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.

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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 on CFO.com.

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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.

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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.

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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 on Bloomberg Tax (subscription required).

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.

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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.

FEI Accounting Change for Finance Leaders

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.

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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.

FEI Accounting Change for Finance Leaders

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.

N.Y. venture firm boosts Reston company with $30M in funding

Andy Medici | June 29, 2018
Reston lease accounting software firm LeaseAccelerator has raised $30 million in Series B funding from New York venture capital firm Insight Venture Partners.
Read the full article on the Washington Business Journal website.

Differences between the FASB and IASB lease accounting standards, and how companies can prepare for both

Alex Klein | May 24, 2018
Accounting and finance organizations for many multinational businesses are currently working to create plans for two separate lease accounting standards: the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s ASC 842 and the International Accounting Standards Board’s IFRS 16. While the standards are similar in many ways, FASB and IASB failed to converge on several key points that will create changes in the accounting processes. Here’s what U.S. based companies reporting internationally need to know about that other set of standards, IFRS 16.
Read the full article on the Accounting Today website.

seven lease accounting lessons learned

Five Big Budget Line Items to Consider in your Lease Accounting Project

Scott Dunnihoo | April 25, 2018
The biggest mistake we see companies make as they initiate their accounting projects is underestimation. Whether it is the business assessment to determine new leasing processes, the level of internal and external resources required to execute a global business transformation, or the investment associated with a system fully capable of performing lease accounting compliance, the simple fact is that the budget needed for the lease accounting project is bigger than you think.
Read the full article on the CPA Practice Advisor website.

Early disclosures point to material effect of lease rules

Tammy Whitehouse | April 24, 2018
The analysis by software provider LeaseAccelerator Inc. also finds only 8 percent of companies have put a dollar figure on the material effect they expect, and it ranges from $1.2 billion to $13 billion. More than one-fourth of the same companies said they are not expecting the impact to be material to their income statements.
Read the full article on the Compliance Week website.

Companies foresee major impact from lease accounting standard

Michael Cohn | April 18, 2018
More than three-quarters of the top 100 U.S. companies with the biggest lease obligations expect to see a material impact on their balance sheet from the new lease accounting standard, according to a new report. The report, from the technology company LeaseAccelerator, analyzed a recent set of Securities and Exchange Commission filings related to the adoption of the leasing standard, also known as ASC 842, which takes effect for public companies at the end of this year.
Read the full article on the Accounting Today website.

New GAAP Sounds Like a Pretty Big Deal – So Why are Major Companies Still Not Ready For It?

LeaseAccelerator | April 2018
The new Lease Accounting, Revenue Recognition and Financial Instruments Recognition Standards updates, collectively referred to as “New GAAP,” have hit companies all at once. And as FASB rolls out accounting reform after accounting reform, many companies are overwhelmed by the number of changes they need to make in such a short time. The first effective dates for revenue recognition and financial instruments only hit on January 1, 2018, so until recently most firms were focused on completing their implementation projects for those updates. However, that means that firms have only just started to devote their attention to what for some will be the most challenging update FASB has released – the new lease accounting standards, ASC 842 (FASB) and IFRS 16 (IASB) – which will be adopted starting January 1, 2019.
Read the full article on the Andersen Alumni Newsletter.

How FASB’s new ASC 842 transition option will affect lessees and investors

Michael Keeler | April 11, 2018
While the new transition method offers some relief for companies that were concerned about completing the comparative reporting requirements, it does not eliminate the substantial implementation burden that they will face under the new standards. Companies still have to complete the complex and time-consuming task of collecting as many as 100 data fields per lease for every lease that will exist on or after the effective date. Companies still have to design processes, policies and controls for all of the internal and external organizations that touch their leasing program in order to ensure that their leasing portfolios remain in compliance after the effective date.
Read the full article on the Accounting Today website.

Genpact and LeaseAccelerator Defuse the Lease Accounting Time Bomb

Saurabh Gupta | April 2, 2018

 Two market leaders—Genpact (a member of the Winner’s Circle in our recent F&A services Blueprint) and LeaseAccelerator (a leading enterprise lease accounting software firm)—are combining their capabilities to help enterprises solve the ticking time bomb of complying with the new lease accounting and reporting regulations that are scheduled to kick-off on January 1, 2019. The partnership is an example of using a digital as-a-service platform (in addition to process design capabilities) to drive significant value for its clients regarding compliance in a cost effective way. 

