If you hold equity from a company that uses Carta for equity management, this guide can assist you in finding all of your details.
If you are an employee with equity, Carta offers a user-friendly platform that allows you to access details of your vested and unvested shares, stock options, and other important equity-related information. This article provides a step-by-step guide for navigating Carta's web interface (carta.com) to find all the essential details about your equity holdings.
💡 To effortlessly add your equity from Carta, simply connect your account.
If you do not want to connect your Carta account, you can manually enter your equity details. We recommend that you take note of all the information from Carta before you start adding your equity to Secfi.
If this is your first time accessing your Carta account, we recommend referring to Carta's help article to familiarize yourself with the Carta interface.
Once you log into your Carta account, you will be able to view your portfolio. If you have stock grants from multiple companies, scroll down to the company that you are trying to find the details of.
Company details
1. Company name: This is the name of the company that has issued the equity grants.
2. Most recent FMV: The current FMV refers to the latest 409A/FMV(Fair Market Value) of your company.
3. List of Grants: This is a comprehensive list of all the grants issued by the company, including any options you have exercised. When adding your equity information to Secfi, you will need to add one grant at a time.
Grant details
To find your grant details, select the grant you wish to add to Secfi from the list of grants. This should take you to a screen as shown below if your grant type is ISO, NSO, or RSU. Alternatively, you can click on "Details" in the left side navigation panel to access your grant details.
1. Grant name: You can choose to use either the actual grant name you see here or a nickname when adding the grant to your Secfi account. The purpose of the grant name in your Secfi account is to help you easily identify the grant while using the tools, calculators, planner, or when requesting financing.
2. Exercised options: If you have been issued an option grant (ISO or NSO) and you have exercised it, you will see a banner that links to your share certificate. Under the "Option grant holder" section, your "Status" will also show your option exercise status. The table below maps out the values and their meanings.
| Status | What it means |
| Outstanding | You have not exercised any of your stock options |
| Exercise in progress | You have initiated an exercises that is currently pending |
| Partially exercised | You have exercised some of the options in this grant |
| Fully exercised | You have exercised all of the options in this grant |
| Forfeited | Options that have been forfeited because of termination |
For a full list of statuses, please refer to Carta's guide.
3. Number of stocks issued: This is the total number of stocks that have been granted. You should use this quantity when adding a grant to Secfi, even if you have exercised some or all of the options in this grant. In the example above, 400,000 options were granted to this user.
4. Type of grant: If you have an ISO, NSO or RSU grant, you will be able to view the type of grant here. In the above example, the user was issued a NSO grant.
5. Strike price: When dealing with ISOs, NSOs, and shares, you will be able to view the strike price, also known as the exercise price. This is the price per share that you will pay to exercise an option or purchase a share. In the above example, the user's strike price is $0.20 per share. Keep in mind that RSUs do not have a strike price.
Vesting details
Next, click on the "Vesting schedule" option in the navigation panel on the left side.
1. Vesting period: The schedule name contains information about the vesting period and cliff. In the above example, "1/48 monthly" indicates that your stocks will vest over 48 months, and the frequency of vesting is monthly.
2. Vesting start date: The vesting start date refers to the first day when your stocks begin to vest.
3. Cliff: If you have a cliff, it will be shown here. In the above example, this grant has a cliff of 1 year, which means that no stocks will vest before the end of this 1-year period. If the user leaves the company before that time, they will not be entitled to any of the stocks as part of this grant. If your grant does not show a row called "Cliff," it means that you have no cliff period, which is great news!
4. Vesting frequency: In the case of a cliff, this indicates how often your stocks vest after the cliff period.
5. Early exercise: If you have been issued stock options (ISOs or NSOs) and your company allows early exercise, it will be indicated as 'Yes' in your grant. If your grant does not have a row called "early exercise", it means that your grant is not early exercisable. If you have been issued RSUs or Shares, early exercise does not apply to you.
Exercise details
Exercise details only apply if you have option grants, such as ISOs or NSOs. If you have been issued RSUs or Shares, this section does not apply to you.
Your exercise information is split across two locations. To find the post-termination exercise period, click on "Exercise periods" in the left navigation panel.
1. Post termination exercise period: The period mentioned for "Voluntary Termination" indicates how long after leaving the company you can continue to exercise your vested options. In the example above, the user can exercise their options anytime up to 60 months after leaving the company.
For all other exercise information, we recommend the following path: Go to "Details" for the grant that you have exercised and click on the banner at the top of the page to access your exercise details.
If you have multiple exercises, you will have to add them to your Secfi account one at a time by repeating the steps below for each exercise event.
Clicking on the banner will open the share certificate screen, as shown below.
To access your grant details, click on "Exercise record" in the left side navigation panel.
1. Date of exercise: This is the date when you exercised your options and is used to calculate whether you owe long-term or short-term capital gains tax (if any). In this case, it is March 24th, 2022.
2. Number of options exercised: This is the number of options that were exercised, which is 400,000 in this case.
3. FMV on the date of exercise: This value is used to calculate taxes when selling exercised shares. In this scenario, the FMV when the options were exercised was $0.20.
Once you have gathered all the important information about your equity holdings as stated above, you can effortlessly add it to your Secfi account and get access to all the insights from our tools and planners or request financing or advice ❤️
💡 To make the process even simpler, you can link your Carta account to avoid manually inputting each grant and exercise detail one at a time. This will save you time and ensure that all of your equity information is accurately and efficiently transferred to your Secfi account.