Nothing is sent without you
Preparing a subscription process is entirely internal. Every request to a participant — identity, bank details, payment, signature — goes out because someone chose to send it.
Overview
Creating a process contacts nobody. Configuring transactions contacts nobody. Generating documents contacts nobody.
Every outbound email — the invitation to create an account, the request for identity documents, for bank details, for payment, for signature — is sent because someone on the deal team decided to send it, at the moment they decided. The whole preparation phase is a private draft.
That includes the very first contact. A participant is not invited to create their account automatically when they are added to a transaction; somebody sends that invitation. The platform has no path by which a shareholder hears from it without your team acting.
What you'll learn
Where the line between internal work and contacting a participant sits
The send control at each stage
Why manual sending is a feature rather than an omission
The corollary that explains most apparently stalled processes
Why it matters more than it sounds
Timing within a stage is yours. Because sending is manual, you decide when each ask goes out and in what order participants are approached. The one sequence the platform does hold to is that payment gates signature — releasable per payment by deferring it (A8.11).
Timing is yours. A subscription process often has an agreed moment for contacting participants: after a board approval, on a specific date, once a condition is met. Manual sending means the platform never pre-empts that. Where the moment is known in advance, Send Later schedules it.
Mistakes stay internal. A wrong transaction, a badly generated document, a misnamed envelope — all recoverable while nothing has gone out.
Nobody is surprised. Participants are often senior managers of a portfolio company. Being contacted by an unfamiliar platform without warning is a poor first impression. Choosing the moment means the participant can be told to expect it.
Where you will see it
Stage | The control |
|---|---|
Account | Invite / Send Email — the invitation to create an account |
KYC | Invite / Send Email on the ID-check dashboard |
Payments | Request Bank Info, then Request Payment |
E-signature | Send Signature Envelope, or Send Later |
Each has a confirmation that says what will happen. The signature one is explicit about it: sending the envelope notifies the signers and invites them to access the platform to sign.
Note that bank details and payment are two separate asks, not one. Both are on your timing.
The corollary: nothing happens if you don't send
Worth stating plainly, because it explains a common support question.
Ready is not sent. Marking an envelope ready is not sending it. Marking a transaction ready is not asking anyone for money. Readiness is internal; sending is the act.
So when a process looks stalled, check first whether the participant was ever actually asked. That is more often the answer than anything else.
Related
A1.1 — What Kapitable is for · this is the third of its three boundaries
A7.2 — Launching KYC checks and tracking them · the KYC send control in context
A8.10 — Subscription process: tracking signatures and sending reminders · after the envelope goes out
A8.11 — Subscription process: choosing your payment and signature order · the sequencing this makes possible
