If you’re in charge of running a company’s finances or managing its rewards and benefits or compliance, we know you have lots on your plate. There\u2019s so much to keep track of \u2013 staff, the accounts, the price points, the overheads, and much, much more. You need to keep an eye on your competitors, the market, and the various trends that affect your product and your people. Prepping for funding rounds, keeping investors happy…it’s full-on, we get it.<\/p>\n
With all those other things to juggle, it can be easy to let cap table management and maintenance slip to the bottom of your to-do list. It can be easy to fall into an old trap: the Excel spreadsheet cap table.<\/p>\n
We have one word of advice: don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Your cap table is your ownership. But it\u2019s more than that, it\u2019s the story of your company \u2013 it is <\/em>your company. It\u2019s far too important to put into a spreadsheet that’s stored in a folder, or that has various different versions of it floating around in various email chains.<\/p>\n Your cap table should be a living, breathing representation of the ownership of your company: your single source of truth about who owns how many stocks or shares. As you grow, and as you go through funding rounds, your cap table should reflect every change, and the key stakeholders should have visibility over how those changes and dilutions impact their equity.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s why you should use a cap table management tool, like Global Shares, rather than Excel.<\/p>\n This is probably the first reason you might be tempted to go for an Excel spreadsheet \u2013 it\u2019s free. But here\u2019s the thing \u2013 the money you save upfront by using it, you spend on labour-intensive, repetitive tasks. An Excel spreadsheet won’t update automatically when people leave the company or after a funding round.<\/p>\n Using a spreadsheet will cost you money in the long term.<\/p>\n As your company grows, your share ownership will grow more complex. You\u2019ll give shares to new joiners, you\u2019ll have good leavers and bad leavers, maybe a founder or two will leave. That\u2019s before you even start thinking about investors.<\/p>\n Investors need to trust your cap table. The amount of issued equity directly affects how much their investment is worth. It needs to be accurate.<\/p>\n An inaccurate cap table can break a potential investment deal.\u00a0<\/p>\n Excel is manual. Whoever is managing it will hopefully keep track of all the changes to shares and shareholders.<\/p>\n And what if they make a mistake? Even if it\u2019s tiny, as the shares grow, they grow on top of that mistake. Now, your entire ownership is false. A spreadsheet can\u2019t show you where the problem happened. If you\u2019ve taken on investors, they\u2019ve been given incorrect information. There is no audit trail.<\/p>\n Not to mention, even without errors, maintenance will take an increasing amount of time \u2013 tedious, manual time.<\/p>\n With Global Shares, you don\u2019t have these problems. You have automated shareholder visibility, automated termination rules and vesting schedules \u2013 everything automated, everything accurate, and everything lightning-fast.<\/p>\n And just in case, you have a historical audit log of all changes made and version control.\u00a0<\/p>\n Eventually, you\u2019re going to need to show your cap table to other people, employees, investors, VCs. With Excel, how do you keep your data confidential and secure \u2013 how do you make sure that each person only sees what they need to, based on their role? You\u2019d have to create a new spreadsheet that only shows the relevant information.<\/p>\n Which means that you no longer have a single source of truth. When ownership changes, you\u2019ll need to update your spreadsheet. It\u2019s not impossible, but it leaves a lot of room for error.<\/p>\n With Global Shares, you have secure role-based access on individual online portals for all users. They have full visibility, but they only see what they need to see. And the most important part is right there in the name \u2013 a single source of truth. <\/em>With Excel, a single source of truth doesn\u2019t exist, so investors can only hope that all the information is correct and updated. With Global Shares, investors know they\u2019re looking at the truth.<\/p>\n When you\u2019re in the middle of high growth and funding rounds, it can be hard to look towards the future when the day-to-day can be so hectic.<\/p>\n With Excel, looking towards the future is even harder. If an investor makes you an offer, a spreadsheet won\u2019t help – at least, not without a lot of tedious calculations.<\/p>\n With Global Shares, you have access to automated and calculated round modelling so you can see exactly how a new funding round or offer could may impact your company. You can run, name, duplicate and save multiple scenarios simultaneously. It is also possible to break up the proposed investment among new and existing investors.<\/p>\n Excel doesn\u2019t save time, money or future hassle \u2013 not in the short term, not in the long term. A spreadsheet can never be a part of a team.<\/p>\nExcel costs you more in the long run<\/h2>\n
Spreadsheet = Mistakes<\/h2>\n
You need a Single Source of Truth<\/h2>\n
Our platform also serves as a single source of truth for documentation. All the documents are stored in one secure online system, where they can be accessed as necessary.<\/p>\nGet investment ready<\/h2>\n