The end goal of the new lease accounting standards is to provide investors with more transparency around your leasing contracts. Operating leases, which have historically been off- balance sheet will now be treated as assets and liabilities on the balance sheet under both US GAAP and IFRS. Operating leases represent the majority of leases for 93% of companies.

The challenges with these new standards should not be underestimated. In fact, some have called the new leasing standards the “biggest accounting change ever.” The International Accounting Standards Board estimates that over $2 Trillion in liabilities will move onto corporate balance sheets during this transition.

While most of the dollar value of these leases is associated with real estate, many companies will have a larger number of leases for non-real estate assets such as vehicles, IT and equipment.