Press Release: Grant Thornton enters preferred vendor agreement with Visual Lease

Deal bolsters cloud-based lease management and ASC 842 services

CHICAGO — Grant Thornton LLP, the U.S. member firm of Grant Thornton International Ltd, has entered into a preferred vendor agreement with Visual Lease, a cloud-based technology that helps companies manage their lease portfolio in real time.

Grant Thornton’s lease transformation services clients now have access to the Visual Lease platform. This enables organizations to import lease information directly from Grant Thornton’s cloud-based lease information repository, known as LeaseX, into Visual Lease’s cloud-based lease management and accounting software. Grant Thornton’s LeaseX offering is an ASC 842 readiness assessment tool that integrates with market-wide lease software.

This connection creates a best-in-class methodology in which LeaseX collects and validates relevant information specific to each individual lease, and then integrates it into Visual Lease. Visual Lease then automates the required calculations of the leased assets for the business’s financial statements. The solution can handle real estate, equipment and other types of assets, and creates the required Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) calculations, as well as related footnotes and disclosures.

“The Financial Accounting Standards Board issued new leasing standards in 2016 that require lessees to account for most leases on their balance sheets; as a result, many organizations have searched for a better way to manage their lease-accounting practices,” said Joseph Brown, Grant Thornton’s national managing partner for Strategic Federal Tax Services and co-leader of ASC 842 advisory services. “This agreement provides our clients with yet another option to comply with the new leasing standards. And it demonstrates our commitment to providing clients with a variety of solutions to move their business forward.”

Brown said that Grant Thornton was attracted to Visual Lease’s easy-to-navigate and flexible platform. He also cites Visual Lease’s enthusiasm about working with Grant Thornton’s clients.

Visual Lease has more than 20 years of experience building powerful, easy-to-use technology with flexibility that enables both asset and lease level accounting. Their more than 300 corporate clients use the platform to manage complex portfolios across a variety of sectors, including retail, energy, healthcare, education, financial services, corporate tenants and more.

“This agreement provides Grant Thornton’s clients with access to a fully scalable solution for managing their asset portfolio,” said Marc Betesh, CEO of Visual Lease. “By implementing Visual Lease, companies of all sizes and stripes can better track and manage their leases by integrating with accounting IT systems – ultimately creating an environment to enable compliance within the new standards.”

Read more about all of Grant Thornton’s lease accounting offerings.

About Grant Thornton LLP
Founded in Chicago in 1924, Grant Thornton LLP (Grant Thornton) is the U.S. member firm of Grant Thornton International Ltd, one of the world’s leading organizations of independent audit, tax and advisory firms. Grant Thornton, which has revenues in excess of $1.7 billion and operates 60 offices, works with a broad range of dynamic publicly and privately held companies, government agencies, financial institutions, and civic and religious organizations.

“Grant Thornton” refers to Grant Thornton LLP, the U.S. member firm of Grant Thornton International Ltd (GTIL). GTIL and the member firms are not a worldwide partnership. Services are delivered by the member firms. GTIL and its member firms are not agents of, and do not obligate, one another and are not liable for one another’s acts or omissions. Please see grantthornton.com for further details.

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