   
2. Complete the guided onboarding experience to personalize your Offer Letter for your company.
   
   
3. Once you complete your setup, all Admins, Area Leads, and Recruiters will be able to draft, preview, and send Offer Letters. 

Learn more

Visit the Carta Offer Letters resource center for more details.

If you have additional questions about Offer Letters? Please reach out to your Account Manager or contact our Support Team.

What's new?

We are introducing automated refresh vesting schedules in-app. Now, all private companies have a template ready for refresh vesting, a schedule that mimics Carta's equity strategy of boxcar grants. 

How does it work?

On the vesting schedule templates page (Securities > Templates > Vesting Schedules), you can edit the Refresh Vesting to select when grants under this schedule should start vesting. See detailed instructions to manage vesting templates here.

You will have options from 1 to 4 years after the issue date.

You are all set! 

Now, you can start adding, modifying or applying the Refresh Vesting when issuing new securities, and we will automatically calculate and input the vesting start date for you, based on the criteria selected on the template.

Where can I learn more?

Visit this support article or contact us via the In-App Help Center.

What's new?

Share Class Conversions are now self-serve on Carta.

What’s important about this change?

Skip contacting Support for share class conversions. With our new self-service tool, your law firm will be able to complete this for you in minutes.

Select individual shares, or convert entire share classes when needed. Once the shares classes are converted, Carta handles canceling the existing certificates, issuing new stock certificates, and guiding signatories and security holders through the process of executing signatures. 

What do I need to do?

This feature is currently in beta with law firms and we are releasing it to more users on a rolling basis. By April 2023, all company legal admins will have access to in-app share class conversions too.

If you need to perform a share class conversion, reach out to your outside counsel. If you don’t have a law firm, contact Carta Support using the In-App Help Center.

How do I learn more or get help?

Visit this support article to learn more about the step-by-step process. 

What's new?

Carta now helps private company administrators coordinate the settlement of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs). The end-to-end offering allows an Issuer to:

• configure and schedule a RSU Settlement;
• provide RSU holders with an election period to identify how they want to pay the tax withholding obligation associated with the upcoming settlement;
• collect any cash payments from RSU holders; and
• automatically update the cap table at settlement.

During the election period, RSU holders are invited to access a workflow to view their vested RSUs along with the tax withholding amounts due at settlement. They have the flexibility to meet their tax obligation by electing to net-settle, pay the full amount in cash, or use a combination of surrendered shares and cash. 

This offering helps facilitate the RSU settlement process from setup to share delivery for private Issuers that award RSUs under their equity compensation plans.

How does it work?

Issuers

Private company administrators can go through a four-step process to configure an upcoming RSU Settlement with Carta Liquidity. Issuers can:

• set the parameters of the settlement (e.g., FMV, election timing, settlement date); 
• view and confirm the RSUs that will be included based on the vesting end date (i.e., record date); and 
• view and confirm tax withholding amounts associated with the settlement. 

Issuers can set rates to use when calculating tax withholdings owed based on each RSU holder’s tax jurisdiction(s). Carta Liquidity’s integration with Carta’s equity management platform and tax engine eliminates the need for the administrator to pull and sort cap table information manually or calculate tax withholdings for each RSU holder. Alternatively, Issuer’s can provide tax withholding amounts calculated by their HRIS provider for use in the settlement.

RSU holders

When the administrators invite RSU holders to submit their elections, RSU holders will be able to view which of their RSUs will be settled and the tax withholding amount due per security. In addition, individuals will identify how they would like to satisfy the tax withholding amount owed through a self-service election workflow. 

The three tax withholding payment options include:  

• Share withholding (i.e., net settlement) - The entire tax withholding amount is paid by surrendering a portion of shares from the vested RSUs released for settlement. The net amount of shares after withholding will be delivered to a RSU holder at settlement. This is the default option.
• Cash payment - The entire tax withholding amount is paid by a RSU holder in cash (only USD is accepted). RSU holders are required to fund their brokerage account in order to make this election.
• Share and cash payment - Each RSU holder identifies the mix of cash and shares that will be used to pay the taxes due at settlement, providing them more flexibility. RSU holders are required to fund their brokerage account in order to make this election.

