Group shareholders with categories
Categories are labels the company puts on its shareholders, such as "Founders", "Investors" or a family branch, to group them and find them together. There are also three categories that Sttok assigns on its own from encumbrances: Co-owner, Usufruct and Other encumbrances.
On this page
Before you start
- Administrator access to the company.
- An idea of how you want to group your shareholders: by type of investor, by family, by the round in which they came in.
Two types of category#
In "Shareholder categories", in the "Shareholders" group of the menu, two different things live side by side:
| The company's | The system's | |
|---|---|---|
| Which ones | The ones you create: "Founders", "VC", "Minors", "Ruiz Family"… | Co-owner, Usufruct and Other encumbrances |
| Who decides who is in them | You, shareholder by shareholder | Sttok, based on the encumbrances in the deeds; afterwards you can also assign them manually |
| Can be deleted | Yes | No: they have a padlock |
The system categories state something legal: that some shares are in co-ownership, in usufruct or subject to another encumbrance. When a deed records an encumbrance, Sttok puts the shareholder in the right category. If the encumbrance did not come from a deed, or was recorded earlier, you can assign the category manually afterwards. Encumbrances are explained in Encumbrances on shares: usufruct, pledge, co-ownership and option.
Create a category and assign it#
- Create the category. In "Shareholder categories", click "Add category". In "Add Shareholder Category", fill in the "Category name" with something self-explanatory, such as "Series A Investors", and a "Description" if you like. In "Style" you choose how the label looks, and the "Preview" shows you how the label will look.
- Open the shareholder's profile. From the shareholder list, click their name.
- Add the category. Categories are edited on the labels in the profile header: add the one you want and choose it from the list. You can add several.
Before you create one, check whether it already exists. If there is "Minors" and someone creates "Minor", shareholders end up split across two categories that look the same, and searching by one does not show those in the other.
What they are for#
- Finding a group at a glance: all the founders, all the funds, a whole family branch.
- Knowing how much each group holds. "Shareholder categories" shows how many shareholders are in each one and what part of the share capital they add up to, in %ND, %FD and % Potential FD.
- Seeing who is in each one. In "Shareholder categories", click the category to see its shareholders.
Frequently asked questions#
Can a shareholder be in several categories?
Yes. A person can be a "Founder" and also be in "Ruiz Family". Each category is an independent label.
Do categories change a shareholder's rights?
No. They are just a way of grouping. The rights attached to shares come from their class and the articles of association, not from the category.
What happens if I delete a category?
The shareholders who were in it stay the same, they just lose that label. Their shares and their data do not change.
Related
- The shareholder list The shareholder list shows who holds shares in the company, how many and what percentage they represent, undiluted and diluted. From there you open each shareholder's profile, and a new one is added with "Add Operation" › "New Shareholder".
- Encumbrances on shares: usufruct, pledge, co-ownership and option An encumbrance is another person's right over some shares: a usufruct, a pledge, an attachment or a call option. Co-ownership is recorded in the same place even though it is not an encumbrance: the shares belong to several people at once. In Sttok each one is recorded against the specific shares it affects, with its dates and its status, on the shareholder's profile.
- The register of registered shares Sttok's register of registered shares is the complete record of who holds shares in the company, of which class and in what percentage. It is not edited: it builds itself from the recorded operations, and it can be read in several views, from the summary by class to the history of each operation.