News Coverage

Harnessing lease accounting centers of excellence

Len Neuhaus | February 10, 2020

One of the biggest post-adoption challenges for companies will be in the areas of talent, staffing and training. Companies will need to transition away from their original team used for implementation and move toward a long-term staffing strategy with in-house personnel. As a result, many companies with large, distributed leasing portfolios have centralized the staff performing record-to-report functions in a leasing center of excellence (COE). These new leasing COEs are typically being co-located with shared service centers for payables, collections, and fixed asset accounting.

Read the full article on Accounting Today.

Key Steps to the Lease Accounting Close

Len Neuhaus | January 27, 2020

Reassessments and remeasurements of recorded lease assets and liabilities are now a commonplace event, often occurring every month. Compared with the historical close process used under the legacy leasing standards, ASC 840 and IAS 17, several procedures have been added to the record-to-report processes. There are new quantitative and qualitative disclosers, new general ledger accounts, and new controls required. However, the most cumbersome new procedures fall on the teams outside accounting. Many may be new to accounting and the new standards.

Read the full article on CFO.com.

GASB 87: State and local government entities face special challenges beyond mere accounting

Mark Koppersmith | January 2, 2020

The standard generally mirrors leasing standards issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board, although there are specific differences in accounting treatment. Government entities also face other challenges specific to the nature of their operations, challenges that many may not have anticipated, and which are related to the very nature of their organizations.

Read the full article on AccountingToday.

SIG dispatch: Leasing Spend — The Hidden Double Digit (millions) Category Savings Opportunity! (Part 1)

Jason Busch | October 17, 2019

At SIG’s Global Executive Summit this week in California, two sessions, a mainstage panel and a breakout session, focused on the opportunity for lease sourcing. Two LeaseAccelerator execs — Steve Keifer, VP of Marketing, and Ingemar Lanevi, VP of Global Lease Sourcing Solutions — ran the sessions.

Read the full article on Spend Matters.

Lease accounting: globalisation and the role of the CFO

Josh May | September 25, 2019

Globalisation is driving companies to change the way they do business, to be able to capitalise on broader markets around the world. As such, CFOs and heads of finance departments can face a challenging time controlling costs while ensuring compliance with increasingly stringent regulations. Josh May, European consulting director at LeaseAccelerator, writes. To benefit from globalisation, CFOs and finance teams need to focus on tracking market trends and identifying global opportunities for growth.

Read the full article on Verdict.

Lease Accounting 2.0: The Next Evolution

LeaseAccelerator | August 6, 2019

By leveraging a sophisticated and reliable lease accounting solution and fully automating the management process, companies will see significant benefits. For example, the lease accounting audit process will become fully sustainable and automated; finance teams will no longer need to manually gather data from the widely dispersed asset owners, or to physically identify every change to each individual lease agreement across the enterprise.

Read the full article in Financial Director.

Flying the Standard: Taking IFRS 16 Leases to the Next Level

John Kuett | July 2019

The new lease accounting standard, IFRS 16, is now in effect. Many companies are still getting to grips with the changes to their financial reporting, with all leases coming onto the balance sheet for the first time. But beyond initial implementation, IFRS 16 is also enabling companies to capitalise on the transparency the new standard is delivering.

Read the full article in Treasury Management.

Read the full article in Financial Director.

Lease Accounting: 5 Lessons Learned from Public Company ASC 842 Implementations: How Private Companies Can Avoid Making the Same Mistakes

LeaseAccelerator | July 2019

We’re now seeing the first public company filings under ASC 842. While many made the deadline, most were not able to accomplish both the transition and setting up all of the back-end processes to maintain compliance. Many are still relying on manual workarounds while they work to establish long-term, automated strategies. The main reason why public companies fell behind was because they underestimated the burden of the standard.

Read the full article in The Andersen Alumni Newsletter.

Disrupting the Multi-Trillion Dollar Enterprise Leasing Market: LeaseAccelerator Inc.

Siliconreview Team | July 2019

LeaseAccelerator hopes to change the way that corporations finance major equipment acquisitions with its cloud-based Enterprise Lease Sourcing application. The platform caters to the procurement organizations of Fortune 500 companies that lease significant dollar volumes of computers, trucks, forklifts, railcars, shipping containers, and other types of assets.

Read the full article in The Silicon Review.

Equipment Leasing: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Ingemar Lanevi | July 18, 2019

Having spent a number of years both in the equipment-leasing industry and as a corporate treasurer, I am still surprised by how often companies appear to just enter into lease transactions with no more foresight than the stroke of a pen. In many cases, they enter a deal worth hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars over multiple years after very little review or analysis of the lease transaction’s terms and true costs over time.

Read the full article in Treasury & Risk.

