Outsourced Equity Administration
Outsourced equity administration, handled by people who do it every day.
Sundial provides fractional equity administrators who manage your cap table, equity awards, and equity transactions as an extension of your finance, legal, HR, or operations team. We're not another cap table software platform. We're the team that does the work inside the one you already have.
What It Is
What is outsourced equity administration?
Equity administration is the ongoing work of keeping a company's ownership records accurate and its equity programs running: recording option grants and share issuances, tracking vesting, processing exercises and terminations, recording financings and conversions, and producing the reports that finance, legal, auditors, investors, and employees ask for.
Larger companies hire a full-time stock plan administrator for this. Most startups and growing private companies don't have enough volume to justify that role, so the work ends up spread across a founder, a finance lead, outside counsel, or whoever last logged into the cap table platform. That is usually how cap tables drift out of sync with the board approvals and legal documents behind them.
With outsourced equity administration, a specialist team takes ownership of that work. Sundial acts as your fractional equity administrator: we keep the cap table current, handle equity transactions as they come up, and coordinate with your attorneys and accountants so everyone is working from the same records.
What We Handle
Equity administration services
Ongoing administration and one-time projects, scoped to what your company actually needs.
Cap table maintenance
Day-to-day cap table upkeep and periodic reconciliations against board consents, charter documents, and financing records, so the cap table reflects what was actually approved and issued.
Stock option and equity award administration
Issuing stock options, restricted stock, and other equity awards, setting up vesting schedules correctly, and keeping award records aligned with the grant documents and board approvals.
Equity transactions
Processing exercises, terminations, cancellations, repurchases, and transfers, including post-termination exercise windows and the records that go with each transaction.
Equity plan and option pool administration
Tracking option pool availability against the plan and charter, flagging when the pool is running low, and keeping plan records ready for increases, amendments, and board approvals.
Financings and conversions
Recording priced rounds, SAFE and convertible note conversions, and the resulting share issuances, plus cap table, dilution, and pro forma modeling ahead of a financing.
Equity reporting and stakeholder requests
Reports and data for finance, auditors, investors, and counsel, and answers to employee questions about grants, vesting, and exercises.
Cap table audits and clean-up
Auditing the cap table against legal documents and historical transactions, then correcting discrepancies and reconstructing missing history. Start with a free audit.
Platform implementation and migration
Setting up a new cap table platform or moving between platforms, such as from a spreadsheet to Carta or from one provider to another, while preserving historical accuracy.
409A valuation coordination
Gathering the cap table and equity information a valuation provider needs, then applying the new fair market value to future grants. More on valuations.
A service, not another software platform.
Cap table software stores your records and automates parts of the process. It doesn't decide how a transaction should be recorded, notice that a grant never received board approval, or reconcile the platform against your legal documents. That work still needs a person who understands equity.
Sundial works fluently across Carta, Pulley, Mantle, Ledgy, Eqvista, Qapita, and other platforms, so you don't need to switch tools to work with us.
Ways To Work Together
Support that matches how your equity work actually arrives.
One-time project
A defined piece of work, such as a cap table clean-up, a platform migration, or recording a financing and its SAFE conversions.
Periodic support
Help when transactions come up: a batch of new hires to grant, a departing employee's exercise, or a board approval to reflect on the cap table.
Ongoing administration
Sundial owns day-to-day equity administration and keeps your records current between financings, as a fractional member of your team.
Who We Work With
A fit for growing private companies.
Earlier Stage
Setting up or cleaning up
Implementing a cap table, issuing equity for the first time, converting SAFEs or notes, or preparing for a first priced round.
Growing Companies
Recurring equity activity
Multiple financing rounds, a growing equity plan, and regular grants, exercises, and reporting requests.
Lean Teams
No in-house equity specialist
Finance, legal, and operations teams that need equity expertise without adding a headcount line.
Law Firms
Supporting startup clients
Firms that want cap table administration handled outside the legal team while attorneys stay focused on legal work.
How It Works
Getting started with Sundial.
Share your cap table
Send current records or platform access, however incomplete or out of date they are.
Assessment and plan
We review structure, history, and gaps, then outline what needs fixing and what ongoing support should look like.
Ongoing administration
We maintain grants, transactions, and reporting as your company raises, hires, and grows.
Frequently Asked Questions
Questions about outsourced equity administration
What does an outsourced equity administrator do?
How is a fractional equity administrator different from hiring a stock plan administrator?
Is Sundial a cap table software platform?
Does Sundial replace our lawyers?
Can we use Sundial for a single project instead of ongoing support?
How is pricing structured?
Related Services
More ways Sundial can help
Carta Consulting
Carta administration, clean-up, and implementation from experienced Carta administrators.
Learn more →Free Cap Table Audit
A complimentary review of your cap table, with written findings and a review call.
Learn more →409A Valuation Support
Coordination of the 409A process, from information gathering to applying the new FMV.
Learn more →Ready to hand off your equity administration?
Tell us where things stand today and we'll outline what it takes to get your cap table accurate and keep it that way.
Talk to an Equity Administrator