Ownership: shares, transactions and incentives

Methods and settings

Start with the shared share ledger

Activate the required tools and build Cap Table holders and securities first. Transactions require a reconciled opening Cap Table. ESOP also uses the same transaction sequence; activating it enables its required Cap Table and transaction tools. A founder/investor structure and an aggregate public-company float use the same holder×security model.

Cap Table and ESOP records are shared

Cap Table balances, ESOP pools/grants and Equity Transaction prices remain shared across Model scenarios. Their Valuation scenario selector changes the linked Value source, not those share records or a funding-round price. A lower DCF equity value can lower holder value without changing ownership percentages. Listed Shares & Capital Returns instead supports its own scenario-specific capital events and assumptions.

Experiment, review and apply deliberately

Equity Transactions and ESOP derive closing ownership from the shared opening ledger. Editing the analysis does not replace that opening ledger. Review and Apply closing explicitly to make closing shares, pools and grants the new opening state. This does not post cash or equity entries to the financial statements or rewrite linked valuations.

Use a financial analysis, not a legal register

The system supports share-count and simplified equal-economic allocation analysis. It does not implement liquidation preferences, complex conversion rights, legal corporate-action processing or option fair-value accounting. Save/export the model through the normal model workflow. Comments can explain holder, security, transaction and pool assumptions, but do not encode enforceable rights.

A separate listed-company convention

Use Listed Shares & Capital Returns for listed-company history, forecast shares, TSM, simple if-converted dilution and integrated buybacks/dividends/issuance/SBC. Its capital assumptions can differ by scenario and affect statements and DCF shares. The shared-ledger, Apply closing and ownership-only cash rules above describe Cap Table, Equity Transactions and ESOP; they do not describe this optional integrated schedule. See Stock analysis for the complete workflow.