Lease portfolios constitute one of the major chunks of operating expenses for any business. Staying on top of your lease portfolio and ensuring all the elements therein are accounted for accurately can be challenging. Not doing so may result in you violating your lease obligations unknowingly, overpaying your CAM charges, or missing out on key opportunities such as renewals and expansions. By condensing the key financial and non-financial clauses of your leases and making it available on-demand, Lease abstracts help you identify these instances and ensure you are not in violation of any lease term. Coupled with CAM and lease audits, lease abstracts also ensure you are only paying what you owe to your Landlords. However, not all lease abstracts are created equal! In our blog this week, we discuss a few elements to consider when preparing your lease abstracts so they truly work as intended. 

Have a consistent lease abstract template

Unless you have a Master Level Agreement (MLA), each of your leases is going to be different. There will be variations in key lease terms, obligations and even the same line items could be worded or referred to differently.  Having a lease abstract and audit template helps you standardize all of these and provides you with a common platform for all your leases. This makes it easier for you to compare your leases and drive key business decisions based on ROI. Lease abstract and audit templates are especially important if you have a large lease portfolio consisting of n number of leases panning across various locations. If your lease portfolio is multilingual, meaning having leases drafted in different languages, having a lease abstract template becomes even more important. Lease abstract and audit templates help bring all your leases on the same page. 

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. 

Excel won’t help you excel!

If you are still using spreadsheets to capture your critical lease information, then it’s high time you moved away from Excel to a robust lease administration software. Spreadsheets are great to track data in general, but to manage your lease portfolio efficiently you need much more than spreadsheets. Lease management has very specific requirements including the need to meet compliance regulations, critical date monitoring and alerts, timely notifications and multiple report generation for different user personas such as the finance department, real estate department, legal department and others. 

Click here to learn more about how lease administration software platforms make your lease portfolio management process more efficient.  

There are many lease administration software platforms available in the market today. Some of the leading lease administration platforms are –

• MRI and MRI Software owned, AMT Direct, Leverton AI, ProLease, Manhattan Trimble and Cube Horizon  
• Yardi
• Lease Accelerator
• Accruent and Lucernex
• IBM Tririga
• Visual Lease
• Lease Harbor
• Tango Lease
• CoStar Lease Administration
• Oracle JD Edwards

If you are not sure about which lease administration platform to pick, consider reaching out to an experienced lease abstraction and administration service provider who has experience working on the different lease administration platforms that you are considering. Such a service provider will be able to share the pros and cons of the various lease administration platforms with you, guide you through the lease administration software selection process and help you choose the lease administration software that best fits your requirements.