LeaseAccelerator acquires Guardian Global Systems

Michael Cohn | July 11, 2019

The acquisition comes as more companies are adjusting to new lease accounting standards under both U.S. GAAP and International Financial Reporting Standards. Private companies in the U.S. are due to adopt the new rules at the end of this year. Guardian Global will expand LeaseAccelerator’s portfolio of applications with a system for helping real estate companies manage their buildings, land and property contracts, both leased and owned.

Read the full article on accountingtoday.com.

Lease Accounting Post-Adoption

Michael Keeler | July 3, 2019

Over the coming months, these companies will need to transition to longer-term, sustainable strategies for compliance. They will need to institutionalize processes, policies, and controls for leasing that leverage automation and systems. They will need to perfect the close process to reduce the risk of earnings announcement delays. And they will need to bulletproof the record-to-report lifecycle to reduce the risk of a material weakness from their first post-implementation audit.

Read the full article here. Published on CFO.com.

The Big Number

The CFO Journal | June 26, 2019

The total amount of operating lease liabilities across S&P 500 companies, according to an analysis of quarterly report disclosures by the lease-accounting software company LeaseAccelerator Inc.

Read the Morning Ledger in the Wall Street Journal.

S&P 500 cos. report $503B in lease liabilities under new standard

Michael Cohn | June 26, 2019

The study, from lease accounting software provider LeaseAccelerator, analyzed the interim financial reports (SEC Form 10-Q filings) issued between Jan. 1 and June 14, 2019 of 395 S&P 500 companies. It found that six companies were early adopters of the lease standard, also known as ASC 842, adopting it before Dec. 15, 2018, while 389 transitioned on the effective date and 105 plan to transition later in 2019. Four of the companies adopted the standards in the fourth quarter of their fiscal 2018.

Read the full article on Accounting Today.

75% of S&P 500 Firms Have Transitioned to New Lease Accounting Standards

June 26, 2019

LeaseAccelerator released a new report analyzing the financial reports and disclosures of S&P 500 companies that have adopted the new lease accounting standards. Reporting a collective total of $503 billion in operating lease liabilities and $69 billion in finance lease liabilities on their balance sheets, 395 S&P 500 companies transitioned to ASC 842 in the first six months after the initial effective date.

Read the full article in Equipment Finance Advisor.

Ask the Expert – Leases

John Kuett | June 2019

Although the implementation of these standards creates a significant administrative burden at many large firms, it also introduces new opportunities. In addition to improving external transparency into corporate leasing obligations, the standards also increase internal transparency. This added transparency will allow proactive management accountants to assess the current processes their business has in place and focus the asset acquisition process into three to obsolescence concerns or changes in the business, plus key metrics such as EPS and target free cash flow.

Read the full article in the Financial Management Magazine.

What will IFRS 16 mean for 2019’s reporting season?

John Kuett | May 13, 2019

In early 2016, the International Accounting Standards Board released the new lease accounting standard, IFRS 16, in an effort to increase transparency around the state of a corporation’s lease liabilities. Since then, CFOs and treasurers have invested a considerable amount of time and resources into becoming compliant when this new standard was implemented … 2019’s quarterly and half year results will mark the first time that most companies have had to disclose their operating leases for the previous standard on their balance sheets. But what does this mean for reporting season?

Read the full article in AccountingAge.

What private companies can learn from public companies about lease accounting

Michael Keeler | May 10, 2019

A recent study, Private Companies and Lease Accounting: A 2019 Progress Report, which surveyed over 350 finance and accounting leaders from U.S. based private companies, found that in almost every area of project readiness, from data and systems to process change and project management, private companies are reporting a lower state of readiness than the survey population from 2018.

Read the full article in AccountingToday.

$100b of lease liabilities headed for balance sheets

Vesna Poljak | March 20, 2019

New research estimating the impact of accounting standards that require leases to be brought on balance sheet finds up to $100 billion of liabilities will be recognised for the top 100 companies, beginning this year. The findings underscore that the effect of the new standard goes well beyond retailers.

Read the full article in the Australian Financial Review.

New Lease Accounting Rules Threaten Surge in U.K. Corporate Debt

Michael Kapoor | February 21, 2019

International Financial Reporting Standard 16 Leases took effect this year, forcing companies to treat most lease agreements liabilities for accounting purposes. This could add 180 billion pounds ($235 billion) to FTSE 350 companies’ stated debt, according to a Feb. 19 report by software company LeaseAccelerator Inc.

Read the full article in the Australian Financial Review.

Why Corporate Lease Management Is Headed For An Overhaul

PYMNTS | February 14, 2019

Michael Keeler, CEO of lease accounting software company LeaseAccelerator, says these accounting standard changes will indeed lead to disruption and test companies’ ability to manage data about their lease agreements. “At first, the new lease accounting standards can seem overwhelming to most companies,” he told PYMNTS in a recent interview. “In many ways, they are.” But, Keeler added, they will also enable companies to gain a clearer view of their lease portfolios, and even help firms obtain better deals on products like equipment financing.