For any cash elections, RSU holders are instructed to transfer the necessary cash to their Carta Liquidity brokerage account*. RSU holders are able to modify their election until the end of the election period. 

At settlement, Carta Liquidity’s integration with Carta’s equity management platform automatically updates an Issuer’s cap table to reflect the shares of stock delivered to RSU holders, and any cash payments received to cover applicable tax obligations will be transferred automatically to the Issuer’s brokerage account. RSU holders will then receive their resulting equity from the Issuer in their Carta accounts. In addition, Carta Liquidity will provide a record of the RSU settlement to both the Issuer and RSU holders. 

Run regular RSU settlement processes with automatic cap table updates and tax withholding calculations, saving your team time and resources 

The RSU Settlement offering will:

• Reduce the manual administrative work required to set up a regular cadence of RSU settlement through equity management and tax engine integrations
• Provide RSU holders flexibility to choose how they would like to meet their tax withholding obligations through a self-service election workflow
• Provide optionality to RSU holders to pay out of pocket for the amount they feel comfortable paying.

Start managing RSU Settlements on Carta!

Reach out to company_coverage@cartacapitalmarkets.com to speak with your relationship manager to turn on this feature. 

*Note: Brokerage accounts and other brokerage services are offered through Carta Capital Markets, LLC (Member: FINRA/SIPC)

What’s new

CTC customers can now send Offer Letters to candidates with a simple URL link if they are not using Carta’s candidate acceptance flow. This will allow companies to send Offer Letters to candidates via an existing email thread with a candidate or additional signatory tool of their choosing. 

Get started 

How do I send an offer letter via link?

1. Navigate to the Offer Letters page
   
   
2. Draft, preview, and save an offer letter by clicking “Create new offer”.

 3. Once you have saved your offer letter, click “Copy link”, the URL can be pasted and shared to grant access to the published Offer Letter.

Learn more

Visit the Carta Offer Letters resource center for more details.

Have additional questions about Carta Offer Letters? Reach out to your Account Manager or contact our Support Team.

What’s new

All CTC customers can now save time by seamlessly previewing and sending Offer Letters straight from the Bands tab. 

• Companies who have configured the required settings for Offer Letters send Offer Letters faster with pre-filled job and compensation package details .
• For companies who have not configured Offer Letter settings, a preview of an Offer Letter with a recommended compensation package will be provided. Admins can always quickly configure Offer Letters settings in the Settings tab. 

Get started 

How do I send an Offer Letter from the Bands page?

Here’s how to get started: 

1. Navigate to the Bands page.

2. Click on the Job Breakdown for a particular Role.

3. Click “Create offer” to be shown a preview offer letter with a recommended compensation package based on your company’s Plan information, specific for that Role.

4. Companies who have already configured the required Offer Letter settings will be redirected to the “Create New Offer” page with pre-filled salary and Role information.

Companies who have not configured the required Offer Letter settings will be shown a preview of an Offer Letter for the specific Role. Admins can click “Send your first offer” to be guided on how to configure the required Offer Letter settings before sending your company’s first Carta Offer Letter.

Learn more

Visit the Carta Offer Letters resource center for more details.

Have additional questions about Carta Offer Letters? Reach out to your Account Manager or contact our Support Team.

What’s New

When a user’s bank account does not have sufficient funds to pay for the exercise via ACH, Carta will warn the user when reviewing the exercise. The user will have the option to change the selected bank account, lower the amount of options to exercise, or proceed with the exercise.

Additional improvements to the review exercise page better highlight key details of the exercise, reducing the need for scrolling. The UI also now explicitly states that the total represents a cost to the user.

Users choosing to proceed are then given a final message that an underfunded exercise may be canceled.

Who this affects

This feature is available to employees who have set up their ACH bank account on Carta through Plaid. 

