Search results for lease accounting software are written almost entirely by companies selling it or directories ranking it. Both answer which product is best before the buyer has written down what the product must reproduce.
This guide treats the decision as a measurement and evidence problem, comparing what ASC 842, IFRS 16 and GASB 87 oblige a system to compute, post and prove. It does not decide whether a contract contains a lease, how a lease is classified, or what a disclosure must say. Those conclusions require a qualified accounting practitioner, and no specialist review has been completed for this article. Product documentation was checked on 20 August 2026.
Quick answer
A platform that passes a feature review but reproduces the wrong liability on an index-linked lease, or cannot rebuild a closed period, moves audit risk into the ledger instead of removing it.
Decision: Select and test a lease accounting system against the measurement, change-event, disclosure and evidence obligations of every reporting framework the entity applies, rather than against a feature list.
Key takeaways
- Score a platform on whether it reproduces measurement the entity already holds, not on how many frameworks the marketing page names.
- ASC 842, IFRS 16 and GASB 87 diverge most on index-linked remeasurement, the term used for the short-term test, and the lessor model; a multi-standard claim needs one lease posted to every book in scope.
- Population completeness and contract abstraction consume the implementation, not the calculation engine.
- Fix the expected accounting answer and name the practitioner who owns it before any demonstration; a matching total is not proof that the same conclusion was reached.
What lease accounting software has to produce and prove
Lease accounting software holds a complete lease population, produces a reproducible measurement per lease under each framework the entity reports, generates entries the ledger accepts, builds that framework’s disclosure tables, and rebuilds a closed period from retained inputs. A product that does the first four but not the fifth will pass a demonstration and fail an audit.
Two boundaries matter before any shortlist. Lease administration covers critical dates, options, common area maintenance and portfolio decisions; it may sit in the same product but it is a different requirement with different owners. The ledger remains the accounting system of record, so the lease system is a subledger whose output must reconcile to it. The finance technology stack reference architecture sets where a specialist subledger belongs against a suite module. This page owns selecting and testing the measurement system.
Where ASC 842, IFRS 16 and GASB 87 create different software requirements
This section compares what each framework obliges the engine to compute, not how to apply it to a contract; interpretation belongs with the entity’s practitioners. Support for all three standards resolves into a handful of engine behaviours, and a product built natively for one framework often lacks the code path another needs.
| Requirement area | ASC 842 | IFRS 16 | GASB 87 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lessee models | Two, with a single straight-line cost for operating leases | One, amortisation and interest presented separately | One, amortisation of the lease asset and interest |
| Lessor treatment of the underlying asset | Derecognised in a sales-type lease | Retained for operating, derecognised for finance | Always retained, with a receivable and a deferred inflow of resources |
| Term used for the short-term test | Lease term, elected by class of underlying asset | Lease term of 12 months or less, by class | Maximum possible term including every option, regardless of probability |
| Low-value exemption | None | Lease by lease, on value when new, independent of materiality | None |
| Index or rate change alone | Not a trigger; the difference is period variable lease cost | Remeasured when the cash flows change | Not a trigger on its own |
| Discount-rate expedients | Risk-free rate election for non-public business entities, by class | None equivalent | None equivalent |
| Rate applied on remeasurement | Revised rate on the specified triggering events | Unchanged, unless the change arises from floating rates | Updated only for lease term or purchase-option changes |
One lessee model or two, and who else the model has to serve
The FASB codification text issued with Update 2016-02 keeps operating and finance classifications for lessees. An operating lease produces a single straight-line cost, which the engine achieves by making right-of-use amortisation the balancing figure after interest. An engine written natively for IFRS 16, which applies one lessee model, has no reason to contain that routine.
Lessor requirements diverge further. GASB Statement 87 states at paragraph 55 that a lessor “should not derecognize the asset underlying the lease,” recognising instead a lease receivable and a deferred inflow of resources. Those are different balance-sheet objects, not relabelled fields. Governments also need output at fund and government-wide level with conversion entries, and usually need GASB Statement 96 subscription arrangements in the same system. Public sector is a superset of the commercial requirement, not a subset.
