Introduction
Issuing shares is the process of creating and allocating actual equity shares to stakeholders. Unlike granting options or phantom shares (which give the right to receive equity in the future), issuing shares immediately transfers ownership of shares to the recipient.
This article explains when to issue shares, how to issue shares individually or in bulk, and how to manage share issuance transactions in Ledgy.
Who can issue shares: You need to be an account admin in Ledgy to create and manage share issuance transactions.
How to issue shares one by one?
Go to Ownership > Transactions
At the top, click on the button Add transactions > Issue Shares
A window will open, and you can define the details of the share issuance transaction.
Basic fields:
Stakeholder: Select the name of the stakeholder or legal entity from the drop-down menu. You can also create a new stakeholder by typing the name.
Date: The date when you issue the shares.
Number of shares: Enter the amount of shares that you want to create.
Share class: Select an existing share class from the drop-down menu or create a new one by typing in a new share class name.
Price paid per share class: Enter the effective share price paid by the investor.
Currency: The currency used for the investment. If the currency differs from the account's base currency, then you must define the exchange rate.
Share number: Unique identifier number for the share issued
Optional fields
Share certificates: Enter the certificate ID so you can integrate the ID into your share certificate when you use the document certificate workflow.
Holding Period: The minimum length of time that shares must be held by the recipient before they can be sold, transferred, or otherwise disposed of.
Documents & signatures: You can use a template for creating documents and attach documents
If you do use a template for creating documents, you can activate the respective checkboxes if you would like to create a transaction document(s) from templates and prepare signature requests for the same transaction documents. To learn more about how to use workflow automation, read our article.
Vesting:
You can add a vesting schedule - please see the following guide for further information.
Stakeholder beneficiary: A beneficiary is an economic beneficiary behind a legal entity. You can view the cap table regarding legal or economic distribution if beneficiaries are set. This can also be used in Ledgy to manage pooled investments.
Custom Field:
Please see the following article if you wish to connect custom fields to your Ledgy account.
Internal note: If you want to add any note related to the transaction
Press the Save button to create the share issuance transaction finally.
How to issue shares in bulk?
Go to Ownership > Transactions
At the top, click on the Import button > Select the "Share issuance" template.
This allows you to download an Excel template that you can populate, save, and drop into the data upload box below.
Start the import process by clicking on the Import now button.
How do you edit share issuance transactions?
Go to Ownership > Transactions
Search for the corresponding share issuance transaction, click the three dots, and then on Edit.
This allows you to make changes in the share issuance transaction.
Click on the Save button to confirm the adjustments.