Read the full article on PYMNTS.com.

CFOs Uncover Surprise Savings as They Implement New Lease-Accounting Rules

Nina Trentmann | January 22, 2019

“Now that companies have their lease information in one place, they might be able to manage these contracts more efficiently and find cost savings,” said Michael Keeler, chief executive of LeaseAccelerator Inc., which sells software to help companies comply with the new standard.

Read the full article on the Wall Street Journal.

The New Lease Accounting Standards – Are You Ready for January 2nd, 2019?

Colleen Tigges | December 4, 2018

The deadline to implement the new lease accounting standards, ASC 842 and IFRS 16, is quickly approaching. Public companies with a fiscal year end of December 31, 2018 will be required to implement by January 1, 2019. With the deadline so close, many organizations are understandably focused on achieving compliance. However, an equally important consideration is how to maintain compliance after the deadline has passed.

Read the full article on FEI Daily.

ASC 842 Implementation Countdown

Michael Keeler | November 8, 2018

With less than 60 days left until the first effective date of the new lease accounting standards, companies are scrambling to prioritize what still needs to be done. Most companies have been focused on collecting all the necessary lease data to achieve compliance, but that is only one piece of a successful transition. For those nearing implementation, here are 11 key issues to consider in the last 60 days.

Read the full article on the Treasury & Risk website.

The 10 Key Issues to Consider in the Last 90 Days Before the Lease Accounting Deadline

LeaseAccelerator | October 17, 2018

For year-end public company filers, the deadline to implement the new lease accounting standards (ASC 842 in the U.S. and IFRS 16 internationally) is on January 1, 2019 – less than 90 days away. Most companies have been focused on collecting all of the necessary lease data to achieve compliance, but that is only one piece of a successful transition.

Read the full article in the Andersen Alumni newsletter.

Auditors May Have to Apply Judgment More Frequently to Implement Changes to Lease Accounting

Thomson Reuters Tax & Accounting | October 15, 2018

The FASB’s new lease accounting standard, which goes into effect for public companies in 2019, is expected to usher in a sea change to many businesses’ balance sheets. In the lead up to the effective date, companies will need to be mindful about what leases get recorded on their balance sheets and what can be omitted.

Read the full article on the Thomson Reuters website .

Three hidden real estate lease accounting challenges under the new standard

Scott Silver | September 19, 2018

Corporations are increasingly availing themselves of these specialized systems to centralize and consolidate management of their real estate leases, so accessing the data required to transition real estate leases to the new lease accounting standards should be fairly simple, right? While these systems will certainly help, many companies are finding that the accounting for real estate assets is trickier than expected. There are three big challenges that companies with large real estate lease obligations are encountering when transitioning to the new standard.

Read the full article on the Accounting Today website

Optimizing the Four Critical Steps to Meet the Lease Accounting Compliance Deadline

Colleen Tigges | August 13, 2018

Achieving compliance with the new standards has not been an easy path for most companies. There are multiple steps required to successfully implement the standards, each critical for compliance. However, many organizations are still only at the beginning of their projects and time is running out. Public companies need to implement the new standards at the start of their first fiscal year following December 15, 2018. That means public entities with a fiscal year end on December 31, 2018 will have to implement by January 1, 2019, only a few months away.

Read the full article on the FEI website

Preparing for IFRS 16

Treasury Today | July 2018

Keeler adds that achieving greater visibility into companies’ leasing programmes can bring opportunities for treasurers to identify unnecessary costs. He notes that many companies have uncovered inefficiencies in their sourcing – “either from not conducting a lease versus buy analysis, or not competitively sourcing assets.” He also says that end-of-term management can be associated with inefficiencies if companies do not stop payments on leases in a timely manner.

Read the full article on the Treasury Today website

New SEC Disclosures Show Major Impact to Balance Sheets From New Lease Accounting Standards, What Companies are Doing About It

LeaseAccelerator | July 17, 2018

The first deadlines for implementing the new standards are not until January 1, 2019, so unsurprisingly many companies are still in the evaluation phase of their projects. These companies have hundreds to thousands of leases to analyze, a time-consuming process. Despite the scale of the project, of the 100 companies analyzed, 82% of companies were able to conclude that there would be material impacts to the company balance sheet.

Read the full article in the Andersen Alumni Newsletter

How a Reston Software Company is Quietly Becoming an Accounting Powerhouse

Kieran McQuilkin | July 9, 2018

LeaseAccelerator, which makes software for enterprise lease accounting, expects to quadruple both its revenue and its client list this year as it expands internationally. Its most recent step in that direction: a $30 million investment from New York-based Insight Venture Partners.

Read the full article on the DC Inno website