Certent Equity Management

Vorteile

The software is very user friendly and there are many help articles to help self learn the software. The support team is also helpful.

Nachteile

Sometimes reaching out to customer service does not yield a quick enough response.

Vorteile

In my role in our financial reporting department, I solely rely on the accounting/equity reports provided by CEM for our audits, as well as for our SEC reporting (10Q, 10K, and Proxy Stmt). I am extremely happy with the functional capabilities this software provides our Company, as well as very satisfied with the working relationships established with the customer service team over the last 15 years that I have been a user on this platform. The communication and assistance we receive has always been 10/10, and this is a strong reason why we have stayed loyal customers of Certent!

Nachteile

I honestly do not have any issues and/or problems with any part of Certent Equity Management, as a user. Maybe the only small concern that I can think of is our broker is independent from Certent, so as our employees are vesting their RSUs and/or exercising their stock options, this data is transmitted daily to Certent and since I don't have access to our broker platform. I have to rely on the collaboration of data between these two platforms, which is out of my control.

Vorteile

Through many bugs and a painful login and re-authentication process every single time I access the platform, I have been able to exercise my options through Certent.

Nachteile

They take something that is already difficult for many people to understand and make it worse by having a terrible UI, and login and authentication process

Vorteile

Certent Equity Management completely solved the issues of issuing and tracking employee shares for our company both from the perspective of administration by our finance team but also from the perspective of visibility and access to this value added benefit for our employees! The Certent Support team has been fantastic helping us setup and use some of their standard features in an "outside of the box" way that fits our company's needs, and our account rep [sensitive content hidden] could not be more accessible or responsive when we have questions or need help with creative solutions!

Nachteile

Would like to have the ability to do some manual adjustments such as changing email address, mailing address, etc information for participants ourselves rather than submitting those changes requests to the Certent Plan Admin team to do, but, at least their team is fast responding to change requests / tickets usually same day.

Vorteile

My favorite thing about working with Certent Equity Management is the customer service. [sensitive content hidden] Carlson is our Sr. Client Service Manager and she has been since I have been with the company (6 years). [sensitive content hidden] is always available and willing to help and so patient with our team. She set up bi-weekly meetings with HR and Finance teams to talk about any issues. Many times I would ask the same questions but she would answer without hesitation. Running and using reports is easy, and help system with videos is a great idea and has helped me many times with Black Scholes calculations or EVF changes. Accounting team always there to help as well - providing calculations as we need them.

Nachteile

Not really user friendly if we want to create new reports - Certent would do it for us. Reports already created have a lot of unnecessary columns on them when they are run and there was no way for us to customize to what we needed. Being on the west coast when we are on the east isn't helpful either when we have an early morning question.

Vorteile

Certent has a lot of customization of fields beyond their generic fields. This has allowed us to filter our reports, broker integrations, etc. based on plans and participants, for example. I love that there is a "sandbox" for testing changes and uploading data before doing so in production.

Nachteile

In the beginning, we had a dedicated account representative, but that person has changed a few times over the years and we've lost touch. Submitting a ticket for urgent help has been frustrating when I really needed help in the moment and couldn't wait 24-48 hours. I've had some very important settings in broker integration suddenly change without my knowledge, which affected grant and vesting data being sent to our broker. We tried to set up the Section 16 module, but with our company having some legacy plans before we spun from our parent, it was becoming too difficult and too costly to properly pull in that data.

Vorteile

Certent provides stock plan administration reporting capabilities with multiple reports for both internal and external reporting. Our client relationship manager, [sensitive content hidden], is awesome and has bi-weekly touch base meetings to provide frequent communication.

Nachteile

Certent tax information connections with our broker are not the best, but mitigating controls are in place to provide accurate data is received by the broker for certain transactions.

Vorteile

I love their capability on calculating and tracking functions.

Nachteile

Its not the Certent, but it takes a learning curve to understand the requirements and behavior or the mechanism as I was not a equity compensation specialist, I had to learn from their customer service people about the rules and formulas etc.

