Frequently Asked Questions
Check out some FAQs below. Still have questions? Reach out to chat
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The Basics
After months of hard work, tomorrow is closing day. You've authorized hundreds of millions, maybe billions of dollars in wire transfers.
But how do you know all the wire instructions are correct? What if there's a typo? Or if Excel removed a leading zero? Or worse - someone's email was hacked and the instructions are fraudulent.
Wire instructions can be a huge pain, and often an afterthought - but it's critically important to get them right.
It's just too easy to make simple mistakes, plus M&A cybercrime is on the rise. ClosingWell helps you automate away the pain and keep your closing process secure.
You need wire instructions for each wire in your funds flow. Instead of asking for wire instructions over email, reformatting them and pasting them into an Excel file, you can use ClosingWell to automate the whole process.
Just add each wire recipient's email address to ClosingWell and they will receive a secure portal to provide their wire instructions. Vendors can just drag-and-drop their invoice and our AI will extract the wire instructions. And for less experienced wire recipients, we help them find the right wire instructions.
You can sit back and can review the wire instructions as recipients provide them. We provide several instant verifications to check that wire instructions are correct, helping you review them faster.
The deal team Associate + Finance Team (or whoever reviews wire instructions)
Associates typically start the process and invite the all the vendors / shareholders to provide their wire instructions. This takes less than 5 minutes and replaces hours of back-and-forth emails herding cats to provide the right information.
Then the Associate and/or the Finance Team can review the wire instructions and all the automatic verifications ClosingWell provides. They can also perform any additional manual confirmations like callbacks.
Each ClosingWell deal is a unique, collaborative workspace - just like a data room. You can invite your lawyers, lenders, or paying agents to review, or invite the counterparty banker to provide their side's wires.
As soon as you're ready to build your funds flow / wire schedule.
ClosingWell can help you collect invoices and wire instructions, so it's best to start before you collect everything manually.
This is ideally a couple weeks before closing, but teams have spun up ClosingWell as late as the day before closing to check the final wire instructions.
So even if you've already collected wire instructions, you should still use ClosingWell - it just works even better if you start early.
Deal Process Dynamics
No. ClosingWell does NOT execute any wires.
ClosingWell is a security tool to collect and verify the wire instructions. Then you can send the wires yourself, via a paying agent, portfolio company, lender, etc.
We provide a one-click export to get final wire instructions out of ClosingWell and into in your bank or paying agent's format - without any manual reformatting.
Even if a paying agent is actually sending the wires, you are responsible for making sure wire instructions are correct. A paying agent will send wires wherever you tell them to.
Many wire fraud incidents have still had a paying agent involved, and the legal precedent is that buyers & sellers are responsible for verifying wire instructions.
You can invite your paying agent to your ClosingWell workspace to get the final wire instructions, or you can export to Excel.
Nope. Continue to build your funds flow model in Excel.
The idea is don't store wire instructions in your funds flow. Keep using Excel for math and calculations, but use ClosingWell to collect wire instructions.
You can easily paste final dollar amounts into ClosingWell when you have them.
Pricing / Getting Started
ClosingWell is billed per-deal just like your other deal expenses for data rooms, background checks, etc. There is no subscription required.
It's typically one of the smallest expenses in your funds flow. Contact us for a flat, per-deal rate for your firm.
Yes. ClosingWell can be used for your biggest and smallest deals.
Whether your deal has 300 wires or 3 wires, ClosingWell can help you save time and rest easy on closing day.
Onboarding takes 10 minutes. There is no lengthy process involved and we'll give you trial access immediately to test out the system.
Book a time here.
The Basics
Easier to Audit
Excel doesn't have 'track changes' like a Word Document, so an Excel cap table can be difficult to audit over time. Someone needs to remember to update the Excel after documents are signed, and if something gets missed it can be painful to reconcile later.
ClosingWell logs every change to your cap table, making it easy to track everything in one place.
Tied to Legal Documents
Excel cap tables can get out of sync with the underlying legal docs, which are ultimately the source of truth for the cap table.
