Lease accounting software streamlines the management of lease agreements by centralizing financial and compliance data in one platform. We’ve examined 20+ providers across seven metrics to rank the top lease accounting software.
Our advanced review methodology considers factors such as usability, support, scalability, security, value, performance, and the range of features offered.
- LeaseQuery: Best Overall
- Visual Lease: Best for Real Estate Management
- LeaseCrunch: Best for CPAs
- Lucernex: Best for Retail Management
- Occupier: Best for Collaboration
- Trullion: Best AI-Powered Option
- EZLease: Best for Long-Term Compliance
- Leasecake: Best Integration Options
- LeaseAccelerator: Best for Enterprises
- Spacebase: Most User-Friendly Option
1 LeaseQuery - Best Overall
Why We Chose It: LeaseQuery is a lease accounting software solution. Essential features include error-free amortization schedules and journal entries, critical date alert setting, and data entry validation. Role-based access and locked journal entries keep your company compliant with FASB ASC 842, IFRS 16, and GASB 87.
Seamlessly integrate with any ERP to improve your accounting intelligence and reporting.
2 Visual Lease - Best for Real Estate Management
Why We Chose It: Visual Lease is an enterprise lease accounting administration software designed for managing real estate and equipment leases. This web-based solution integrates with ERP systems to give you complete control over your business operations.
Manage and maximize every asset in your portfolio all in one place by using Visual Lease to maintain compliance with ASC 842, GASB 87, and IFRS 16 to be audit-ready at all times.
3 LeaseCrunch - Best for CPAs
Why We Chose It: Designed by CPAs, former Big 4 public accounting auditors, and software development experts, LeaseCrunch is made to simplify the implementation of lease accounting standards, including ASC 842, IFRS 16, and GASB 87. A streamlined interface provides users with journal entries, amortization schedules, and quantitative footnotes at the push of a button, making it an efficient and user-friendly solution for lease accounting compliance.
LeaseCrunch caters to organizations of all sizes, from those with a few leases to those with thousands, across various industries such as hospitals, transportation, retail, hospitality, financial services, non-profits, and governments.
4 Lucernex - Best for Retail Management
Why We Chose It: Lucernex is our top lease accounting pick for retailers and franchisors. Its functionality supports real estate and equipment leases, ensuring compliance with FASB ASC 842, IFRS 16, and GASB 87 standards.
Lucernex has market planning and site selection tools, useful for retail expansion and optimization. The platform also offers advanced features like project management, facility management, and lease administration, making it a versatile tool for managing multiple aspects of retail operations.
Lucernex integrates with existing ERP systems, enhancing data accuracy and financial reporting capabilities. Its user-friendly interface and dedicated support team make it a decent choice for retail businesses looking to streamline their lease accounting and management processes.
5 Occupier - Best for Collaboration
Why We Chose It: Occupier made our list because it streamlines collaboration among real estate, accounting, and lease administration teams. The platform’s unique selling point is its ability to automate lease accounting workflows and enhance team collaboration. This is beneficial for businesses with extensive lease portfolios that require coordination across multiple departments. It also complies with ASC 842, GASB 87, and IFRS 16 requirements.
Additionally, as an integrated workplace management system, Occupier brings together diverse modules like real estate portfolio management, lease administration, space planning, and maintenance into a single, integrated platform. This centralized system fosters team collaboration and provides a full view of the organization’s entire workplace ecosystem, making it a digital concierge for real estate managers.
6 Trullion - Best AI-Powered Option
Why We Chose It: Trullion is an AI-driven platform that automates the extraction and management of lease data. It provides real-time visibility into lease portfolios and financial impacts, making it easier for businesses to comply with ASC 842, IFRS 16, and GASB 87 standards. The software’s AI capabilities extend to generating accurate and compliant journal entries, amortization schedules, and disclosure reports.
Trullion leverages AI to calculate Implicit Balance Rate (IBR) instantly across regions, asset classes, or currencies, utilizing an integrated IBR calculation engine. Its AI technology automatically logs detailed data and traces each step with audit logs to verify and track changes for internal and external stakeholders. Finally, Trullion automatically verifies numbers against reporting and compliance requirements using proprietary models and third-party data, identifying discrepancies before they impact the business.
7 EZLease - Best for Long-Term Compliance
Why We Chose It: EZLease provides fast, simple, and easy lease accounting software for ASC 842, GASB 87, GASB 96 and IFRS 16 . Designed to ensure long-term compliance for lessees and lessors across equipment and real estate assets, EZLease manages and automates the lease data management, accounting, and reporting processes.
