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Things to Consider when Finalizing your Lease Abstract Templates

 

Lease abstracts play a key role in simplifying the complexity of leases and helping you scale by making it easy for you to manage the volume of leases in a portfolio. However, for your lease abstracts to serve their purpose effectively, your lease abstract templates need to be accurate. Lease abstraction templates are the backbone of any lease abstraction project. Hence a lot of thought and foresight needs to go into their development. The one-size-fits-all approach to lease abstraction templates doesn’t work well, because each lease is unique and though quite a few key terms and financials (such as rent-rolls, important dates, notice period, etc.,) are universally considered important, there may be many other clauses that are important from the perspective of a particular lease/industry/tenant-landlord relationship, etc.

If you are considering outsourcing your abstraction process to a lease abstraction vendor, then one of the things for you to consider is their knowledge and experience in terms of the template definition. Abstracting the key data points from a lease onto a template is not a difficult task, but identifying which data points are important and need to be captured, certainly is, as it brings the lease abstraction service vendor’s judgment and industry expertise into play.

Another aspect to consider when finalizing your lease abstraction template is the amount of data that needs to be captured. Sometimes, in a bid to ensure no information is left out, some lease abstractors tend to copy-paste entire clauses into the abstract, rendering the lease abstraction virtually pointless. What’s the use of getting a lease abstracted if the lease abstract is more or less a copy-and-paste version of the original lease!

Pick an experienced lease abstraction vendor who will be able to offer you guidance and help you finalize a lease abstract template that’s right for you. They should be aware of the nuances of your business/industry. For example, someone who is well-versed in retail lease abstraction would know retail-specific clauses like percentage rent, right to audit, etc., and how they need to be captured.  Apart from bringing their overall industry knowledge and expertise to the table, your lease abstraction vendor must be willing to sit down with you and understand your specific business needs and help you identify what clauses of the lease will be of importance to you, in particular. 

Rebolease.com, powered by RE BackOffice, Inc., is a premier provider of lease abstraction, administration, and accounting services. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, we are a global boutique firm, providing high-quality services to top-tier clients across industry verticals, covering every type of lease and on any lease platform. We are proud to be a trusted partner, for 15+ years, to leading retailers, REITs, property owners/managers, and corporate accounts seeking strategic advantage. All client projects are performed in-house. Please contact us today to learn more.  

RE BackOffice Celebrates 15 years of Excellence as a Global, Comprehensive & Trusted Commercial Real Estate Service Provider

The company has also launched a new website, www.rebolease.com dedicated in entirety to its lease abstraction, administration and accounting services

23rd March 2021: Pittsburgh, PA: Leading commercial real estate services provider, RE BackOffice, celebrates 15 years in business this year. The Pittsburgh-based company was founded in 2006, with a mission to deliver exceptional real estate marketing and lease services at affordable prices. Over the years, RE BackOffice has grown from a 20-member firm to an organization with 250+ professionals who are committed to providing the highest quality real estate marketing, lease abstraction, administration, and accounting services. 

RE BackOffice is renowned for being a boutique firm, engaged in consistently driving value, delivering first-class results, and exceeding client expectations. As a global, comprehensive, and trusted commercial real estate services provider, RE BackOffice serves top-tier clients across various industry verticals including retail, corporate, tower, healthcare, REITs, property owners, managers, etc. Over the years, RE BackOffice’s client base has grown exponentially. 7-Eleven, Sleepys, Crown Castle, CBRE, H&M, and JLL are a few of the many leading brands served by RE BackOffice. 

“We are proud to complete 15 years in business and to be internationally recognized as the industry leader in commercial real estate services. The unmatched quality of our services, backed by our sound processes, industry knowledge, tech expertise, agility to adapt to the industry’s needs, and energetic work culture has been our core strength throughout the years. We are thrilled to have reached the 15-year milestone and are looking forward to an even more exciting decade ahead”, says Manu Varghese, VP, Operations. 

“15 years is a landmark anniversary! On this occasion, I would like to extend my thanks to our clients for placing their trust in RE BackOffice. I would also like to express my gratitude to our team for their dedication to helping REBO attain our goals as an organization. I’m looking forward to many more years of adding value to our clients.”, says Lyselle D’Souza, VP of Marketing Services. 

“As we celebrate this milestone anniversary, I want to recognize and share my appreciation for the commitment, talent, and spirit of our unique team who make this remarkable journey possible.  In addition, the entire RE BackOffice team wants each one of our clients to know that we are sincerely grateful for the continued trust you place in us. Trust, accuracy, reliability, and exceptional customer service are and will continue to be the cornerstones of our success.  We look forward to building on this solid foundation in the years to come, serving our customers large and small, across all industries.”, says Holly Khera, CEO, RE BackOffice. 