Vorteile

First of all, [sensitive content hidden] and her team are always very responsive to my queries and are ready to assist! The system is very user friendly and the standard reports available meet our monthly reporting needs. We were considering adding these services to our brokerage provider (to consolidate) but decided against it as their Equity Management support does not even compare close.

I also like the fact that the File Management features are now within the Certent Equity Management system.

Nachteile

Just like all systems, there are sometimes minor quirks in the reports, but [sensitive content hidden] and her team address them quickly.

Vorteile

The Certent Equity Management is user friendly and easy to navigate and is especially helpful to see the real-time and point in time statistics. The reporting functionality makes it easier to have reliable and efficient reporting. The customer service team is also great to work with, they are very knowledgeable about all types of awards and are timely on their responses. Our customer service representative [sensitive content hidden]
has been a great partner to us.

Nachteile

Just like all systems, there are sometimes minor quirks in the reports, but once you get the hang of functionality, it is easy to use going forward.

Vorteile

Real-time equity management reporting is available on one report. Reports are flexible, and can be filtered in many different ways for different purposes. We use for performance based and time based RSUs and RSAs. We do not use the system for dividend/DEU calculations. Most critical reporting is used for SEC public reports, which are just a click away, and used to be manually calculated maintained in excel workbooks. Certent reporting saves us hours/days of manual tracking in excel. Also, our main relationship manager is extremely responsive and patient with our requests/questions.

Nachteile

Since Certent is not a broker, when we changes from private to public, the connection with a broker has been very challenging. Almost like duplicative work and coding. Albeit, it seems like Certent's customer services is much better than the broker so we are hoping that once connection is made, we won't have any future broker/record keeper issues.

Also, it would be valuable if Certent offered the ability to calculate cash dividends (not DEUs), so that we don't have to track in excel. But this is not a deal breaker.

Vorteile

I like it's ease of use and intuitive interface.

Nachteile

It's sometime hard to get the consulting hours from a specialist in the event of an unusual or infrequent event.

Vorteile

The product works well for what we need it to do. We currently use it to management our equity awards, including maintain our records and issuing our new awards and generating various reports. The best thing is the customer service. Our customer service rep [sensitive content hidden]always responds to our questions timely and let us know when he will be away and ensures there is a backup to help us. He knows the system very well and guided us through during the implementation and provided help as we need in BAU process. Ops also process our requests very timely. They are always friendly and professionally.

Nachteile

Not very user friendly. We need our customer service rep help to maneuver around in the system or figure out which report to run.

Vorteile

The Certent software came highly recommended and they have never disappointed. It is an extremely robust and powerful software platform.

Nachteile

When they got acquired there was decent staff turnover.

Vorteile

The platform is fast, responsive, and easy to use. Being able to favorite certain reports makes weekly/monthly tasks that much simpler. Certent equity management is fairly intuitive and doesn't take long to get used to.

Nachteile

Sometime there are accounting differences or errors generated in reports that are difficult to discover until something goes wrong. But our client service manager is very responsive and the accounting team at Certent has helped us troubleshoot as well.

Vorteile

Certent Equity Management is extremely valuable in my quarterly SEC and investor reporting as well as our internal tracking of stock option expense items. The customer service is consistently exceptional.

Nachteile

I think the reports are good but I do wish there was some customization available on some. Also, there is limited Pay vs. Performance functionality.

Vorteile

It has every report you can wish for. The customer service is amazing.

Nachteile

There is nothing I don't like about Certent

Vorteile

Certent provides great customer service to our organization. We work hand in hand with them in regard to our equity management and upcoming vestings/settlements. Our collaboration with Certent is extremely helpful and integral in providing our employees with accurate results.

Nachteile

N/A - I have zero complaints or concerns with Certent

Vorteile

Being a public company that issues various equity instruments (restricted stock awards, options, restricted stock units and performance stock units) to our employees and consultants we need a solid system that is able to provide the necessary accounting impact in addition to serving the employees/consultants who can track and monitor their individual awards. The system is able to accommodate both of these critical aspects for our company.

Nachteile

There is nothing that I can think of that fits this category.

Vorteile

Customer service is extremely responsive and very helpful. I've submitted dozens of cases and usually receive a response in a few hours or less. Also, the "help" topics section is very user-friendly and has a lot of great resources to help me navigate the system and answer my own questions. Certent reporting is also really great when you know what you're looking for and how you'd like to view it.