Remeasurement triggers decide how much the system recalculates
A consumer price index escalation is the clearest divergence. Under ASC 842 the lessee triggers are a modification not treated as a separate contract, resolution of a contingency, and changes in the lease term, the purchase-option assessment or amounts probable under a residual value guarantee. An index movement is not among them; when another trigger fires, index-linked payments are then measured using the index at that date. GASB 87 works the same way, stating at paragraph 26 that a liability “is not required to be remeasured solely for a change in an index or rate used to determine variable payments.”
IFRS 16 is the outlier. Paragraph 42(b) requires remeasurement when payments change because of an index or rate, but “only when there is a change in the cash flows,” and paragraph 43 requires an unchanged discount rate unless the change arises from floating interest rates. The US GAAP and GASB engines are therefore stateful, because the index applied depends on whether another trigger fired, while the IFRS engine is event-driven on the cash-flow change. That difference shows in shipping documentation: Microsoft reports a liability adjustment for IFRS 16 leases and a variable payment adjustment for ASC 842 leases from the same process, leaving ASC 842 amortisation schedules unchanged while IFRS 16 leases receive new ones.
Exemptions, elections and discount rates are configuration, not defaults
The short-term test uses different arithmetic in each framework. GASB 87 paragraph 16 defines a short-term lease by “a maximum possible term under the lease contract of 12 months (or less), including any options to extend, regardless of their probability of being exercised.” ASC 842 and IFRS 16 use the lease term, reflecting options reasonably certain of exercise. An engine serving both must hold two term values per contract and drive each exemption from the correct one.
The low-value exemption exists only in IFRS 16. Its Appendix B assesses value “on an absolute basis,” by reference to the asset when new, and qualifies leases “regardless of whether those leases are material to the lessee.” It is not a capitalisation threshold drawn from entity materiality, and a low-value flag in an IFRS book must be unable to suppress the same lease in a US GAAP or GASB book. Update 2021-09 lets lessees that are not public business entities elect a risk-free rate “by class of underlying asset, rather than at the entity-wide level,” requires the implicit rate where readily determinable regardless of that election, and requires disclosure of which classes elected it. Rate tables must therefore be keyed by book, class, term, currency and effective date, each rate carrying a retained basis. Common-control arrangements add their own expedient and leasehold-improvement requirements under Update 2023-01, effective for fiscal years beginning after 15 December 2023.
Australian reporters: AASB 16 and the second statutory book
AASB 16 is the Australian equivalent of IFRS 16, so the measurement requirement is the IFRS one, including the index behaviour above. What changes a software decision sits elsewhere. A United States parent reporting ASC 842 with an Australian subsidiary needs one lease record carrying two bases, and every escalating Australian lease then produces two different liabilities from one clause.
The disclosure engine needs a reduced set as well as a full one, because Appendix E disapplies AASB 16 paragraphs 51 to 60A for entities preparing simplified disclosures under AASB 1060, which is not a capability every product built for United States reporting has. Australian public sector and not-for-profit entities also apply AASB 16 with added Aus paragraphs rather than anything resembling GASB 87, so a product built for United States governments does not serve an Australian council. Paragraph Aus25.1 permits a not-for-profit lessee to elect fair value measurement of right-of-use assets by class for leases with significantly below-market terms entered into principally to further its objectives, and Aus25.2 permits those assets to form a separate class. Service concession assets under AASB 1059 sit outside the standard entirely.
Qualified-practitioner review required: Approve the framework matrix, classification thresholds, term and option assessments, discount-rate policy and every exemption or practical-expedient election before configuration. A supplier can evidence how a setting behaves; it cannot approve the entity’s accounting policy.