How it works

Carta is using Plaid Balance to confirm the available balance of the associated bank account prior to submitting the exercise request. No account balance information is stored on Carta. This feature does not block users from submitting exercise requests, rather warns them about the potential risk of a canceled exercise.

What happens if the selected bank account doesn’t have enough money for the exercise? 
We now warn users that their account doesn’t seem to have enough money to cover the exercise cost. We allow them to proceed anyway, as they could potentially add funds to the account before Carta attempts to pull the funds. If it turns out there are insufficient funds, we will cancel the exercise.

How does Carta know how much money is in my bank account?
By connecting a bank account through Plaid, we can use Plaid’s APIs to retrieve real-time balance information at the time of the exercise request. Checking the accounts available balance represents the predicted balance net of any pending transactions. This type of information is often used to protect against overdrafts and non-sufficient funds fees. For more information on Plaid Balance, see here.

What if I manually connected my bank account?
Users can always connect their bank accounts manually instead of using Plaid. For these users we cannot know their available balance and they will not receive any warnings about insufficient funds.

Timing

• 12/21/2022 - Released to 25% of users, with general availability by the end of January

How do I learn more or get help?

Visit Carta Support for more details on Exercising Using ACH and Setting Up Your Bank Account

What’s new?

We have 3 exciting updates now available in Carta Total Comp. You can now use: 

• Refreshed equity benchmarks
• Benchmarks for 4 new specializations 
• Benchmark version selector (Bands page)

View new job area specializations

Users will now be able to view and use new salary and equity benchmarks for the following specializations:

• Office Management (within Administration) 
• Recruiting (within HR) 
• Digital Marketing (within Marketing)
• Partnerships (within Strategy)

Note: Our sample size for new specializations  can be smaller than job area benchmarks, which could result in data volatility as we continue to update the data and grow our overall sample size. 

How do I see benchmarks for the additional specializations?

You can view benchmarks for the Digital Marketing specialization by:

1. Visiting the Bands page and selecting “Marketing” under Area. Once the marketing job area is selected, you can select the digital marketing specializations by selecting the Specialization dropdown.

1. This will allow you to view salary/equity bands for levels 1 - 7 for the Digital Marketing specialization.  
   
   
2. The above process can be followed for each of the new specializations.

How do benchmarks for the additional 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 Administrative (Office Management), HR (Recruiting), Marketing (Digital Marketing), Strategy (Partnerships) specializations will now be calculated using the target compensation for the specialization not the job area.

Use refreshed equity benchmarks version 2022-12-20

What changes can I expect from these benchmarks?

We have updated equity benchmarks for all job areas and specializations. These benchmarks are a reflection of the current market, characterized by limited fundraising, a slowdown in hiring, and a potential decrease in some company valuations. As a result, these benchmarks show decreases in target equity compensation. This is due to having a higher concentration in earlier stage valuations and more junior level roles. Equity benchmarks across mid-to-late stage companies and more senior level roles are flat to slightly above our previous benchmarks. Looking forward to 2023, assuming the overall environment remains the same, we would anticipate continued volatility and potential decreases in equity benchmarks.

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

You can update your compensation plan to use the latest benchmark versions in one of two ways: 

1. Navigating to  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.

View the current market without affecting your Scorecard

Carta is focused on providing your business with the latest market compensation data. We understand that your plan is tied to a point-in-time, making your benchmark version an integral part of your compensation philosophy. We also understand that viewing future versions can help in understanding the current market, headcount planning, and more. Carta is excited to announce that you can now access the latest compensation benchmarks without updating your Plan. 

The Bands page will now default to Carta Total Compensation’s latest benchmarks. However, regardless of what is selected on the Bands page, the Scorecard will remain associated with your selected Plan’s benchmark. Users can easily toggle between the latest benchmarks and those associated with their compensation plan using the Benchmark version dropdown. How do I toggle the Bands page to display the benchmark associated with my Plan?

1. Visit the Bands page and click the Benchmark version dropdown. 
   
   
2. Select “Default Plan” to view the Bands page using the benchmark associated with your compensation plan. 
   
   

What’s next?

Carta Total Comp is working on international geo-adjustments.