Equity Reconciliation Carta

Equity Reconciliation (Carta MCP)

What this does

Connects to your Carta account via the Carta MCP server, pulls your cap table live, and reconciles it against your HRIS export employee by employee. It surfaces the gaps: people whose termination date does not match, terminated employees who still show active grants or a lapsed exercise window, and grants missing their source documents. Exceptions are ranked by severity. Nothing is changed in either system.

When to use it

On demand when you want a clean picture, on a schedule (quarterly is common), and always before a capital raise, 409A valuation, or audit.

MCP dependency

This skill requires a live connection to the Carta MCP server.

Setup: Add the Carta MCP server to your client (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible client). When prompted, authenticate with your Carta account. The skill needs read access to the Cap Table plugin only.

If the Carta MCP connection is unavailable or authentication fails, the skill cannot run. Use the platform-agnostic version (equity-reconciliation) with CSV exports instead.

Inputs

From Carta (pulled live via MCP):

• Stakeholder list (all people on the cap table)
• Securities and grants per stakeholder (options, RSUs, RSAs, warrants, convertible notes, certificates)
• Grant status, grant dates, vesting schedules, exercise windows
• Transaction history per security
• Source documents attached to each grant
• Fair market value / 409A valuation data (for exercise-window calculations)

From the operator (file upload):

• HRIS export: CSV or spreadsheet listing each employee with at minimum: employee ID, email, name, employment status, termination date.

Drag the HRIS file in, paste it, or attach it. This is a suggested minimum field set. In plan mode, confirm these columns are present or replace them with what your HRIS actually provides.

Notes on messy inputs:

• If a name appears differently between Carta and the HRIS (Chris vs Christopher, a maiden name, a trailing space, a hyphen), do not assume they are the same person. Flag it for review.
• If a value from either source is missing or unreadable, mark it "not found / unclear -- confirm" rather than guessing.

Steps

1. Plan mode. Confirm the HRIS export fields are present. Confirm or set the match keys, name-change handling rules, and severity tiers (see Rules below). Verify the Carta MCP connection is live and authenticated.
2. Pull cap-table data from Carta. Use the Carta MCP tools to retrieve:
   • The full stakeholder list.
   • All securities (grants) per stakeholder, including status, type, dates, and vesting schedule.
   • Transaction history to determine current exercise-window state.
   • Source documents attached to each grant.
   • Current 409A FMV for exercise-window expiry calculations.
3. Parse the HRIS export. Extract employee records with the confirmed field set.
4. Match employees across both systems on the agreed match keys.
5. Flag termination-date mismatches, categorized by severity tier.
6. Flag terminated employees with active grants or lapsed exercise windows. Use the 409A FMV and transaction history to determine whether an exercise window has expired.
7. Check source documents for every grant. Confirm each grant has its required documents (offer letter, grant letter, signed agreement, vesting schedule). List any that are missing.
8. Assemble the reconciliation report: exceptions by severity, plus the source-document gap list and the ambiguous-match list.

Rules (confirm in the plan)

These are the operator's calls. Fill them in during plan mode, before the first run.

• Match keys: _____ (e.g. email address across both systems, employee ID, or name -- which is authoritative, and the fallback order).
• Name changes: _____ (how to treat a maiden name, a legal name change, a nickname -- match or flag).
• Severity tiers: _____ (what counts as high vs medium vs low -- e.g. an active grant for a terminated employee vs a one-day date discrepancy).
• Exercise-window grace period: _____ (how many days past termination before a lapsed window is flagged as high severity).

Output

A reconciliation report:

• Exceptions grouped by severity tier, highest first. Each exception cites the Carta record (stakeholder + security details) and the HRIS row it was compared against.
• A source-document gap list: every grant missing one or more required documents, with the specific missing document named.
• An ambiguous-match list: every name that could not be confidently matched, flagged for a human.
• A data-freshness note: the timestamp of the Carta MCP pull and the HRIS export date (if available).

Error handling

• Never edit either system. The skill reads from Carta via MCP and reads the HRIS file. It does not write back to Carta or modify the HRIS.
• If the Carta MCP connection drops mid-run, stop and report what was completed. Do not use cached or partial data without flagging it.
• Cite the source for every value (the Carta record and the HRIS row). If a value is absent or ambiguous, write "not found / unclear -- confirm."
• If a match is ambiguous (name differs, extra space, maiden name, nickname), do not assume. Flag it.
• Treat the output like work from a smart intern who is right about 90% of the time. Audit it. Read the run carefully the first week.
• The decision stays human. The skill drafts and flags; a person reviews each exception and acts in the system of record.

Eval contract

• Spec: A correct run connects to Carta via MCP, pulls stakeholder and securities data, parses the HRIS export, and produces a reconciliation report that surfaces termination-date mismatches and active-grant-for-terminated- employee exceptions ranked by severity, with each exception citing the Carta record and the HRIS row, ambiguous name matches flagged rather than assumed, and source-document gaps listed. It changes nothing in either system.
• Rubric (hard-fail gates in bold):
  1. Every exception cites the Carta record (stakeholder + security) and the HRIS row; an exception with no cite is an automatic fail.
  2. No fabricated or inferred values; anything absent or unreadable is marked "not found / unclear -- confirm", not guessed.
  3. Exceptions are ranked by severity tier, not presented as a flat list.
  4. Every grant is checked for source documents; any grant missing a required document appears in the gap list with the specific document named. A missing-document grant absent from the gap list is an automatic fail.
  5. Neither system is edited; ambiguous name matches are flagged for review, never resolved by assumption. Two records that share a name but carry different IDs are surfaced as distinct people, never merged.
  6. The skill uses Carta MCP tool calls for cap-table data retrieval, not file parsing. If the MCP connection is unavailable, the skill stops and reports the failure rather than falling back to fabricated data.
• Self-tests:
  • Termination mismatch + active grant: A synthetic HRIS file with one employee terminated several months ago and a Carta MCP response showing that employee with an active grant. A second employee has a termination date that differs by months between the two sources. Output MUST surface both exceptions ranked by severity, each citing the Carta record and the HRIS row. Output MUST NOT present them as an unranked flat list.
  • Ambiguous name match: Carta stakeholder is "Chris Park"; HRIS lists "Christopher Park" with no shared ID or email. Output MUST flag the pair as an ambiguous match for human review. Output MUST NOT assume they are the same person.
  • Missing source document: A grant in Carta is missing a vesting schedule while its other documents are present. Output MUST surface that grant in the source-document gap list, naming the specific missing document.
  • Same name, different IDs: Two Carta stakeholders share the name "Taylor Reed" but carry different IDs. Output MUST surface BOTH as distinct people. Output MUST NOT merge them.
  • MCP connection failure: The Carta MCP server is unreachable. Output MUST report the connection failure and stop. Output MUST NOT fabricate cap-table data or silently fall back to an empty dataset.
• Version: 1.0.0

Variant note

This is the Carta MCP-native variant. A platform-agnostic version that works with any cap-table system via CSV export is available at: https://skillsandagents.co/skills/equity-reconciliation/

Learn more: https://skillsandagents.co/skills/equity-reconciliation-carta/