Product Updates: August -2023

New Features

• Online Payment mode at the time of Exercising Options: Qapita has partnered with a payment gateway provider # TPSL. This will allow the employees of our     clients to make the payments while exercising their options on the platform. Application will also provide a report of all online transaction details in an excel format, which helps admin user to reconcile the payments and approve the exercise requests. This is a premium feature, please reach out to our customer support team to enable this.
• Equity Slip: This feature will enable our clients to improve their employee engagement. Equity slips are the one pager documents that gives the snapshot of count & value of options possessed by an employee and their growth over period. Admin users can now view and download the "Equity Slip” of all the active option award holders by navigating to “Equity Slip” module under “Employee Engagement”. This is a premium feature, please reach out to our customer support team to enable this.
• PAN, Aadhar, CML documents: This feature allows admin user to capture Employee documents like PAN, Aadhar and CML copy (proof of DEMAT account) within application. You can configure this feature from Stakeholder & Profile Configurations screen.
• Equity Pool and Plan - Qapita introduced the ability to update a shareholder (Equity) pool which can be linked to multiple plans. Instead of updating the balance of shares reserved and available for each plan, the admins can now create a shareholder's approval (pool) which can then be     linked to a plan or multiple plans. This helps them to manage their equity pool balance in a much better way! Also introduced the ability to configure whether the cancelled units should be added back to the equity pool or not. 
• Ability to send reminder for Acceptance, Approvals & Acceptance and Approvals through Select Action in the Equity Award Grid – SAR Awards
• New email notifications to employees:
      a. Whenever there is an End Date of Exercise associated at the set frequency to notify them regarding the upcoming lapse.
      b. Ability to configure the frequency in “no. of days before vesting” to notify employees regarding the upcoming vesting. 
      c. Ability to send reminder for Acceptance, Approvals & Acceptance and Approvals through Select Action in the Equity Award Grid – SAR Awards

Enhancements

• Fixing the existing functionality of lapse and handling its impact on Expiry Date (Vest wise and Cancellation Report) and * in View Award (End Date of Exercise column) - Option Awards.
• When the grant status is either Terminated or Cancelled the grant acceptance status to be displayed accordingly.
• Bulk Upload – Option Awards template: Ability to record exercise or surrender, even when units are lapsed. Also, the ability to mark cancellations, even when    units are lapsed, through Bulk Upload template. Displaying comprehensive error messages when the user encounters issues while editing the vesting schedule.
• Custom Vesting Template: Ability to generate a Preview Vesting Schedule based on the parameters specified. The UI has also been upgraded to remain consistent with Standard Vesting Template. The impacts for the same have been handled at plan and grant levels as well. Currently, the integration of Type of Vesting (the ability to add performance-based vesting to tranches) has only been implemented on the UI. The bulk Upload impact for the same is yet to be handled and will be taken up in the upcoming sprints.
• Ability to upload the exercise form: Employees/ Stakeholders will now have the ability to upload their signed exercise form during the process of exercising their option. Follow the steps below in order to enable this option as an admin on the platform:

1. Navigate to Setting > Configuration > Equity Award - Other Configuration > Exercise Configuration > Exercise Consent
2. Select "Yes" for the question: "Do you want option holders to submit a signed exercise form?"
3. The "Sign & Upload" option will be selected automatically. Click on Update and save the configuration.

‍