Nachteile

The system is not incredibly intuitive (but then again, neither is equity management in general). When entering new grants and/or recording various transactions in the system, it can be difficult to figure out how to do so effectively and efficiently without the help of their support teams. I also don't enjoy how frequently the passwords reset in the system.

Vorteile

Certent equity management is user friendly, and easy to navigate. Customer service team is very supportive and always available to support you.

Nachteile

The link between BAML and Certent isn't seamless - there are some quirks that require workaround.

Vorteile

The software is very intuitive and the reporting functionality exceeds that of competitors. Sandbox environments are excellent.

Nachteile

It is one of the more expensive options on the market.

Vorteile

Certent Equity Management is user friendly and easy to navigate. The customer service team is by far the best I've ever worked with.

Nachteile

There is nothing I don't like about Certent Equity Management.

Vorteile

It is easy to use. The customer service is great!

Nachteile

Customer support website sometime glitches, which does not allow to submit a ticket online.

Vorteile

The ease to work with them. The streamlining of Equity process from issuance to settlement. Their swift customer service. [sensitive content hidden] always gets back to me when reaching out with any questions.

Nachteile

little expensive other than that, it is good.

Vorteile

The system is pretty simple to use once you learn how to navigate through the different menu's. There is definitely a learning curve but once you learn how everything trickles down it makes tracking of equity a lot simpler.

Nachteile

Navigation is clunky. Wish it could be more interactive from an admin perspective.

Vorteile

The program is easy to use not only for the admin but for the end user. We receive fewer emails and calls asking for assistance from employees with the implementation of this product.

Nachteile

Could use improvement on break/fix timing and setup.

Vorteile

The system is user friendly and the standard reports available meet our monthly reporting needs. Reports are flexible and can be filtered in variety of ways for different purposes. Also, our insightsoftware representative,[sensitive content hidden]
, and her team are extremely responsive and diligent with our inquiries, updates, and reporting needs.

Nachteile

Our plan is complex and Certent does a great job of helping us manage critical inputs and tracking.

Vorteile

Easy of Use
Excellent reporting capabilities
Strong Support

Nachteile

None to speak of. The software is robust so I don't see many cons.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Certent Equity Management

Vorteile

Tina and her team are always very responsive to my queries and are ready to assist! The system is very user friendly and the standard reports available meet our needs.

Nachteile

I have not run into any Cons thus far. The training and assistance I have received has been very helpful.

Vorteile

Our account Representative has done an exceptional job. She is knowledgeable, attentive and always willing to help us.

Nachteile

The spreadsheets used to upload information aren't all that intuitive, but they do provide a help tab and our account representative has been available to walk us through every step.

Vorteile

The Team that has helped us implement the product was fantastic. They walked us through the process and truly held our hand to ensure we were setting it up properly. Armed with the software our Equity Management has become smooth and manageable vs. an extremely challenging task.

Nachteile

I would like a more innovative UI/UX experience but that's only because I'm a tech nerd that way.

Vorteile

Easy to use and quick turnaround. Also, aliens with SOX compliance.

Nachteile

Some of the templates to utilize are not straight forward to complete.

Vorteile

I recently took over our equity management after the previous owner left the company. I have call Certent multiple times for help with various issues as I learn this new process. They have always exceeded my expectations and resolved my problems quickly.

Nachteile

Some of the updates needed in the software can be tedious to make. Changes are made at the individual level rather than the grant level.

Vorteile

We have been implementing Certent at our company and the transition from our old system has been quite smooth. The functionality of Certent is easy to pick up on. The customer service team we work with has been outstanding!

Nachteile

Reconciling from our old system to the new system was a pain point, but this is mostly due to the lack of functionality in our old system.

Vorteile

Easy to use, reporting and centralization

Nachteile

price is a little expensive and initial setup a little longer

Vorteile

The UI and reporting in Certent are easy to use and help in keeping things transparent

Nachteile

No complaints, there are no downsides that I have come across so far

Vorteile

It does pretty much everything you could want an Equity Management platform to do. And the Support Team is always available and knowledgeable. There hasn't been an issue I couldn't get through with the support and product.

