You can order a 409A valuation (a report for US stock-option grants under section 409A of the US Internal Revenue Code) or an EMI valuation (for the UK's tax-advantaged Enterprise Management Incentive share-option scheme) from the ESOP & 409A tab. A partner advisor prepares the report from the data you send. You pay, fill in a request form, submit it, then follow a tracker until you accept the final report. This article covers the partner flows for the United States, Canada, Israel and the United Kingdom.
Where is the ESOP & 409A tab?
The tab sits in the left sidebar, and its name depends on your organisation's country: 409A for the United States, Canada and Israel, EMI for the United Kingdom. The partner card inside the tab follows the company's country, which you can change with the Select Country menu.
The US, Canadian and Israeli card offers a 409A by ETON Venture Services. The UK card offers an EMI valuation by Standard Ledger.
How do I pay for a 409A or EMI valuation?
Open the tab and find the partner card.
Click Continue to Checkout. You are redirected to Stripe, which shows the price before you pay.
Back in the tab, click Start Request if the request form has not opened already.
If your request does not appear after payment, contact support in the chat. If you paid from the pricing table when you signed up, our team assigns the advisor after payment, and the request then appears in the tab.
How do I fill in and submit the request?
The form has five steps.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: company details the advisor asks for. For a 409A, these include the legal name and tax ID, and required questions are marked with an asterisk.
ADDITIONAL FILES: documents such as your cap table and financial statements.
REVIEW QUESTIONNAIRE: edits here overwrite the Questionnaire tab.
REVIEW FINANCIALS: edits here overwrite your financial projections in the Financials tab.
SUBMIT REQUEST: tick the confirmation box and click SUBMIT MY REQUEST.
You can save partial answers and return later. Submission is blocked until every required question is answered.
What does the advisor see when I submit?
Equidam creates a copy of your company in the advisor's Equidam account. The copy holds your questionnaire answers, financial projections and advanced settings, but not your shareholders or funding round data. The advisor also sees your request answers and uploaded files, the name and phone number of your organisation's admin, and the email address in your company profile. The advisor gets an email about the request, with Equidam in copy.
How do I track the request?
After you submit, the tab and your dashboard show a tracker headed "TRACK YOUR 409 REQUEST". It has five stages, and each stage shows a date when it completes:
COMPANY CREATED AND SUBMITTED REQUEST: SUBMITTED.
ADVISOR RECEIVED DATA: PENDING, then ACCEPTED or DENIED, with the advisor's name, email and phone.
ADVISOR CREATING REPORT: NOT-STARTED, IN-PROGRESS, then REPORT UPLOADED.
COMPANY RECEIVED REPORT: click Check report to open the report. The stage then shows REPORT OPENED.
COMPANY ACCEPTED FINAL REPORT: click ACCEPT FINAL REPORT once you have opened the report.
When the report is uploaded, the email address in your company profile receives a "ready for review" email, with Equidam in copy. The 409A card states that ETON Venture Services delivers within 10 days or less.
How do I accept or reject the final report?
Clicking ACCEPT FINAL REPORT in the tracker opens a dialog headed "READY TO ACCEPT YOUR 409a REPORT?" with two buttons.
ACCEPT FINAL REPORT closes the request, and the report appears on the Reports page. Undoing this needs Equidam support, and in some cases is not possible.
REJECT FINAL REPORT sends the request back to the advisor, and the tracker adds a second round, ADVISOR CREATING REPORT #2. No email goes out, so tell the advisor what to change using the contact details in the tracker.
Limits
Payment: you need an active purchase for the company to start a request. The tab is not locked on the free plan.
One open request per company is shown at a time.
Files: up to 50 MB each, in PDF, Word, Excel, CSV, JPG or PNG format.
The report link from Check report expires after 5 minutes. Click again for a new one.
Cancelling: Cancel Request appears only on the first form step, before you submit. You keep your request credit and can start again later.
After you submit, the form closes and there is no cancel button. Send changes to the advisor directly.
Other countries show a different tab name and partner or self-serve content, not covered here.
Common questions
Why do the tracker and emails say 409a when I ordered an EMI valuation?
The tracker heading ("TRACK YOUR 409 REQUEST"), the dialogs and the emails use 409a wording for every request, whichever product you bought.
What happens if the advisor declines my request?
The tracker shows DENIED and Equidam is notified by email. Contact support to decide the next step.
Does the advisor use my Equidam valuation?
The final report can be an Equidam valuation report or the advisor's own document.