Lease data is the constraint, not the calculation engine
The standard setter’s own review supports that ordering. In the FASB post-implementation review roundtable materials dated 12 September 2025, staff record that lessees had told the Board before issuance that “their existing systems and software were adequate,” that adoption proved “significantly more difficult than anticipated,” and that adoption was inhibited by “newly developed lease accounting systems that were not ready or available to the market at the time of the effective date.” The same paper recommends that future standard setting include outreach with accounting software providers. The risk in this category sits in data and readiness, not arithmetic.
Three failure classes recur: leases nobody knew about, embedded in service, logistics, hosting and supply agreements; leases nobody could find, because contracts sit with property, fleet, technology and procurement; and leases abstracted inconsistently, where one escalation clause is keyed three ways by three abstractors. Completeness is a management assertion the software cannot make, and the search population is itself audit evidence. Apply the same account reconciliation controls for ownership, evidence and exceptions to the lease register as to any other balance-sheet account.
| Data group | What it drives | Where it usually breaks |
|---|---|---|
| Contract identity and parties | Scope, entity, related-party and common-control treatment | Master agreements holding many leases, amendments filed apart from the original |
| Commencement, term and options | Classification, exemption tests, amortisation period | Availability for use confused with signature or rent-start date, holdover periods unrecorded |
| Payments and escalation clauses | Liability measurement and the remeasurement path | Index clauses keyed as fixed increases, rent-free periods dropped, arrears recorded where payment is in advance |
| Classification inputs | Which lessee model and expense pattern apply | Fair value and economic life unsupported, thresholds applied without a retained basis |
| Discount-rate inputs | Present value and every later remeasurement | One entity-wide rate across classes, terms and currencies with no derivation retained |
| Lease and non-lease components | What enters the liability at all | Service charges swept into the payment, combine election applied inconsistently |
| Asset, entity, currency and coding | Posting, translation, disclosure grouping | Codes that cannot map to the ledger, classes differing from the fixed-asset register |
Qualified-practitioner review required: Confirm which contracts contain a lease, how embedded and non-lease components are identified and allocated, and what supports the completeness assertion. Abstraction produces data; it does not produce that conclusion.
Prove the measurement before you compare features
The decisive test is a parallel calculation against leases whose answers the entity already holds, with the expected result fixed in writing before any vendor sees the file. Give every product the same contracts and expected outputs, and require an export of the full schedule and input set rather than a screen. Choose test leases containing the inputs that break engines: commencement part way through a period; payments due in advance; a compounding interval and day count that differ from the payment frequency; prepaid or deferred rent carried forward; initial direct costs and incentives; a residual value guarantee, purchase option and termination penalty; non-lease components with and without the combine election; and a foreign-currency lease.
One lease, four measurement bases: a test set to hand every vendor
The figures below are Finance Circuit analysis from disclosed inputs, not a standards interpretation and not a substitute for the entity’s own expected answers. A lease commences on 1 January 2026 for five years with no options, payments of 100,000 US dollars annually in arrears, a discount rate of 6 per cent, no initial direct costs, incentives or residual value guarantee, and escalation linked to a consumer price index. At 1 January 2027 the index rises 3 per cent, so remaining payments become 103,000.
Initial measurement is identical on every basis, because index-linked payments are measured at the commencement index under all three frameworks: the present value of five payments of 100,000 at 6 per cent is 421,236. Year-one interest is 25,274, the liability after the first payment is 346,511, and straight-line amortisation of the right-of-use asset is 84,247. The bases separate immediately after that.
