Have you calculated your company’s stock option expenses?

As a part of employee compensation, many companies offer stock options to their employees. The stock option offers employees the right to buy and sell shares from the company’s stock at a specific price. Check out our support article on how to issue options on Eqvista. 

The new ASC 718 generates a Stock Option Expense report calculating the total expense from the company’s stock options.

Note: the ASC 718 feature is only available for premium account holders. Kindly upgrade your account to unlock this feature. 

Here are the steps to follow:

Step 1: Log into your Eqvista account and select the company account to generate the ASC 718 report

Eqvista login

From the dashboard, click on “Compliance” on the left-hand side to get a drop-down menu and select “ASC 718”

ASC 718

Step 2: Once you select, you will see the report description. To download a sample report for preview, click “Sample Report” at the bottom of the page as shown below. 

Sample Report

Step 3: The report gets downloaded as a PDF in your Downloads. 

PDF in your Downloads

Double-click the PDF file to open the downloaded report

open PDF file

Step 4: Then, you can begin the process of creating a report. You begin by selecting an IPO company similar to your business. The API is connected to stock markets around the world. Check out our support article to learn how to search for public companies in the ASC 718 report.

In this case, we are going to type the first few letters of the company’s name in the space provided. 

Company name

After selecting the company name, click “+” to add the company name as shown below. 

Add companies

To remove the selected company, click on “Remove”.


Step 5: Next, select the date period for your company’s expense report. Suppose it is a calendar year, enter from January to December and for the financial year, enter April to March. 

select the date period

Step 6: After filling in the date, enter the forfeiture rate

The forfeiture rate is a percentage of stock options that are expected to be forfeited or canceled before they vest and become exercisable. The rate is forfeited shares divided by the granted shares to show the percentage of shares forfeited. 

If you have no history or previous data, then an acceptable rate is usually 5% or 10%.

 forfeiture rate

Step 7: Finally, enter the fair market value. 

Note: If you do not enter fair market value from 409a valuation, default market value will be used for grants. 

enter the fair market value

After filling in the details, click “Cap Table Report”

The report gets downloaded and can be viewed in the Excel sheet. Check out our support guide to understand the details of the downloaded form.

For more information on Eqvista’s processes, check out our support articles or contact us today!

Interested in issuing & managing shares?

If you want to start issuing and managing shares, Try out our Eqvista App, it is free and all online!