How to track deal costs in Carta CRM
Fees track the costs your firm incurs while running a deal, things like legal fees, due diligence expenses, and other third-party charges. Each fee links to a company, and can also link to a specific deal, so your team can see exactly what a relationship or transaction has cost so far. This article covers how fees work, how to add and edit them, and how to report on them.
What is a fee?
A fee is a cost your firm has incurred in connection with a company, for example a legal fee, a due diligence expense, or another third-party charge. Fees track money going out, not fees or commissions your firm earns. Every fee links to an adviser (the company the cost relates to), and can also link to a deal if the cost is tied to a specific transaction.
How to navigate the Fees module
To access Fees, go to Carta CRM → Fees. The sidebar lists All fees, along with any Reports your team has built on fee data. The main table shows every fee, with a running total at the bottom of the amount column.
Key navigation elements:
All fees (left panel): Every fee in your workspace, with a count shown next to it.
Reports (left panel): Dynamic queries you build and save. Add filters, choose which columns to show, and save the view so it's ready to use again, for example a report grouped by company.
Fee table (main panel): Every linked company, its fee amount, and any other columns your firm has added. Use + Add to create a fee, or the Columns picker on the right to change what's shown.
How to add a fee
Go to Fees: Select Fees from the left navigation.
Click + Add: Select the button in the top left of the fee table.
Link an adviser: Search and select the company this fee is associated with. Carta enriches the record from the company's website, the same way it does when you add a company.
Fill in the details: Enter the fee amount (defaults to 0 until you enter a value) and date, and search by deal to link the fee to a specific deal. There's no Save button. Fields save automatically as you fill them in.
How to edit a fee
Open the fee: Go to Fees and select a row from All fees.
Make your changes: Update the amount, date, or linked deal as needed. Changes save automatically.
Fields reference
Carta CRM organizes fee data into fields native to the fee record and fields inherited from the linked company, shown for context when you open a fee.
Field | Description |
|---|---|
Advisor | [Required] The company this fee is linked to. Links to a company record; use View company to see the full profile. |
Deals | [Optional] Links the fee to a deal |
Fee | The amount of the fee |
Date | The date the fee was incurred or paid |
Comments | Rich-text notes on the fee |
Native fields
Your firm may have additional fields configured during implementation, such as a fee category or a status field. These appear on the fee record alongside the native fields above.
Administrators can manage fields themselves without the AI agent: right-click any field on a fee record to modify or hide it, or to add a new one. For broader changes, like reordering fields or editing several at once, use Configure fields from the record's menu in the top right.
What you can do now
You're tracking fees. Here's how to roll them up and connect them to the rest of your pipeline.
Reporting on fees
Fee data is most useful once you can see it across every company or deal at once.
A report is a dynamic query: choose Fees as the data source, add filters, pick the columns you want, and save it as a view you can come back to. Use one for a running total by company, a view filtered to a specific deal, or everything added this quarter.
Connect fees to companies and deals
A fee is most useful when it's linked to everything else that relationship touches. Linking a fee to a company keeps every cost tied to that relationship in one place. Linking it to a deal as well narrows that further, so your team can see exactly what a specific transaction cost, alongside its other deal activity.