On this milestone anniversary, RE BackOffice has also launched a new website, www.rebolease.com, that focuses on RE BackOffice’s lease abstraction, administration, and accounting services business. The new website is easy to navigate and has dedicated pages for each lease service it offers and for the major industry verticals that the company serves. Please visit www.rebolease.com for more information.

What to consider when assessing your lease abstraction vendor’s experience?

 

If you are considering outsourcing your lease abstraction process, then it is because you already know the benefits of hiring a lease abstraction company to abstract your leases. 

Outsourcing lease abstraction 

  • Offers you significant cost benefits
  • Ensures you stay on top of your lease portfolio, no matter how short-staffed you are on the lease portfolio management front
  • Allows you to benefit from the expertise and industry experience of your lease abstraction vendor

However, in order to actually enjoy these benefits, you should pick the right lease abstraction vendor. One of the many things to look at when considering a lease abstraction vendor is their experience. Generally, clients tend to look at the number of years the lease abstraction vendor has been in the business. While experience in terms of industry-years is certainly a major factor impacting lease abstraction vendor selection process, it shouldn’t be the only one. The element of experience has multiple aspects to it. When looking at your lease abstraction vendor’s experience, two other areas to consider are, if they have experience.

Serving both, landlord & tenant 

Has your lease abstraction vendor worked with both tenants and landlords, or, is their experience largely limited to one of them? Leases are complex legal documents. You need someone who understands complexities and nuances of your leases that represent the culmination of negotiations between lessor and lessee. A lease abstraction vendor who has experience working with lessors and lessees over the years has a much broader perspective than someone who has been typically involved only with one side, such as the Landlord or the Tenant. Such a vendor will be able to bring their rich and diverse understanding and expertise into your lease abstraction project, driving maximum value for you.

Serving clients from your industry

Every lease is unique, and leases pertaining to each industry have their own nuances. When picking a lease abstraction vendor, you might want to consider someone who has experience working with clients in your industry. This is especially true in case of industry verticals like Cell-tower, healthcare, retail, etc, where there are a lot of industry-specific clauses and documents such as Tower co-location agreements, HIPAA regulations impacting the lease liabilities, percentage rent, and related audit rights, etc.

Taking a second look at the experience criterion from these two additional angles that we discussed will help ensure you pick a lease abstraction vendor who is able to abstract the key elements of the lease that you actually need in order to make better operational and strategic decisions; accurately, consistently, and fully.

Rebolease.com, powered by RE BackOffice, Inc., is a premier provider of lease abstraction, administration, and accounting services. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, we are a global boutique firm, providing high-quality services to top-tier clients across industry verticals, covering every type of lease and on any lease platform. We are proud to be a trusted partner, for 15+ years, to leading retailers, REITs, property owners/managers, and corporate accounts seeking strategic advantage. All client projects are performed in-house. Please contact us today to learn more.  

Lease Administration post: Building a solid foundation for your lease portfolio management process

 

Your lease portfolio management process has many moving parts. While it is complicated, it is also one of the most important business processes. In our blog this week, we discuss a few items that form the foundation of your lease portfolio management process.

Lease abstracts

Your lease abstracts are of course the most important aspect of your lease portfolio. Saying that leases contain a lot of information is an understatement. Lease abstracts summarize the key financial and non-financial terms of your leases so you have easy access to actionable data. So, the first thing to do, when solidifying your lease portfolio management process is to ensure you have accurate abstracts of all the leases in your portfolio.

Lease audits 

If you already have lease abstracts, the next step is to audit them all. A lease audit involves verifying the information in your lease abstracts against the original lease documents to ensure that the abstracts are accurate. A lease audit helps you identify any discrepancies and ensures your abstracts are up-to-date and no critical information or updates in the form of amendments or addendums are missed out.

Lease abstract templates

Sometimes, you may already have lease abstracts that are accurate and up-to-date, but they may fail to capture some critical information. Hence, as a part of your lease portfolio management process audit it makes sense to look at your existing lease abstract template to determine if you are capturing the right information. While some core fields such as rent, options, key dates, etc., are needed irrespective of what industry you belong to, there may be fields that are important for your business or industry in particular. Apart from such fields, there may be certain, less common clauses in some leases that must be captured. So, you need to identify what data matters to you and ensure that your lease abstract template caters to your needs by capturing that information. Our blog post, Is your lease abstraction set up accurate, offers more information on this. 