Read the full article on the HfS Research website. Subscription required.

New poll shows strains as companies prepare for lease rules

Tammy Whitehouse | February 26, 2018

Now that companies are finished or nearly complete with their work on revenue recognition, they’re devoting more attention to leases, says Michael Keeler, CEO of LeaseAccelerator. And they’re finding the challenges under the leasing standard to be different than those they faced with revenue recognition. “Project teams are discovering that it is not the accounting that presents the greatest challenge with compliance, but rather issues such as business process transformation and data collection that organizations are struggling with the most,” he says.

Read the full article on the Compliance Week website.

Most companies are struggling with new lease accounting standard

Ranica Arrowsmith | February 26, 2018

While 75 percent of companies reported more complexity than expected in a recent survey, just over a third have taken the step to select a software solution to address the problem. Deploying software to is an obstacle to implementation of the standard for just over a third of companies, but collecting data, also a problem solvable with software, is the biggest obstacle, with almost 60 percent of companies reporting that as their stumbling block.

Read the full article on the Accounting Today website.

Finance Execs Worried About Internal Controls and Lease Accounting

Michael Cohn | January 17, 2018

“When you think about the core challenge that big global companies face, for the first time they have to find a way to get the exchange information about their lease portfolio from the distributed, decentralized stakeholders on a monthly basis,” said Michael Keeler, CEO of the technology company LeaseAccelerator. “The day 1 challenge is you’ve got to find all the data and you’ve got to put it in all the systems so you’ve got compliance. The day 2 challenge is really about staying compliant.”

Read the full article on the Accounting Today website.

seven lease accounting lessons learned

Seven Lease Accounting Lessons Learned from Early Implementation Projects

Michael Keeler | January 16, 2018

The implementation dates for FASB’s ASC 842 standard are quickly approaching. Yet, most companies adopting the new standard haven’t even reached the halfway point in their implementation projects. However, there are a few early movers who have made significant progress in the transition, which begs the question – what lessons have they learned? At LeaseAccelerator, we compiled notes from our discussions with over 100 large organizations to arrive at a list of the top seven lessons learned from early implementation efforts.

Read the full article on the CPA Practice Advisor website.

Proposed Changes to Lease Standard Offer Simpler Transition

Thomson Reuters Tax & Accounting | January 9, 2018

“The downside is your average investor is losing comparability,” said Michael Keeler, CEO of LeaseAccelerator Inc., a lease accounting software provider. Keeler said his company can provide the solutions companies have complained to the FASB about. “But the upside is that many more companies now have a less intensive data collection and data maintenance requirement, so it simplifies the obligation for the lessee.”

Read the full article on the Thomson Reuters Tax & Accounting website.

New Leasing Rules Could Spur Asset Buying

Denise Lugo | December 5, 2017

Ingemar Lanevi, a vice president at software provider LeaseAccelerator Inc.”Pushing cash payments into the future at a cost of capital that is less than the weighted average cost of capital, generates value by providing free cash flow, which is what makes leasing attractive,” he said.

Read the full article on the Bloomberg BNA website. Requires subscription.

Executive Bonuses to Fall Under New Lease Accounting

Denise Lugo | December 5, 2017

“If you have operating leases, that means they’re off balance sheet; that means that they don’t show up in the denominator of a return on assets metric,” said Michael Keeler, chief executive officer of LeaseAccelerator Inc., a provider of lease accounting software to global companies like Cummins Inc., Eaton Corp. PLC, Tyson Foods Inc., and Salesforce.com Inc.

Read the full article on the Bloomberg BNA website. Requires subscription.

Companies to Get Cost-Relief Option in Lease Rule Transition

Denise Lugo | November 30, 2017

Companies adopting new lease accounting rules will likely get some relief from costs when shifting to the rules because of an option that U.S. accounting rulemakers will provide. The Financial Accounting Standards Board Nov. 29, voted 6-1 to amend transition requirements under new leases rules, which will enable companies to opt out of having to restate the effects of the new standard as if they were applied to earlier reporting periods.

Read the full article on the Bloomberg BNA website. Requires subscription.

Quotes in support of Genpact’s New Partner Program, Genpact Partner Plus

November 28, 2017
“Our customers are looking for a provider to help them transform their financial operations to prepare for one of the biggest accounting changes in history. Already a trusted partner to many of the Fortune 500, Genpact is a perfect partner to help our customers optimize their record-to-report processes using their lean six sigma approach.” – Michael Keeler, CEO, LeaseAccelerator
Read the full press release on the Genpact website.