| Measurement basis | Year-one expense | Liability after the index rise | What the vendor must reproduce |
|---|---|---|---|
| ASC 842 operating | 100,000 as a single lease cost | 346,511 unchanged; the extra 3,000 is year-two variable lease cost | Amortisation of 74,726 derived as the balancing figure after interest, and no remeasurement |
| ASC 842 finance | 109,521, being 84,247 amortisation and 25,274 interest | 346,511 unchanged; the extra 3,000 is year-two variable lease cost | A front-loaded pattern with the same no-remeasurement answer as the operating book |
| IFRS 16 and AASB 16 | 109,521, being 84,247 amortisation and 25,274 interest | 356,906, a 10,395 increase added to both liability and right-of-use asset | Remeasurement dated to the cash-flow change, at the unchanged 6 per cent rate |
| GASB 87 | 109,521, being 84,247 amortisation and 25,274 interest | 346,511 unchanged; the 3,000 is disclosed as a variable payment outside the liability | That the index adjustment applies only once another trigger has fired |
One clause therefore produces a 10,395 balance-sheet difference between two books, in one year, on one lease. Scale that across an index-linked portfolio under dual reporting and engine behaviour outweighs any feature list. Note what the example excludes: monthly payments in advance, initial direct costs, incentives and prepaid rent are the norm, and each changes the answer. Use the entity’s own leases, not these figures.
Qualified-practitioner review required: Set and approve the expected measurement for every test case before the demonstration, and sign off any difference a vendor cannot explain to the line. A matching total is not evidence that the same conclusion was reached.
Modifications, remeasurement and impairment separate the platforms
Demonstrations show initial recognition. The entity’s cost sits in change events, which arrive continuously. The platform must first classify the event, because a separate contract, a modification, a remeasurement, a reassessment, a termination and an impairment indicator produce different accounting from similar-looking facts, and that classification is a judgement the system executes rather than makes. History must then survive as versions rather than edits: an auditor tests the transition between two measurements, so a product that overwrites the prior schedule has destroyed the evidence for the entry it just posted.
- Scope increase at standalone terms: a separate lease alongside the original, not a remeasurement of one;
- Scope decrease or partial termination: proportionate reduction of asset and liability with a gain or loss, not a silent asset write-down;
- Term change or revised option assessment: remeasurement at a revised rate, reachable without editing the contract;
- Index or floating-rate change: the framework-specific answers above, on separate paths rather than one global setting;
- Termination before end of term: derecognition with gain or loss and any penalty, not an end-dated schedule; and
- Impairment or abandonment: separate routes under US GAAP asset grouping, IAS 36 and GASB 87, with amortisation recalculated afterwards.
Qualified-practitioner review required: Determine whether an event is a separate contract, modification, remeasurement, reassessment, termination or impairment indicator under the applicable framework, and approve the resulting accounting. A shared event label across frameworks is not a shared conclusion.
Journal entries, ledger posting and the multi-book architecture
Posting is a control boundary, not a file export. Use the finance systems integration map to assign ownership, timing, acceptance and reconciliation for the lease-to-ledger flow, then specify the interface at object level rather than accepting a logo:
- Direction and granularity: read-only or write-back, and whether the ledger receives a summary journal or lease-level detail for drill-back;
- Mapping: entity, ledger, posting layer, account, currency, period and lease asset class;
- Acceptance: what proves the ledger posted the entry, not that a file was produced;
- Failure control: alerts, retry, duplicate prevention, quarantine and a named owner;
- Reconciliation: lease subledger balances agreed to ledger control accounts each period; and
- Change control: testing and approval for connector, chart-of-accounts and standard changes.
The entries each model actually generates
Finance, IFRS 16 and GASB 87 leases produce amortisation and interest. An ASC 842 operating lease produces a single lease cost with a balancing adjustment to the right-of-use asset, a distinct entry pattern rather than a presentation choice. Foreign-currency leases need the liability remeasured at the closing rate as a monetary item while the asset stays at the historical rate, so the exchange difference must land in the correct account rather than in the liability. Governments need the fund-level entry and the government-wide conversion entry, a dual-posting requirement most commercial products were never built to meet.
One lease record, several books
A parent reporting ASC 842 with an IFRS 16 or AASB 16 statutory subsidiary needs one lease record carrying several bases, each with its own classification, rate, election flags, remeasurement history and disclosure set, and none able to overwrite another. Microsoft’s dual reporting documentation shows the cost: its worked example needs three books and separate posting layers to report one lease under IFRS 16 and a local statutory basis, with short-term and low-value thresholds held per book. Test reversal, correction, prior-period adjustment and locked-period behaviour, and place the lease close inside the month-end close process and control checklist rather than assuming the subledger closes itself.