In ClosingWell, every number in your cap table is inextricably tied to the underlying legal docs.
Automated Document Drafting
Drafting incentive award letters can be tedious and costly. ClosingWell can turn your standard legal docs into reusable templates, collect eSignatures, and automatically update the cap table once documents are fully executed.
Portfolio companies that use ClosingWell have saved $30k - $100k+ per year in legal fees.
Automated Waterfalls
Building, updating, and auditing Excel waterfall models can be time consuming and stressful.
ClosingWell can run complex waterfall scenarios automatically that are easy to audit.
ClosingWell is a web application that lets you manage all of your cap tables in one place. It is a single source of truth for your cap tables, supporting legal documents, and waterfall calculations.
You can manage incentive pools, draft new equity documents, get eSignatures, and easily track all changes over time. All with complete confidence that your cap table is accurate and up-to-date.
Whoever currently manages your cap table today. Typically, PE Associates or portfolio company CFOs manage the day-to-day, with VPs reviewing and approving changes.
You can invite anyone you'd like to access the cap table and easily control their permissions - just like a data room.
Private Equity Focus
ClosingWell is built by former PE professionals who understand your workflow. Other cap table tools primarily focus on venture-backed startups. Private equity firms that try these tools end up using them as a logging tool, still doing their actual work in Excel. ClosingWell truly automates your existing workflows - so no more updating Excel, chasing down files, or updating waterfall models.
Infinitely Customizable
ClosingWell uses an infinitely flexible data model to track your cap table exactly how you like to track it. Other tools force you into a defined structure, with limited ability to customize. This ultimately leads PE deal teams back to Excel.
Easy, Fast Onboarding
We hear the same stories from customers who tried other tools - strict requirements, long request lists, and several lengthy calls required. Onboarding with ClosingWell is seamless. Drag and drop your cap table support files as-is and we'll take care of it. Your time is valuable, so we can work completely asynchronously and finish onboarding in just a few days.
Book a personalized demoLegal Docs
Yes - you get to use your documents, blessed by your counsel. The ClosingWell team will import all of your documents for you during onboarding.
Yes - integrated document drafting and eSignatures are optional. If you prefer for everything to run through the attorneys and / or collect wet signatures, you can still do that and get the other benefits of single source of truth, change tracking, automated waterfalls, etc.
Waterfall
Yes. ClosingWell is extremely flexible and is built to accommodate bespoke deal structures.
PE waterfalls can get messy - multiple tranches of liquidation preference, PIK dividends, convertible thresholds, etc. ClosingWell can handle it all, and we'll ensure your waterfall is running correctly before we finish onboarding.
The waterfall is also updated automatically - you don't need to make any changes. If you issue units at a new hurdle value, ClosingWell will automatically build in that new tier for you. Same goes for new equity, dividends, etc.
Sound too good to be true? Book a demo and we'll show you.
Yes. The waterfall provides detailed tables and charts that you can export to Excel or just screenshot and drop into your decks. You can see proceeds, MOIC, IRR and more on a hyper-granular level - by shareholder, by the type of security they hold, etc. It even includes a customizable chart builder where you can plot specific shareholders on a graph to compare their proceeds and returns.
Auditability is key - this isn't a black box. ClosingWell provides an ultra-detailed output that enables you to trace a dollar through every tier of the waterfall. It allows you to see which tier each shareholder is participating in, what their pro rata is in each, and their resulting share of the proceeds. And it's all exportable to Excel so you can do your own math to check it.
Sound too good to be true? Book a demo and we'll show you.
Pricing / Getting Started
Annual subscription, and we can bill directly to the portfolio company.
ClosingWell instantly pays for itself - portfolio companies achieve substantial savings in legal costs that far exceed the subscription expense. Get pricing
We do all the heavy lifting.
Simply drop your cap table support as-is and the ClosingWell team will import your existing cap table and organize all the underlying legal docs. We'll also templatize your issuance letters and build your custom waterfall. Then we'll train your Associate or CFO how to use the system going forward.
Let's talk and we'll show you just how easy it is to get started. Book a time now.