Audit and Review Readiness
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Equity Compensation Plan Readiness
Assess whether stock, option, or profit-interest awards are documented, valued, and tracked well enough to support accounting, tax, and cap-table needs, and what to gather.
5 guided steps
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Official guidance links
Start the free checker
Your free guided checker
Answer a few quick questions below. It is private - nothing is submitted or stored - and takes about a minute.
Informational business diagnostic only; not accounting, audit, tax, legal, investment, lending, or valuation advice.
The questions this tool walks you through
Here is what the checker asks and why each step matters. Prefer to talk it through? Contact us and we will help directly.
Is the business a C-corporation (or an LLC or partnership rather than a corporation)?
The entity type decides the whole toolkit: corporations grant stock options and RSUs, while LLCs and partnerships use profit interests instead of options.
Structure profit interests with a threshold value and an 83(b) election, not stock options.
Official guidance: IRS equity (stock)-based compensation guide
Do you have a current independent 409A valuation dated within the last 12 months (or since your last financing)?
A 409A sets the strike price options can be granted at; without a fresh one, every option you issue carries deferred-comp penalty risk under Section 409A.
Commission a 409A valuation and pause new option grants until the strike price is defensible.
Official guidance: IRS equity (stock)-based compensation guide
Is there a board-adopted equity incentive plan document with a defined share reserve that every grant is issued under?
Options and RSUs must live inside an approved plan with a share pool; grants made outside a plan, or without board sign-off, are the most common cleanup a CPA finds.
Adopt a plan by board resolution and paper each grant with a signed agreement and approval.
Official guidance: IRS equity (stock)-based compensation guide
Does one authoritative cap table reconcile to your stock ledger, option ledger, and every signed grant agreement?
When the spreadsheet, the ledger, and the signed agreements disagree on shares outstanding or the option pool, dilution and ownership figures cannot be relied on.
Reconcile the cap table to the ledgers and signed grants before issuing anything new.
Official guidance: IRS equity (stock)-based compensation guide
Are you granting equity broadly, to rank-and-file employees rather than only a few founders or executives?
Broad-based plans need a deliberate ISO-versus-NSO-versus-RSU choice per recipient; a handful of founder grants can run on a simpler standing process.
Set a per-grant ISO-versus-NSO-versus-RSU decision rule and stand up ASC 718 expense tracking. Keep the plan, valuation, and cap table current and run a light standing grant process.
Official guidance: IRS equity (stock)-based compensation guide
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