Total Shares Authorized

The total number of authorized shares for this security class.

Impact on unissued shares

In a fully diluted view of the cap table, you'll notice an unissued shares row that's automatically listed when you set the  total shares authorized. This is the net difference between the total authorized less the number of shares that have been issued, as these unissued shares still represent a percentage of your fully diluted cap table.

Use by options and warrant security classes

Setting total shares authorized on a security class defined as Equity or Equity Common creates a unique block of authorized shares. However, setting an authorized amount on a security class defined as Options or Warrants with the underlying security field completed will instead reserve existing authorized shares from the underlying security class.

For example, let's say your cap table has two securities with the following:

For the sake of simplicity, let's say no shares have been issued in either security class. Your cap table would show two rows of unissued shares, with Options reserving 20,000 shares from 100,000 authorized in Common.