Recently, we have talked a lot about ways that companies can understand their lease obligations and reduce costs in light of COVID-19. What many businesses have discovered during this time is that a lack of insight into these responsibilities and costs has huge implications — not just for lease accounting, but also for day-to-day business decisions and ongoing cost management.
As companies look ahead to recovery from the economic impacts of COVID-19, it is more important than ever to have a technology solution in place to help avoid financial issues and better manage the obligations associated with leases.
That is where a robust lease administration solution can help businesses avoid risk and realize benefits beyond lease accounting in three crucial ways.
1. Gain Greater Visibility into Leases with Lease Administration Software
As many companies have recently learned, the ability to find leases and uncover the important details buried within them — including clauses, due dates, and options that have an effect on lease obligations and costs — can be a complex and time-consuming task. This is especially true for organizations with multiple locations and, potentially, hundreds of leases to manage.
A lease management solution such as Visual Lease, which combines lease administration and lease accounting capabilities, makes it easy to manage lease data and determine your rights and responsibilities. The software provides the ability to search for specific lease parameters and gather the information you need to:
- Track payments and analyze costs
- Identify overpayments or opportunities to cut costs
- Get a complete picture of leases as part of the company’s bigger financial picture
- Make informed business decisions related to lease obligations and overall costs
2. Keep Track of and Manage Changes Related to COVID-19
With the closures, disruptions, and cut-backs to businesses related to the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies are coping with another new challenge — the need to keep track of any changes made to their leases during this time, such as:
- Lease modifications
- Lease terminations
- Lease impairments
- Variable payments
- Operating expense pass-throughs
Finding every affected lease and manually updating each one is cumbersome and time-consuming. Plus, it opens your business up to the risk of manual errors.
Lease administration software makes it easy to change lease information when you need to — providing the tools to find the pertinent leases and quickly update them with changes to payments, terms, options, and other information you will need later for lease accounting.
3. Stay Current on All Leases with Lease Administration Tools
A lease administration system also helps you stay current on critical dates and upcoming events within your leases — including opportunities to make changes and save money.
Lease administration software provides tools for tracking changes, alerting you to important dates and events, and keeping your critical lease data up to date at all times. For instance, you can have the solution automatically alert you to deadlines for exercising lease options.
Find More ROI in Your Leased Assets
A combination lease accounting–lease administration software solution not only helps you organize, track, and report on lease data in accordance with the latest lease accounting standards. It also provides ready access to accurate, up-to-date information that can help you get the most value from your leased assets.
So, while some lease accounting deadlines have been pushed back, it makes sense to implement and use a lease management solution now. It will empower you to not only handle lease issues related to COVID-19 lease, but also manage lease financials in a way that can help you maximize lease ROI, improve liquidity, and plan for the future
Ready to get started ASAP? Request a demo of Visual Lease today!