Nachteile

It is one of the most expensive in the industry. I have tried to justify the cost for a long time and wish they were more flexible on the pricing. It also has some less-than-intuitive menu schemes and data reports that feel would be an easy fix, but they aren't ever addressed.

Vorteile

This platform is sufficiently robust for our uses. The administration and SAS access are easy to use. The financial reporting is good and gets us where we need to be come audit time. Integration with various brokers is helpful for tailoring uses for different company needs.

Nachteile

The software is missing some key features that will impact the future. There isn't any tax mobility calculation or support. That lags behind other platforms but I'm told it is in development. The integration with multiple brokers limits how fast they can develop new and important features.

Vorteile

This software is so easy to use. I have used another system and the number of steps I had to take in the other software was substantially more than what the same action required in Certent. The reporting in Certent is easier. Literally, everything but dividends is easier in Certent.

Nachteile

The broker link with Merrill Lynch is not set up to accept Dividend / DEU accruals.
Customer service is on West Coast, so hours can be a little tricky for East or Central time zone (but the help desk is good).

Vorteile

Customer support is always there. I feel like I can call them for anything.

Nachteile

Customer support needed at times. I feel like have to call often.

Vorteile

The system can hand any time of award our organization would like to grant, and it has all the tools necessary for accounting, activity, and regulatory requirements.

Nachteile

Some of the report generation menus can be difficult to navigate to find the report that I need. There is a lot of reports available. There is a star feature that can be used to quickly find commonly used reports. Which is helpful.

Vorteile

Ease of use, user interface friendly, great and timely customer support

Nachteile

Sometimes there have to be workarounds for unique situations

Vorteile

Ever since our Company migrated over to Certent and away from the our options spreadsheet, it has made our equity management easier from tracking of new option awards to expense recognition during month-end closes.

Nachteile

The least I like about this software is the HRPC and broker integration piece. There are many tasks that still have to be done manually in the integration piece. For example, when we terminate employee in our HR/Payroll system, termination does not feed over properly. Date of birth for new hires does not feed properly as well.

Vorteile

I like that we are able to easily load mass data into the system, easily run monthly journal entries, and quickly run a few reports to put together our quarterly SEC disclosures.

Nachteile

The features available in the software have not changed much over time. Not having 162m reporting is a downfall and reports are very lengthy, with more columns that almost anyone would use. You can customize the layout of your reports, but that is also very time consuming.

Vorteile

Their customer support is outstanding. When I've had an issue, they've addressed it immediately. Their software carries out a large amount of the functionality we need.

Nachteile

Setting it up, I had a tough time with the Rep. I think it could be more user friendly... intuitive. It feels more like a Microsoft product that I have to learn rather than an apple product.

Vorteile

Certent is great to help me understand my equity grants. It, very clearly, lists out my grants and any relevant information.

Nachteile

While the tool is very good, I wish it provided more aggregate information and analysis. Its great to look at one line item/one grant, it would like to see more data about the set as a whole.

Vorteile

The ease of use and accuracy. We do some complicated transactions and it always delivers.

Nachteile

Broker interface is lacking functionality, especially for performance shares.

Vorteile

The software is really easy to use and quite intuitive. When I have had questions though the support has been outstanding. Support has been very knowledgeable on the software as well as the tax and accounting principles around equity accounting. I often learn new information just discussing my issue.

Nachteile

I'd like an easier way to do imports. I don't use it enough so I have to go back and review how to do it each time. Now I usually just input items manually to avoid the learning curve.

Vorteile

1. Great product for stock options
2. Help menu is very good

Nachteile

1. The equity side (non stock options) needs to be improved - warrants, preferred and common shares.
2. Modifications require manual entry, would be nice to incorporate into the system (even if input was manual)
3. We still have a bug for options issued prior to implementation. We issued a % completion on PNQ's which resulted in "fractional shares" that the system could not figure out. It would be good if they could just round DOWN!!
4. Seems like we should only have to pay for current option holders, not ones from the beginning of time. We now pay for the stock option system each year which is a little pricey!