A sunny, bank holiday update from Vestd

Our product team works hard to make your life easier and we’ve recently introduced a few new features that you should know about.

The new option scheme designer

This allows you to set up the various scheme rules really easily, and then quickly allocate new options to individuals. There is no simpler way of designing an options scheme.

The scheme designer works with EMI or unapproved options. Once you have authorised your option pool and given your scheme a name you can:

• Add new recipients
• Set the exercise price
• Determine how and when the options can be exercised
• Define any qualifying criteria for individual participants
• Set the vesting schedule and cliff dates

For more details aim here.

Confirmation statements

The Vestd platform automates the creation and submission of your annual confirmation statement to Companies House. It also pays them the designated fee!

Because our platform has full two-way integration with Companies House there are no forms to be filled in, no stamps to buy, and no letterboxes to locate. This makes Vestd unique.

We’ve just added a new feature to allow you to see the status of your confirmation statements all year round. You can trigger additional ones if required.

Just look for the link on the bottom left of your company details page to access these statements.

Help guides

There’s no doubt that sharing equity is complicated and there are some serious pitfalls to avoid.

Our mission is to simplify employee share schemes and equity distribution, so that UK entrepreneurs and company directors can reward key people by sharing ownership.

Education is a big part of this. Our team has helped hundreds of startups and SMEs to manage their equity in a tax-efficient, compliant manner. We have a lot of insight to share, and have recently created some easy-to-read guides to help you.

There are lots of platform-specific help guides, so you can self-manage your scheme via our user-friendly interface.

Here are three for starters:

• How to authorise an option pool
• How to authorise a share pool
• How to create EMI agreements

There are plenty of others in our help centre.

The Joy of EMI Option Schemes

We also have a new guide for launching an EMI scheme, should you want to read about the benefits of these incredibly tax-friendly (and potentially zero-cost) option schemes.

If you have any ideas about what we could do to improve our platform then please drop us a line. We would love to hear from you.

Have a great bank holiday weekend!