Do You Know Where Your Leases Are?

Ryan Drimalla | November 27, 2017
The clock is ticking to fulfill the requirements of impending changes to lease accounting standards, which are creating a handful of organizational challenges for corporations. One of the more complicated of these challenges is finding lease rights and obligations from numerous (sometimes thousands) of lease agreements or other contracts across numerous locations and geographies.
Read the full article on the CFO website.

CIO Applications

A New Way to Lower Equipment Financing Costs

CIO Applications | November 1, 2017
Corporations spend several trillion dollars each to acquire equipment such as servers for their data centers, forklifts for their distribution centers, and furniture for their office buildings. Procurement organizations use techniques such as competitive RFPs to obtain the best possible price and contract terms for these assets. However, a significant percentage of spend in categories such as IT, material handling, and office equipment is leased rather than purchased. e opportunity to reduce the financing costs associated with these leases has been overlooked by many organizations.
Read the full article.

CFO Tech Outlook

Enabling One of the Biggest Accounting Changes in History

CFOTechOutlook | October 7, 2017
The Financial Executives International’s (FEI) Conference on Accounting Change for Financial Leaders 2017 in Philadelphia resonated a common theme—a massive change in lease accounting standards brought about by US and International Accounting Boards. Some experts have called these new leasing standards the biggest accounting change in history. Over $2 trillion of operating leases that have historically been reported in footnote disclosures of SEC filings will move onto the balance sheets of corporations starting in 2019.
Read the full article.

The ASC 842 Opportunity: Improve SOX Internal Controls for New Lease Accounting Standards by Leveraging an Updated COSO Framework

Alex Klein | June 2017
Under the new lease accounting standards, ASC 842 and IFRS 16, companies are required to calculate and document right-of-use asset valuations and corresponding liabilities on company balance sheets. This has focused accounting executives not only on improving their leased asset accounting to meet the audit requirements for their financial statements but also improving their process controls to meet their SOX audit requirements.
Read the full article on the FEI Daily website.

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Are Companies Starting to Make Progress on Lease Accounting?

Terry Sheridan | March 2017
In a finding that surprised even the survey’s sponsor, a majority of respondents to a survey conducted by LeaseAccelerator indicated they are well on their way to adopting the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB) new lease accounting rules.  The recent one-year anniversary of the FASB issuing Accounting Standards Update No. 2016-02, Leases (Topic 842), prompted LeaseAccelerator to survey 250 finance and accounting executives about the progress their companies have made in preparing for the new leases standard, which goes into effect beginning in 2019.
Read the full article on the AccountingWeb site.

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Lease Survey Suggests Companies are Moving Towards Adoption

Tammy Whitehouse | March 2017
A software company’s recent survey suggests two-thirds of companies are on schedule or even ahead of schedule in preparing for the new lease accounting requirements that take effect in 2019, but even the firm’s CEO is wary of that result.  Of 250 accounting and finance leaders at U.S.-based public and private companies, most with revenues of at least $1 billion, 70 percent said they’d assigned a formal project leader and established a systems strategy, indicating at least an executive-level commitment to the effort, says LeaseAccelerator, which conducted the survey.
Read the full article in Compliance Week.

IDC

Enterprise Lease Accounting Software Market:
Making IFRS 16 and ASC 842 Compliance Easy

Mickey North Rizza | February 2017
IFRS 16 and ASC 842 are new lease accounting standards with which corporations must comply in the next two years. This Market Spotlight examines the ramifications of IFRS 16 and ASC 842 on companies. The paper also looks at the role of lease accounting software in meeting these strategically important business process and financial statement reporting requirements.
Read the IDC Market Spotlight.

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New Lease Accounting Standard Poses Challenge for Corporates

Susan Kelly | July 13, 2016
A new lease accounting standard has handed companies a huge task, but a recent survey by EY and the Financial Executives Research Foundation suggests businesses are already getting to work.
The new standard, issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board in February, requires companies to include leases on the balance sheet for the first time.
Read the full article on the Treasury & Risk website including quotations from our CEO.

