This guide walks you from creating your account to issuing your first QR-verified share certificate. Plan on about 15 minutes if you already have your incorporation paperwork handy.
Before you start
Have these ready:
- Your corporation's legal name and incorporation date
- Jurisdiction of incorporation (e.g., Delaware, Ontario, British Columbia)
- Names and contact info for your founders or initial shareholders
- A rough idea of your authorized share count (the maximum number of shares your corporation can issue) and how it splits across classes
Don't have all of this yet? Sign up anyway. The Free tier lets you set everything up in a sandbox state. You can edit your share classes and initial issuances before they're locked in.
Step-by-step
Create your account
Go to app.octelligence.com/register and sign up with your work email. No credit card needed for the Free tier.
You'll get a verification email; click the link to confirm and you'll land in the empty workspace for your first corporation.
Set up your corporation
From the workspace, click New corporation and fill in:
- Legal name — exactly as it appears on your articles of incorporation
- Jurisdiction — Delaware, Canada (federal), provincial, UK, etc.
- Date of incorporation — used to backdate the corporate record
- Fiscal year end — for compliance reminders
This information shapes the rest of your records. Octelligence uses jurisdiction-aware templates and terminology (e.g., "share register" in Canada, "stock ledger" in the US), so getting the jurisdiction right matters.
Define your share classes
Go to Cap Table › Share Classes and add the classes your articles authorize. At minimum, most corporations start with:
- Common shares (or common stock in the US) — voting, no preference
- Optionally, one or more preferred classes for investors — Series Seed, Series A, etc.
For each class, set the authorized share count, par value if any, voting rights, and conversion terms for preferred classes.
Not sure what to authorize? A common pattern for early-stage corporations is 10 million authorized common shares with a small initial issuance to founders. See Cap Table Basics for Founders for the conventions counsel typically use.
Add your first shareholders
Go to People › Shareholders and add each holder. For each one:
- Full legal name
- Contact email (used for share-link audit and verification)
- Address of record
- Tax ID if required by jurisdiction
You'll also add directors and officers under People › Directors and People › Officers. These appointments populate your statutory registers and show up on your corporate records exports.
Issue your first share certificate
This is the moment everything comes together. Go to Cap Table › Issuances and click New issuance.
- Select the holder, share class, and number of shares
- Set the issuance date and consideration (cash, services, IP, etc.)
- Confirm
Octelligence generates a share certificate with a unique certificate number, a QR code, and a public verification URL. The certificate is added to your shareholder's record and the issuance flows through to the share register and cap table automatically.
What's QR verification? Every certificate links to a public page (no account needed) where banks, auditors, and counsel can confirm the certificate's status. If the certificate is ever revoked or superseded, the verification page shows the current state. This is what makes Octelligence certificates "verifiable" rather than just printed PDFs. More on this in Issue Your First Certificate.
What you have now
After these five steps, your corporation has:
- A structured corporate record with directors, officers, and shareholders
- Authorized share classes
- At least one issued share certificate, verifiable by anyone with the QR or URL
- A cap table that reflects the actual issuances on the register, not a separate spreadsheet
What's next
From here, the most common next steps depend on where you are:
If you're an early-stage founder
You'll likely want to track SAFEs and convertible notes as you raise. Convert SAFEs at a priced round walks through how Octelligence handles the conversion math when you raise priced. Available on the Growth plan.
If you've granted options
See Stock options with vesting for cliff and vesting schedules, exercises, and how the option pool affects fully-diluted ownership. Available on the Growth plan.
If you're migrating from Carta, Pulley, or a spreadsheet
Don't re-key everything. Migrate from another tool covers the import process and what data carries over cleanly.
If you're a law or accounting firm
You'll want team access set up so your clients can collaborate on their corporate record. Portfolio Licensing handles client-portfolio workflows; see the firm solution for details.
Common gotchas
Authorized vs. issued shares. Octelligence enforces the rule that you can't issue more shares than your share class authorizes. If you try, the issuance is blocked until you increase the authorization (which requires a board resolution — Octelligence prompts you to add it).
Backdating share issuances. If your corporation has been operating for a while and you're migrating in historical issuances, set the issuance date to the actual original date. The certificate's QR-verified status remains accurate. Counsel reviewing the record can see exactly when each share was issued.
Jurisdiction mid-setup. If you incorporated in one jurisdiction and later continued or domesticated to another, set the current jurisdiction. Octelligence supports recording the continuance event so your record reflects the history.
Still stuck?
If you hit a wall at any step, drop us a note. We respond to setup questions within one business day, and faster during business hours.