Disclosure output has to reconcile to the ledger
Each framework requires a differently shaped disclosure set, so disclosure reporting is three engines rather than one report with a framework filter. The buyer test is the tie-out: the maturity analysis must reconcile to the recognised liability, cost components to the posted entries, and every manual adjustment between report and statements needs a register entry and an owner. A disclosure report that cannot be traced back to lease-level records is a spreadsheet with better formatting.
| Disclosure output | ASC 842 | IFRS 16 | GASB 87 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maturity analysis | Undiscounted, finance and operating separately, five years plus remainder, reconciled to the recognised liabilities | Prepared under the financial instruments standard, presented separately from other liabilities | Principal and interest separately, five years then five-year increments |
| Cost or expense components | Finance cost split into amortisation and interest, plus operating, short-term, variable and sublease amounts | Depreciation by class, interest, short-term, low-value, variable and sublease amounts | Outflows for variable payments and for other payments outside the liability |
| Weighted-average term and rate | Required, segregated between finance and operating | Not required | Not required |
| Asset carrying amounts | Presented through the cost and cash-flow disclosures | Additions and closing carrying amount by class of underlying asset | Lease assets and accumulated amortisation shown separately from other capital assets, by major class |
| Election and commitment disclosures | Short-term policy, combine election, classes using a risk-free rate | Short-term and low-value exemptions applied | Commitments before the commencement of the lease term |
Treat that table as current rather than settled. The IASB opened its post-implementation review of IFRS 16 in June 2025, concluded the requirements work broadly as intended, and has tentatively decided to explore requiring lessees to disclose the components of total lease cash outflow with the statement line item for each, alongside a research project on the ongoing cost of applying the measurement requirements. Its report is expected before the end of 2026. Buy for the disclosures the entity must produce today, and price the vendor’s change-management commitment for those under review.
Qualified-practitioner review required: Approve the disclosure interpretation, aggregation level, materiality basis and tie-out logic. Neither this guide nor a supplier’s report template determines what the entity must disclose.
Controls, access and the audit evidence pack
The lease system sits inside internal control over financial reporting because its most sensitive inputs are assumptions management chooses: discount rates, term and option assessments, classification thresholds and exemption elections. PCAOB AS 2501 addresses auditing accounting estimates, and AS 1105 requires an auditor using company-produced information to test its accuracy and completeness and evaluate whether it is sufficiently precise. A schedule the lease system generated is company-produced information, so its controls are in scope rather than assumed reliable.
Require versioned assumption governance with a named approver and effective date, segregation between abstraction, review and posting, a change log that survives a user leaving, period lock, and an evidence pack retained outside the vendor’s live interface. SEC staff guidance on management’s assessment is clear that management retains responsibility where a service provider performs the work, and the AICPA service-organization overview frames third-party use as a source of risks the customer must manage. Public-sector buyers should map the same requirements to the GAO Green Book. Management should define and retain a complete pack; the auditor independently determines whether the evidence is sufficient and appropriate.
Qualified-practitioner review required: Approve the control design, assumption-governance model and retention policy before go-live. Audit-ready is a supplier description, not an acceptance criterion.