CFO Daily News

Companies Dragging their Feet on Preparing for New FASB Lease Rules

Tim Gould | June 9, 2016
The FASB’s new lease accounting standard might not arrive until 2019, but your company has no time to lose to get in compliance. Recent research indicates that a lot of your peers have serious work to do.  A new report from LeaseAccelerator, a company that offers equipment lease management software, indicates that 85% of respondents are in the process of reading, studying, and implementing the new standards.
Read the full article on the CFO Daily News website.

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New Lease Accounting Standard to Bring Pain to Many Companies

Jason Bramwell | May 23, 2016
Many US companies expect the process of transitioning to the new lease accounting standard to be very unpleasant, according to a new survey by equipment leasing software provider LeaseAccelerator.  How unpleasant? Forty-two percent say implementation will be either “pretty painful” or “extremely painful,” while 3 percent think it will be more painful than root canal surgery.
Read the full article on the AccountingWeb website.

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How to Estimate the Savings from Equipment Lease Spend Management

By Bob Solomon and Michael Keeler | May 19, 2016
U.S. companies leased more than $1 trillion in equipment in 2015, according to the Equipment Lease & Finance Foundation. Fortune 500 companies across a wide variety of industries commonly have an equipment lease spend of $100 million or more. Some spend up to $1 billion annually. For procurement leaders, poorly managed spend can become a meaningful source of annual savings.
Read the full article, authored by our CEO, on the Supply & Demand Chain Executive website.

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Accounting Standards Update Brings Lease Contracts Under the Spotlight

By Tammy Whitehouse | March 8, 2016
After years of reports that entities would one day be required to reflect all of their lease obligations on the balance sheet, companies finally have a major new accounting standard to adopt that will bring all but the tiniest assets and liabilities arising from lease contracts onto corporate balance sheets.
Read the full article on the Compliance Week website including quotations from LeaseAccelerator.

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Get Ready for the New Leasing Rules

By Michael Keeler | March 3, 2016
They might not admit it, but if you were to ask treasurers and controllers of public companies how many leases their organization has, most of them likely wouldn’t know. If you then asked how they generate their future payment obligations in their notes disclosures, they would probably change the subject.
Download a PDF of the article authored by our CEO.

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Big Companies’ Big Lease Obligations: Drilling Down into the $1 Trillion

By Steve Burkholder | February 26, 2016
A definitive picture of the full potential impact of the newly minted U.S. accounting rules on leases won’t be seen for about a year.  At that time, public companies will have collected comparative data on what they will have to report as if the Feb. 25 standard of the Financial Accounting Standards Board had been in place. [The rules are effective for registrants in 2019.]
Read the full article on the Bloomberg website including quotations from LeaseAccelerator.

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A Silver Lining to the New Lease Accounting Rules: Savings

By Tatyana Shumsky | February 25, 2016
Companies implementing new rules for how leases are recorded in financial statements are likely to find extra savings.  The popularity of leasing, rather than purchasing, everything from office space and forklifts to photocopiers and water coolers means that most large companies are party to thousands of leases. Yet, few of these are tracked by top decision-makers like chief financial officers and financial controllers.
Read the full article on the Wall Street Journal website including quotations from LeaseAccelerator.

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The Wait is Over: FASB Issues New Guidance on Lease Accounting

By Jason Bramwell | February 25, 2016
Companies implementing new rules for how leases are recorded in financial statements are likely to find extra savings.  The popularity of leasing, rather than purchasing, everything from office space and forklifts to photocopiers and water coolers means that most large companies are party to thousands of leases. Yet, few of these are tracked by top decision-makers like chief financial officers and financial controllers.
Read the full article on the AccountingWeb website including quotations from LeaseAccelerator.

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Which Companies Will Have the Greatest Dollar Value of New Liabilities?

February 3, 2016
Companies implementing new rules for how leases are recorded in financial statements are likely to find extra savings.  The popularity of leasing, rather than purchasing, everything from office space and forklifts to photocopiers and water coolers means that most large companies are party to thousands of leases. Yet, few of these are tracked by top decision-makers like chief financial officers and financial controllers.
Read the full article on the Supply & Demand Chain Executive website including quotations from LeaseAccelerator.

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Study Identifies Companies Most Affected by Lease Accounting Rules

January 29, 2016
LeaseAccelerator published a report listing the off-balance sheet lease obligations of the 500 largest U.S. public companies. The report, entitled “Who is Most Impacted by the New Lease Accounting Standards?” aims to provide greater awareness of the potential impact of the new lease accounting standards.
Read the full article on the Monitordaily website including quotations from LeaseAccelerator.

