We’ve made some improvements

Beginning in May 2023, we are launching a new navigation experience - making it easier than ever to navigate your cap table, create and issue new securities, and manage relations with your stakeholders.

We are testing this experience with a select list of companies. Companies in this test will now navigate Carta’s equity management platform from the left-hand side. We are using this test to iterate on any improvements that need to be made and hope to roll out to 100% of new and existing companies by Summer 2023.

The new menu can also be collapsed for an optimized viewing experience by clicking the menu icon to the right of the Filter text box once you’ve landed in the right spot.

Finding what you need just got easier

The new navigation will make it easier for you to find what you’re looking for and complete critical tasks, with menu categories that are more intuitive and organized according to the type of task that needs to be completed within Carta. 

Terminology that just makes sense

We have also updated some of the terminology that appears throughout the Carta platform to clarify specific tasks and workflows. The changes that we’ve made are outlined in the table below.

FAQs

Why is Carta making this change? 

Carta offers a wide range of products and services, and users sometimes get  lost as they look through menu items in an effort to find the workflow or platform page they need to access. We understand that time is money, and the less time you spend locating the resources you need frees up more time for you to spend growing and managing your company. The new left-side menu enables users to have an immediate comprehensive view of Carta’s functionality with clearer verbiage, menu filtering, and collapsible dropdowns. 

Can I revert back to the old navigation experience? 

No. Our research has shown that our new navigation menu is not only more intuitive for users, but also faster. Beginning in May 2023, Carta is fully migrating away from the top navigation menu. We plan to be rolled out to 100% of companies by July 2023.

How do I use the new navigation experience to find what I’m looking for? 

The new navigation experience includes a filter to assist you in finding what you’re looking for. The menu will responsively pare down as characters are entered in the text box.

Additionally, left-side navigation enables you to expand and collapse multiple dropdowns at the same time, allowing for a more comprehensive overview of Carta’s functionality at a glance.

Did Carta remove any features? 

No. While the new menu may look more compact than in our current experience, all of the features that you have come to rely on are included in the new navigation. The goal of this initiative is not to change the functionality of Carta’s cap table, but rather, to make that functionality easier for you to find.

Starting today, we are launching a new feature that will reduce the ACH transaction processing time for money movements on Carta by 33%. Previously, most ACH transfers took 6-7 business days to complete. We have made a few infrastructure changes to reduce transfer times by up to 2 business days. 

Who is this for? 

This change will impact all private and public corporations who move money directly on Carta, as well as holders of securities from these firms. LLCs will not be impacted by this change. 

How long will my transfers take? 

There is a slight variation in how long ACH transfers will take depending on what type of transaction the company or holder is making. The estimated processing times for the following transactions are below:

• SAFE Financings transactions: 4-5 business days (previously 6-7 business days)
• Private company exercises: 4-5 business days (previously 6-7 business days)
• Private company ACH repurchases: 3-4 business days (previously 5-6 business days)
• Public market trade settlements: 1 business day (previously 2 business days)
• Public markets options exercise: 4-5 business days (previously 6-7 business days)
• CINC tender offers: 1 business day (previously 2 business days)

I am a company administrator. How do I approve exercise requests in Carta?

Company administrators with the Option exercise approver role are able to individually review the submitted online option exercise requests and historical option exercises from the Transactions > Exercises page on Carta. For detailed instructions, you can check out this support article. 

I am a company administrator. How do I track early exercise requests and 83(b) elections?

Use the Filter function to select Yes for Early exercise to track 83(b) elections from the option holders. The ledger will display a filing status that depends on when the option holder originally submitted the early exercise request and whether or not the option holder explicitly chose to file an 83(b) election. Learn more about the 83(b) election. 

I hold options in a company that uses Carta to manage its equity. How do I exercise options on Carta via ACH? 

Exercising options into shares on Carta via ACH is available to US-based option holders of US private companies exercising ISOs, NSOs, or ISO/NSO split option grants. You can review detailed instructions in this support article. 

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

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. 

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 Cap Table Access 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 group of stakeholders with a specific level of access based on their relationship 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 Cap Table Access settings 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 be downgraded to Restricted automatically. This means that as stakeholders enter and exit the cap table, their respective level of cap table access will update automatically.

New Cap Table Access 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 Cap Table Access 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 Cap Table Access 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 Cap Table Access page.

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 via a limited release to select Carta companies. In the coming weeks, we will begin to migrate additional companies to the new Cap Table Access feature set. This new product is not limited by subscription tier.

Companies with the new Cap Table Access features enabled can visit Stakeholders > Cap Table Access. 

If you’d like to enable the new Cap Table Access settings for your company, you can also contact us.

Fund managers are flooded with troves of documents for every investment their fund's make. These documents house vital terms that need to be quickly referenced during deal negotiations and potential exits to answer questions like- Who has blocking rights? Keeping these documents organized and easily accessible is also key to running a stress free audit that institutional LPs can have confidence in. 

What’s New 

For our early access group, funds using the Carta General Ledger can now see their deal documents directly on their realtime SOI. For each portfolio company, easily access documents by asset including both new investments and the supporting documentation for subsequent valuation updates. 

How it works

1. Work with the Carta team to capture all deal documents

2. Click through any asset on the realtime SOI

3. See all associated deal documents and valuation support

4. View or download the actual documents to verify any needed terms. 

5. Have your Carta Fund Administrator grant your auditor access to the Carta General Ledger so they can access any documentation/support the same way.