Ongoing lease administration

Once your lease abstracts are accurate, concise, up-to-date, and reflect all the information you require, the next step is to engage in ongoing lease administration. This helps in maintaining your ROI on the lease by ensuring that you don’t miss any critical timeline or lose out on any opportunity pertaining to your lease. Learn more about why you shouldn’t skip ongoing lease administration in this blog.


Rebolease.com, powered by RE BackOffice, Inc., is a premier provider of lease abstraction, administration, and accounting services. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, we are a global boutique firm, providing high-quality services to top-tier clients across industry verticals, covering every type of lease and on any lease platform. We are proud to be a trusted partner, for 15+ years, to leading retailers, REITs, property owners/managers, and corporate accounts seeking strategic advantage. All client projects are performed in-house. Please contact us today to learn more.

Here’s why ignoring on-going lease administration is not a good idea.

 

Is your lease administration process consistent? Tenants often so caught up in their business that lease administration tends to take a back seat. Usually, it is because of one or more of the following reasons: 

The high cost of hiring, training, and retaining lease administration resources

Lease administration resources are considerably expensive. Add to that the training and retaining costs that accumulate over time, the lease administration process in itself becomes costly. 

The high rate of attrition affecting lease portfolio management and timely updates

The lease administration industry is characterized by a high rate of attrition, which adversely affects lease portfolio management. Organizations fall behind on timely updates and lease audits due to a lack of resources. 

However, ignoring on-going lease administration and timely lease audits can result in substantial financial losses due to missed opportunities. For example, you fail to identify and rectify erroneous rent calculations or CAM charges, which then get embedded in your lease, term after term. 

Tenants without a solid lease administration and audit process also end up underutilizing their assets/rights under the lease due to lack of information. This is often a result of decentralized, fragmented, and inaccurate lease data.

On-going lease administration and regular lease audits help ensure that you, as a tenant don’t miss any critical deadlines or overlook any opportunities such as the right to renew or expand. With detailed reports alerting you to critical dates, action items, and financial discrepancies such as incorrect billing or overcharges across various locations, you will be able to drive strategic business decisions accurately and on time, while saving substantial amounts of money. 

Rebolease.com, powered by RE BackOffice, Inc., is a premier provider of lease abstraction, administration, and accounting services. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, we are a global boutique firm, providing high-quality services to top-tier clients across industry verticals, covering every type of lease and on any lease platform. We are proud to be a trusted partner, for 15+ years, to leading retailers, REITs, property owners/managers, and corporate accounts seeking strategic advantage. All client projects are performed in-house. Please contact us today to learn more.

Lease Administration post: Is your rent really supposed to be that high?

 

Leasing is a key financial decision, so it is fair to assume that tenants analyze the viability of the decision to enter into a lease, thoroughly. However, once the lease is signed and the rented premises are occupied and operational, many tenants are taken by surprise as they find their rental costs ending up being significantly more than what was expected. This blog post discusses the possible reasons for such discrepancies. 

One of the first things to check is if your base rent calculations are accurate. If there are errors in your base rent calculations, they can get embedded in your rent roll, pushing your rent higher year-after-year, inaccurately. Some areas to check in this regard are-

Square footage calculations

Leased space or square footage plays an important role because it forms the base for most of the charges levied upon the tenant. Even a few square feet here and there can make a huge difference when base rent, CAM charges, and other operating expenses are calculated on a per-square-foot basis. Learn more in this blog post. 

CPI calculations

If your rent rises are linked to the CPI, then you need to ensure the CPI calculations made for your lease are accurate. You need to be aware of the CPI adjustments and apply them correctly to your rent roll. 

Rent commencement date, pro-rata rent, and term calculations

Another area to scrutinize is the rent commencement date. A lot of hinges upon your rent commencement date, including calculations related to your lease tenure. If your rent commencement dates are incorrect, or the terms and pro-rated rent are calculated wrong, you may be paying more than what you actually owe. 

You can avoid unpleasant surprises related to your rent amounts by deploying the services of an experienced lease administration firm that helps you stay on top of your lease portfolio management. Regular lease audits and lease administration services go a long way in identifying errors in your rent roll and helping you save significantly on rent.  

RE BackOffice is a strategic partner providing scalable, affordable and accurate lease abstraction, comprehensive lease administration and accounting services to optimize your lease portfolio and related processes. Please contact us today to learn more.