Lease accounting software vendors documented as of 20 August 2026
Products were included where official, buyer-accessible documentation showed lease measurement under at least one named framework together with subsequent measurement, journal or ledger output and disclosure reporting. Products documented only as lease administration, or with insufficient public official material, were excluded. Paid search placement and analyst-directory position were not inclusion or ordering inputs. The table is not a ranking; rows are grouped by primary market focus and alphabetised within group, and the group label describes focus rather than exclusive capability. Official pages establish company-stated availability only, not comparative accuracy, control effectiveness, implementation duration or performance on another entity’s portfolio. No public list pricing was found.
| Product and group | Frameworks stated in official documentation | Documented scope | Main diligence question |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crunchafi Specialist | ASC 842, IFRS 16, FRS 102, GASB 87, 94 and 96 | Assisted abstraction, schedules, journal entries, footnote disclosures, shared firm and client access | Who holds the lease record if the advisory relationship ends |
| EZLease Specialist | ASC 842, IFRS 16, FRS 102, GASB 87 and 96 | Lessee accounting, a separately named lessor offering, portfolio analysis, journal entries | Which capabilities require the separate lessor product |
| FinQuery Specialist | ASC 842, IFRS 16, FRS 102, GASB 87, GASB 96, SFFAS 54 | Assisted data entry, schedules, journal entries, disclosure reports, multi-currency remeasurement, auditor access | How differences between books are reported on one lease record |
| Nakisa Specialist | IFRS 16, ASC 842, GASB 87, local GAAP | Parallel compliance across bases, index-linked calculation, bidirectional SAP, Oracle and Workday integration | Which integration is native rather than file-based |
| NetLease by Netgain Specialist | ASC 842, IFRS 16, GASB 87 and 96 | NetSuite-native, with schedules, modifications, journal entries, disclosure reports, export elsewhere | Where journal output becomes a spreadsheet upload outside NetSuite |
| Visual Lease Specialist | ASC 842, IFRS 16, GASB 87 and 96 | Classification and schedules, subleases and sale-leaseback, roll-forward reporting, approval workflows | Which functions sit in accounting rather than administration, and how each is licensed |
| DebtBook Public-sector focused | GASB 87, GASB 96, ASC 842 | Public finance application with automated GASB 87 footnote disclosures and audit note export | Whether fund and government-wide output and conversion entries are produced |
| CoStar Real Estate Manager Real estate heritage | ASC 842, IFRS 16, FRS 102, ASC 840, local and statutory GAAP | Automated classification and measurement, remeasurements, multiple schedules per lease, dual GAAP, managed ERP integrations | Whether the absent GASB statement rules it out for a government entity |
| MRI ProLease Real estate heritage | ASC 842, IFRS 16, GASB 87, FRS 102 | Real estate and equipment leases in one system on a one-to-many approach, calculations, journal entries, disclosures | How the one-to-many structure stops bases overwriting each other |
| Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance asset leasing ERP-native | IFRS 16, ASC 842 | Lease books, framework-specific index revaluation, dual reporting through posting layers, impairment, foreign-currency leases | What a government entity does with a product that does not state GASB support |
| Oracle Fusion Cloud Lease Accounting ERP-native | IFRS 16 and ASC 842, configurable as primary and secondary standard | Lease creation, schedule generation, and both expense and revenue leases | How the secondary standard is reported, and what needs the wider Fusion footprint |
| SAP Contract and Lease Management ERP-native | IFRS 16, ASC 842, local accounting principles | Parallel valuation of lease-in and lease-out contracts by accounting principle, with rules controlling calculation and posting | The configuration effort behind valuation rules, and who maintains them after go-live |
Absence is not a negative assessment. A product may fall outside the method, lack sufficient public official material, or belong to a narrower category. Yardi Corom was excluded because its official documentation was not retrievable on the check date, and Accruent Lucernex because its public page documents lease administration and compliance reporting without the subsequent-measurement and journal output the method requires. Expand the shortlist for a required framework, entity type, geography, ledger or asset class not covered here. Company-stated support does not prove the configured product reproduces the entity’s measurement, which remains the buyer’s test.
Implementation, migration and the transition evidence problem
Migration carries more risk than configuration. The buyer is moving live schedules whose carrying amounts, accumulated amortisation, remeasurement history and transition-election consequences are already embedded, and opening balances have to be proved lease by lease. A total that agrees while individual leases are wrong will pass the first close and fail the first sample.