Stay tuned as we roll this out to a bigger audience and introduce more tools to make keeping track of deal terms across a portfolio even easier. Reach out to your account manager if you would like to be considered for early access. 

Timing: Rolled out to Carta Fund Administration early access clients April 2021

Audience: CFO's, Fund Managers, Auditors, General Partners

Non-US optionholders at US private companies will now be able to send exercise payments to Carta from 3rd party money transfer providers such as Wise(formerly known as TransferWise), Revolut, Xoom, Remitly etc.

We are giving optionholders the flexibility to either send payments through 3rd party money transfer providers or through wires initiated from banking financial institution.

Who this affects:

Non-US optionholders at US companies, when international exercise via wire feature is enabled by their company

What was the problem:

When we launched the ability for optionholders to wire exercise funds to support in-app money movement, optionholders were hit with bank fees, including intermediary fees, which led to holders underfunding or overfunding their exercises.

Sometimes, optionholders had to walk to a bank to wire the exercise funds as some of the banking financial institutions did not support online wire transfer.

What’s new: 

Optionholders can use the same payment instructions provided after an exercise is approved and send funds via 3rd party money transfer providers. 

Ensure that under "Recipient gets"  in 3rd party money transfer providers you input exact USD funds required for exercise payments. If amount required for exercise does not match with received funds, exercise will be underfunded and we will require remaining funds to complete the exercise.

Once Carta receives exact funds, we initiate outgoing payment to the company. After payment to the Company is succeeded, we generate Certificate.

This feature is an additional payment option that Carta is providing for our customers

LIVE for companies that have exercising and settled via Carta feature turned on.

If you would like to have this feature added, contact Carta support!

The Health Checks Dashboard allows you to identify, understand, and take action to fix data inconsistencies in your Carta account. It is currently rolling out to select customers under “Early Access”.

This article focuses on the following topics

• Who can access the dashboard
• Where to access the dashboard
• How to navigate the dashboard
• How to fix a health check error
• FAQs

Who can access the dashboard

You must be a Company’s Legal Administrator, Company Editor, or Company Viewer to see the dashboard. Note that Company Viewers do not have the ability to edit company data, and will only have view-access to the dashboard. Learn more about permissions.

Where to access the dashboard

via the Company Summary Page
via the Company menu dropdown link

How to navigate the dashboard

Tags

Tags help you navigate to Health Checks related to a certain topic. If you select more than one tag, checks that apply to any of the tags will be displayed below.

Tabs

Required: Shows Health Checks that require attention as soon as possible and may post a transaction risk if not addressed. These reflect instances where bad data can propagate to other nodes in the Carta network is not address promptly

Recommended: Shows Health Checks that can improve the Carta experience and ensure different Carta experiences reflect consistent values.

Dismissed: Shows Health Checks that have been dismissed by users. Certain Health Checks will flag issues that may be expected discrepancies, from a company perspective. These will be dismissable

Health Check Cards

Each card will contain information on why a fix is important and instructions on where to fix the issue. Tooltips to the right of the title, contain guides to support articles and more details on how an issue can be addressed.

Fixing a Health Check Error

There are two types of Health Checks- ones that can be fixed by a company user and ones that require a Carta team member to make the underlying changes.

If a Health Check error has a modify action, you will be able to address the issues on your own.

For other health checks, we may recommend that you reach out to Carta Support to process the data change on your behalf.

FAQs

1. Will Carta continue to work, if I don’t address Health Check errors?

   1. Yes, Carta will continue to work, but you may see discrepancies in Carta tools and reports. We suggest that you address required issues as soon as you can to ensure Carta works smoothly.

2. Can Carta fix the data issues for me automatically?

   1. We take your data integrity very seriously. As such, we want to ensure all changes to data are reviewed and verified by an account owner. In some circumstances, we’ve improved the product to capture more data and need your help populating the new data fields.

3. Why is it important for me to address Health Check errors?

   1. All Carta tools depend on clean and accurate data to work correctly. For example, an expense report requires vesting schedules and stakeholder relationships to be filled out correctly. 

Managing option exercising is now easier than ever. 

All exercises are now settled through Carta—US optionholders pay via ACH, Non-US optionholders pay via a wire transfer. Carta conveniently manages payment reconciliation and payment issues such as insufficient funds or overpayments. US private companies can centrally adjust exercising via the Transaction Settings page. 

Who this affects:

• 🇺🇸  US private companies 

What's new:

• 💸 All exercises are settled with Carta - No matter where your optionholders are located, Carta will receive all funding for on-platform exercises. US holders pay for their exercise via ACH and non-US holders pay for their exercise via a wire transfer to Carta. Company admins will no longer need to mark exercises as paid. 
• ✉️Communication with optionholders - Carta communicates directly with optionholders to resolve payment issues, letting them know of an outstanding balance for an exercise or facilitating a refund for overpayment. 
• ❌ Auto-cancel unpaid exercises - If a wire exercise is unfunded or underfunded for 30 days after admin approval, the exercise will automatically be canceled. 
• ⚙️ Clear transaction settings - Control option grant exercisability easily in one central location

Timing:

• To be rolled out to all customers by the end of 2021

Action required: 

• Visit Company > Settings > Transaction Settings to opt in
• Once your company has access to this feature, you must opt in within 30 days otherwise online exercising will be disabled
• If you do not yet have access, reach out to your Customer Support Manager to get immediate access

Resources: 

• [Support Article] Enabling online transactions
• [Support Article] Exercise options via wire
• [Release notes] Exercising as non-US optionholder