With over 15 years of implementations across private, government and public organizations of all sizes, EZLease has no implementation costs and guarantees long-term compliance in hours.
8 Leasecake - Best Integration Options
Why We Chose It: We added Leasecake to our list because it provides extensive integration options. These include NetSuite, Sage, QuickBooks, and Restaurant 365. This helps streamline financial tracking, compliance, risk management, and renewal and negotiation analysis.
Leasecake’s core features include its meticulous data extraction from leases and a deal projects module for managing pre-lease execution steps. It offers a modern and intuitive interface, along with lease abstraction services. Additionally, the platform demonstrates fast and responsive performance and integrates seamlessly with popular accounting software, making it a versatile tool for businesses with multiple locations.
Leasecake has a flexible pricing model based on the number of locations and additional services like lease abstraction and triple net reconciliations provide scalability and customization options for businesses of varying sizes and needs.
9 LeaseAccelerator - Best for Enterprises
Why We Chose It: We picked LeaseAccelerator because it’s a good fit for large organizations managing anywhere from under 10 to over 150,000 leases. The software offers detailed reporting capabilities for global operations. These include full reports for lease data, accounting, and management, with many built-in controls that ensure data integrity and compliance.
Overall, LeaseAccelerator streamlines lease management throughout its lifecycle and ensures compliance with both US GAAP and IFRS standards. One of its strengths is its asset-level accounting and audit trail documentation, which is crucial for audit readiness. It simplifies real estate lease administration with centralized contract management, rent payment tracking, and the ability to monitor contract modifications and rent changes.
10 Spacebase - Most User-Friendly Option
Why We Chose It: Spacebase offers a user-friendly interface and feature-rich platform that digitizes and centralizes lease portfolios. We found the software easily navigable, with easy-to-use forms and templates for data entry and document creation.
Spacebase also provides essential functionalities like journal entries, required disclosures, lease classification, critical date notifications, option tracking, and payment management. Additionally, the ability to calculate ROU assets and lease liabilities, create amortization schedules, and integrate with ERP systems ensures comprehensive lease accounting support.
Spacebase is suitable for companies seeking to comply with ASC 842, IFRS 16, and GASB 87 lease accounting standards. Pricing starts at $300 per month per user and a free trial is available.
What is Lease Accounting Software?
Lease accounting software keeps track of the income and expenses primarily involved in equipment and property rental businesses. The accounting system will track payments made, send invoices, and create financial reports. These solutions are most commonly used by real estate professionals and equipment rental companies that need to ensure their financial records comply with FASB and IASB standards.
Staying in line with the new FASB and IASB standards requires complex calculations to determine which leases need to be included on the balance sheet. Lease accounting software streamlines these calculations, ensuring you’re reporting in compliance with each standard. Having an up-to-date solution will keep you compliant even as the standards change over time.
Many lease accounting solutions can also store lease data. This allows you to keep tabs on lease terms, renewal deadlines, and lessee contact and payment information.
Features of Lease Accounting Software
Feature | Description |
---|---|
Financial Accounting | Record rental income and business expenses. |
Billing and Invoicing | Create and send invoices for rental payments. Set up recurring invoices for regular payment installments. |
Financial Reporting | Create reports in accordance with ASC 842 and IFRS 16 standards. |
Lease Management | Store lease data including terms, asset descriptions, and lessee information. |
Financial Management in Lease Accounting Software
Lease accounting software manages the financial side of your rental business. The system will keep track of all rental income. Payment schedules can be set up to be automatically withdrawn from the customer’s bank account or charged to a credit card on a certain date. Additional charges can also be added for security deposits and late fees.
Lease accounting software also assists with budgeting. Rental businesses need to track expenses like bank fees, maintenance and repair expenses, legal fees, and more. The system will also track revenue from rental payments, late fees, and security deposits. Compare the estimated budget to your actual financials during a set period to ensure you’re making a profit and meeting your financial goals.
What is the Latest Lease Accounting Standard?
Your lease accounting solution will ensure existing leases and new leases are reported correctly in accordance with a variety of domestic and international accounting standards. Two of the latest and most important standards are the FASB ASC 842 and IFRS 16.
FASB ASC 842
The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) released an update to ASC 840 known as ASC 842. Lease accounting systems help create ASC 842 compliant reports including amortization of right-of-use (ROU) assets, cash flows, interest on lease liabilities, variable lease cost, complete disclosures reports, and more.
