Equity Administrative Solutions Helps Organizations Track Financial Information

By George Walsh, Hacienda Network Staff Writer

Virtually any business owner knows that properly addressing the issue of employee benefits administration can be a challenge. Whether the task at hand is to change an employee's address or job title in their records or let employees check the status of their stock options, the paperwork alone can be daunting. Those who are seeking to modernize these and other tasks - including Federal regulatory compliance - may want to take a look at Equity Management System, a software application offered by Equity Administration Solutions, at 5627 Stoneridge Drive.

"We write software that people can use to track virtually any type of stock compensation, such as stock options offered by companies to its employees," says Jessica Dolan, manager of customer service for Equity Administration Solutions. "Our software product is called EMS, which stands for Equity Management System. It's an application service provider, meaning that it's all web-based, completely online, and can be viewed using a web browser. Everyone involved in equity compensation - including the company, its employees, stock traders, and advisors - has access to the same information. It's always up to date in a single database."

Founded in 2002, Equity Administration Solutions was formed to reduce the cost of managing equity management systems when benefits such as employee stock options became more common. In addition, the company realized that many organizations were concerned with adhering to Federal legislation such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which was passed in an effort to protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate financial disclosures. EMS was designed to address these issues and others in a fully automated, high-tech manner via software that can be used to view the status of equity and compliance issues up-to-the minute by all concerned parties. Equity Administration Solutions currently employs 12 people.

While Equity is primarily a software development company, it also handles the conversion from legacy equity information (such as outdated databases) to EMS. Equity then stores the information in the appropriate form. The application's cost is based on the intricacies of a company's needs. "If we're dealing with a private company, setting up our application is somewhat easier, which is reflected in its price," Dolan says. "If EMS will be used by a public company, we have to become a lot more involved in terms of accessing stock price information from the stock market and generating accounting reports regarding equity compensation."

EMS also captures the date on which data has been changed. For example, when a person's job title changes, the day on which it occurred is saved into the database. At any point, users can find the day on which a person's job title changed, the office they worked for, and other information. "The application may be geared toward financial reporting and accounting," Dolan says. "But we believe that pertinent information should be accessible to everyone all the time."

Whether an organization is public or private, Dolan believes that EMS can be helpful in reducing the work load. "As an administrator, it's so much easier than pulling together paper documents to get something done. Even the process of changing an employee's address can be time consuming. How many documents need to be signed? How many people need to be notified that an employee has moved? Most people want their paychecks to go to the right place and have their pay stub reflect the correct address. Because EMS is an online application, employees can update their own record, the administrator can see that they've updated it, and EMS keeps track of it."

Photo: Vito Palmieri, CEO, looks over the shoulder of president and CTO Mark Ebersole.

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