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Companies Expected to See Biggest Impact from New Leasing Standard

By Michael Cohn | January 26, 2016
The lease accounting standard that the Financial Accounting Standards Board plans to release this quarter is expected to have a major impact on many companies, requiring them to add leases to their balance sheet for the first time.
Read the full article on the AcccountingToday website including quotations from LeaseAccelerator.

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The Big Number

By Maxwell Murphy | January 25, 2016
Off-balance-sheet lease obligations on the books of 100 large U.S. companies. Finance chiefs have at least three years until they officially have to bring trillions in off-balance-sheet leases onto their company’s books, but experts say they should already be preparing.
Read the full article on the Wall Street Journal website including quotations from LeaseAccelerator.

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Reporting rule adds $3 Trillion of leases to balance sheets globally

Kate Burgess, Harriet Agnew and Scheherazade Daneshkhu | January 13, 2016
Companies around the world will be forced to add close to $3tn of leasing commitments to their balance sheets under new rules from US and international regulators — significantly increasing the debt that must be reported by airlines and retailers.
Read the full article on the Financial Times website.

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International Accounting Standards Board issues New Lease Accounting Standard (IFRS 16)

January 13, 2016
The International Accounting Standards Board® (the Board) today issued a new accounting Standard, called IFRS 16 Leases. It replaces accounting requirements introduced more than 30 years ago that are no longer considered fit for purpose and is a major revision of the way in which companies account for leases.
Read the full press release on the IASB website.

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Finance Chiefs get Ready for New Rules

James Willhite | December 7, 2015
Finance chiefs will be busy in 2016, as they gear up for key changes in regulations in the U.S. and abroad.  From corporate tax plans to revenue from insurance contracts, chief financial officers will need to make sure their departments are nimble to cope with the next wave of compliance demands.
Read the full article on the Wall Street Journal website.

Wall Street Journal Logo

Coming to a Balance Sheet Near You: $2 Trillion in Leases

Michael Rapoport | November 10, 2015
Some of America’s best-known companies—names such as AT&T Inc., CVS Health Corp. and Delta Air Lines Inc.—likely will soon have to effectively boost the debt they report on their balance sheets by tens of billions of dollars. The total possible impact for all companies: as much as $2 trillion.
Read the full article on the Wall Street Journal website.

Real Estate Tech Investment by VCs

Disrupting Real Estate: 58 Startups Reshaping How Property Is Bought, Sold, And Managed

October 19, 2015
The multibillion dollar real estate industry has already seen online property listing services like Zillow and Zoopla disrupt the industry. Now, a new crop of startups are attacking many more areas of real estate. Real estate tech startups span tech-enabled brokerages, virtual property-viewing services, real estate investing platforms, and many more.
See the full market map on the CB Insights website.

Real Estate Tech Investment by VCs

Where Are The Top Smart Money VCs Investing In Real Estate Tech?

October 19, 2015
Venture capital funding to real estate tech startups crossed the $1B mark last year, and is projected to reach $1.5B at the current run-rate. With real estate tech investing growing, it’s important to know where the top VCs are putting their money. Some of the deals by top VCs into real estate tech include Bessemer Venture Partners’ Seed, Series A, and Series B investments in Hightower, a leasing-management platform; and the involvement of four smart money VCs — Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Greylock Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, and New Enterprise Associates — in financing Zumper, an apartment rental platform.
Read the full article on the CB Insights website.

Fix Your FASB & SOX Lease Compliance While Reducing Costs

August 11, 2014
The Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) era was the last time that the audit community focused on leasing processes and portfolios from a controls and reporting perspective. This resulted in a significant spike in costly and time-consuming restatements, which lessees can avoid when the new lease accounting standard is issued by applying the recommendations in The Lessee Handbook.
Read the full article on the FEI website.

The Economist Logo

“The Biggest Accounting Change Ever” – The lease bad solution

November 16, 2013
ONE of the world’s biggest accountants, PwC, breathlessly bills it as perhaps “the biggest-ever accounting change”. Businesses that lease property and equipment may soon have to start treating the leases as liabilities on their balance-sheets. All sorts of outfits that make heavy use of leasing—from retailers to airlines and, indeed, professional-services firms such as accountants—may end up looking far more indebted than their books currently show. Opponents of the reform predict dire consequences, for the companies and for the economy.
Read the full article on the Economist website.

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