Why is this so critical? Simple. Losing track of important dates is easy to do if you have a significant leasing portfolio, and when it happens it can be costly. Missed payments, for example, can initiate a surcharge, and with today’s lease management software there’s really no reason for that to happen.
But you need to know the procedural side of this software, too, to prevent this from happening. It’s essential to know what to track and how to set up the software to do it for you, so let’s perform a quick review of what the most important dates and how you can track them.
-
Critical Lease Accounting Dates
We’ll start with lease expirations. For tenants, the biggest nightmare is missing a lease expiration date, largely because doing this eliminates most of the legal protections they had under the terms of the lease. They also lose all their negotiating power, so it’s beyond critical that they stay on top of this particular date.
For landlords, the issues when it comes to important dates are somewhat different. Many landlords struggle to keep track of lease expiration dates simply because of the numbers, and that’s especially true if they have a large number of leases or a fast-growing portfolio. The next date category is about options. Most leases contain at lest one or two, and they’re usually important.
Purchase options, renewal options, expansion options—they all matter, and tenants need to know when the dates for them arrive and when they expire. It’s an essential part of lease strategy, so make sure you use your lease management software to sort out the specifics. Rent escalations are another serious date to track. Some leases mandate rent escalations, and tenants can use notifications provided by lease management software to integrate those dates into their rent payment schedules.
Now let’s talk about insurance policies. Most leases also either contain them or they refer to them, and the dates pertaining to these insurance policies are important, too. Most are initiated by landlords as part of the conditions they set up to rent property, but tenants can also initiate insurance policies to do things like protect their belongings, for instance. Insurance policies also typically contain delivery notices, so these should be tracked by your leasing management software as well. It’s important to know the time window within which an insurance policy has to be delivered, so that definitely needs to be included as part of your tracking process.
Keep in mind that nearly all of these same categories will apply to equipment leases, too. The parameters will obviously be very different, but the issues and problems that can occur will be just as serious, and maybe even worse when it comes to running certain businesses that are heavily dependent on leased equipment.
The bottom line here is that if you have an equipment-based lease portfolio, it’s just as important to do comprehensive date tracking to keep your business running smoothly. -
Important Dates Pertaining to Your Leases
Tech gadgets like smartphones and tablets have made it easy to track dates and get notifications these days, but the best way to do it is with lease management software.
Why? Because of the sophistication of the software, which allows extensive data gathering. Moreover, you can use that data in managing your leasing portfolio, which can help you make better business decisions.
When it comes to dates, though, the best benefit by far is with regard to scheduling. Having all of your lease dates displayed in a simple spreadsheet or a chart or table can be invaluable, so it’s worth investing the time to learn how to do this.
This information can also help you with negotiating lease terms. If you know a pivotal date is coming, you can get the jump on the negotiation process and operate from a position of strength.
This tracking process becomes even more important when it comes to commercial leases. These documents tend to contain a plethora of dates, and there’s different information you need to know about each one.
Make sure your software is sophisticated enough to make all that information available to you quickly and easily, and in a form that’s easy to digest and understand.
That data should be easily sharable, too, especially for larger businesses. Every department should have access to any essential lease-related dates, and they should be able to provide input about how they may need to be altered, as well as when this happens and the logic behind doing it.
You can also use these dates to help analyze your financial obligations. In fact, the financial aspect of this is one of the largest potential benefits of stellar lease management software.
It gives you a window into how you’re running your business, which in turn will allow you to know what you’re doing right and wrong and sharpen your procedures accordingly.
Having financial data displayed along with those critical is incredibly useful when it comes to making side-by-side comparisons, and those kinds of comparisons allow you to make necessary changes and decisions on the fly.
Finally, the best lease management software helps you use these dates to provide deeper insights into your business procedures, too. The deeper you go, the more you’ll learn, so keep that in mind as you set up your best practices for date tracking. -
We’ll Help You Save the Date
The reason we know so much about date tracking with lease management software is that we’ve been doing it for a long time.
We know what happens when important dates get missed, and we’ve seen how much more money businesses can make when they get on top of date tracking via their lease management software.
To learn what we can do for you, though, you have to take the first step. Contact us at and we can fill you in on the basics of date tracking. You can also chat with one of our experts at ileasepro.com and that will give you an even better idea of what our software products can do for you when it comes to date tracking.
Let iLeasePro Simplify Your Lease Accounting
Schedule a DemoRelated: iLeasePro Free Trial, iLeaseXpress, iLeaseXpress Unlimited, ASC 842 Financial Reporting, ASC 842 Balance Sheet Reporting, ASC 842 Income Statement Reporting, ASC 842 Cash Flow Reporting, ASC 842 Statement of Shareholder Equity, ASC 842 Disclosure Notes, ASC 842 Management Discussion, ASC 842 Comprehensive Income, ASC 842 Glossary of Terms, ASC 842 Journal Entries, ASC 842 Software, When Is the ASC 842 Compliance Date, FASB Lease Accounting Software, Understanding the New FASB ASC 842 Lease Accounting Standard, How Does a Lease Balance Sheet Change After the New Standard?, Tracking Lease Details After ASC 842, Deferred Rent Explained Under the ASC 842, Guide to Lease Classification, Overview of Relevant Borrowing Rate, ASC 842 Footnote Disclosure, Lease Accounting, What Does Lease Accounting Software Do?, Key Features of A Lease Accounting Software, Scaling Your Lease Accounting Software to Your Business Needs, How to Select the Right Lease Solution, How to Set Up Lease Accounting Software, What is the Best Lease Accounting Software?, Overview of the Types of Leases, Equipment Lease Software, How the Right Lease Management Software Makes Equipment Leases Easier, Lease Tracking Software, How The Right Software Can Help You Manage Lease Data, Five Benefits of a SaaS Lease Management Solution, A Centralized Lease Portfolio Making Asset Management Easier, Lease Analysis 101, Lease Analysis: The Financial Metrics, Lease Abstraction, The Importance of Lease Abstraction for Lessees, The Lease Data an Abstract Should Include, What Software Do I Need for Lease Abstracting?, Navigating The ASC 842 Accounting Audit, Ultimate Lease Accounting Audit Checklist, Essential Guide To Engaging Auditors, Leveraging AI for Enhanced Year-End Audits Transitioning to the ASC 842 Standard Lease Document Management ASC 842 Short-Term Leases Practical Expedients Lease Modifications & Remeasurements Lease Variable Payments Embedded Leases Monitoring Critical Lease Dates Transportation - Navigate the ASC 842 The Impact of the ASC 842 on Regulatory Policies in Lease Management & Lease Accounting Integrating Lease Accounting into Your Month-End Closing Process The Modified Retrospective Approach in ASC 842 Determining the Incremental Borrowing Rate