Lease classification is very similar in the new FASB ASC 842 standard compared to ASC 840.
Both standards classify leases as either a financial lease (capital lease) or an operating lease. Previously, operating leases were not required to be recorded on the balance sheet. In ASC 842, any lease longer than a 12-month term limit needs to be reported on your balance sheet–including operating leases.
Defining an operating lease and capital lease under ASC 842:
Operating Lease | Capital Lease | |
---|---|---|
Asset ownership is transferred to the lessee at the end of the term. | No | Yes |
Option to purchase the asset for under fair market value after the lease term ends. | No | Yes |
The lease term is a major part of the economic life of the leased asset. | No | Yes |
The minimum lease payments are a substantial part of the asset’s fair market value. | No | Yes |
Public companies were required to implement the new standards from ASC 842 in December 2018, while private companies followed suit on December 15, 2019.
IFRS 16
IFRS 16 is a new standard from the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). Lease accounting software ensures your reports are compliant with these international standards. Under IFRS 16, assets valued over $5,000 and lease terms over 12 months must be included on the balance sheet. However, short-term leases and low-value assets still need to be disclosed.
The IFRS 16 lease standard went into effect for reporting periods starting on or after January 1st, 2019. This standard replaced IAS 17 to improve balance-sheet transparency. Previously, many leases that were considered operating leases could be left off of the balance sheet, while finance leases were required. IFRS 16 treats almost all leases as finance leases and virtually removes lease classification.
Portfolio-Level vs. Asset-Level Lease Accounting
Lease accounting software can record transactions on a portfolio-level or asset-level basis. In portfolio-level lease accounting, transactions for a single lease contract are reported as a whole. This type of accounting is ideal for leases with only one asset per contract.
Asset-level lease accounting keeps track of every individual asset stated on a contract. For example, one lease contract that contains multiple segments or offices within a building. Both ASC 842 and IFRS 16 require each asset within a lease contract to be included in financial statements.
Lease Management Software
Lease accounting software often integrates with lease management and lease administration software to form an all-in-one solution. The lease management system helps you keep track of and maintain lease portfolios, tenants and customers, documents, deadlines, and more.
Lease data stored within the system can be updated easily. Important information like lease term length, rate, expiration, and tenant or customer information is stored within the solution. Lease contracts and other important documents can also be added, so you can easily pull them up as needed.
The system will automatically notify you of upcoming deadlines and other important dates. For example, if a payment is missed or a lease contract is coming up for renewal, the system will send you a notification.
Lease Accounting vs. Lease Management
Many solutions also include lease management as part of the accounting system. Lease accounting software allows you to create reports for public financial disclosures, as well as record income and expenses. Lease management software, on the other hand, tracks lease details and automates lease renewals, termination processes, and buyouts. Having both lease accounting and lease management in one system ensures you meet all accounting standards and keeps track of lease terms in one place. Your lease management system can automatically update the accounting side when leases are signed, renewed, or ended.
Types of Leases to Manage with Lease Accounting Software
Lease accounting software is beneficial to anyone that rents out their assets. Some leases you can manage with lease accounting software include:
Residential and Commercial Real Estate Leases
Real estate lease accounting software keeps track of rental income from commercial properties, apartments, duplexes, and other property rentals. The system will also store lease agreements, so you can keep track of agreed-upon terms. Lease software will also notify you of any late payments, termination of contracts, and lease renewal deadlines.
All-in-one property management software can also be used for either commercial or residential real estate leasing. These solutions handle accounting, tenant management, work order management, and more.
Equipment Leases
Advanced lease management software can have features like GPS tracking and asset management. This allows you to track the location of your equipment in real-time. The condition of your equipment is also stored within the system. Knowing when your equipment was serviced and important upcoming dates for preventative maintenance will keep your equipment running longer.
Industry-specific software is also available–these include equipment rental software and fleet management software. These solutions feature lease management, accounting, asset tracking, and more.
Employment and Service Contracts
Lease accounting software helps businesses keep track of income and expenses from contracted services. For example, small to medium-sized businesses sometimes contract out work through a professional employer organization (PEO). The PEO, also known as an employee leasing company, contracts out employees to help businesses with tasks like training, payroll processing, recruiting, and performance management.
The lease accounting software will track payments from the business for services rendered, as well as contractual agreements. If money was spent on additional equipment for the service, those costs can be factored into the total cost for the final invoice.