- Census and completeness. Build the search population, log exclusions with reasons, and have a named owner accept the completeness assertion before abstraction starts.
- Abstraction in waves with quality control. Sample each wave independently against source contracts and measure the error rate by field rather than by lease.
- Opening-balance reconciliation. Agree liability, right-of-use asset and accumulated amortisation lease by lease to the prior basis, and explain every difference before accepting it.
- Parallel run. Cover at least one full close and one remeasurement or modification event, because a parallel run without a change event tests only initial recognition.
- Cutover. Define readiness criteria, fallback, the open-defect position, support ownership and the first-period review.
- Operate. Review access, assumptions, interfaces and changes after go-live rather than at the next audit.
Retain the prior tool’s outputs independently of the new vendor. An outsourced abstraction or managed service produces data and working papers but does not become the accounting owner, and the exit terms decide whether the entity can leave with its own history.
Qualified-practitioner review required: Approve the transition elections, opening balances and every migration difference before cutover. A service provider can prepare the analysis; management retains the conclusion.
Gate the shortlist before you score it
Apply pass-or-fail gates first. A product leaves the shortlist if it cannot cover every framework and book in scope, the entity and currency structure, the population volume, ledger posting with acknowledgement, evidence export without vendor help, or the security and hosting requirements. Weighted scoring cannot compensate for a failed gate.
| Criterion | Weight | Demonstration evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Framework and book coverage | 15 | One lease posted to every book in scope with differences reconciled |
| Measurement reproducibility | 15 | Parallel calculation against the buyer’s own leases and expected answers |
| Change events and remeasurement | 15 | Scripted modification, index change, partial termination and impairment tests |
| Disclosure generation and tie-out | 15 | Framework-specific tables traced to lease-level records and posted entries |
| Journal posting and acknowledgement | 10 | Source-to-ledger test including a failed post, a reversal and a locked period |
| Data abstraction and population control | 10 | Field-level accuracy on a real contract sample and the exception route |
| Access, assumptions and evidence export | 10 | Versioned assumptions, segregation test and a complete export without vendor help |
| Implementation, migration and evaluated cost | 10 | Comparable migration plan, resource model and normalised total cost |
| Total | 100 | Adjust weights only before demonstrations begin. |
Shortlist a specialist platform when framework coverage, change-event depth and disclosure output drive the decision and the ledger is stable. Shortlist a public-sector product when fund and government-wide reporting, subscription arrangements and a single audit define the requirement. Shortlist a real-estate-heritage product when administration, critical dates and portfolio management are inseparable from the accounting. Shortlist the ERP-native module when the frameworks are covered and one ledger, one security model and one close outweigh a specialist’s deeper functions.
Delay the purchase where no owner exists for the lease population, where framework, adoption or transition questions are unresolved, or where the entity cannot resource abstraction and administration. Reopen the decision if the framework set, entity structure, portfolio size or disclosure requirements change, or if either board amends its standard following the reviews now under way.
Frequently asked questions
What is the 90% rule in leasing?
It is a legacy bright line. ASC 840 classified a lease as capital where the present value of payments reached 90 per cent of fair value. ASC 842 replaced that with a criterion based on substantially all of the fair value, treating 90 per cent as one reasonable interpretation rather than a required threshold. In software terms it is an approved, versioned configuration input needing a retained basis.
Can spreadsheets still handle lease accounting under ASC 842?
Sometimes. No framework requires software, and a small stable population can be defensible. The limit is rarely lease count. It is remeasurement history and reproducibility: once several books, index-linked escalation and frequent change events arrive, a spreadsheet has to evidence version control, independent review and the ability to rebuild a closed period, which is where most fail.
Does one system handle ASC 842, IFRS 16 and GASB 87 together?
Several state that they do, and the claim is testable. Post one lease with an index escalation to every book in scope and reconcile the differences, because the three frameworks answer that event differently. Public-sector requirements add fund-level and government-wide output plus adjacent GASB pronouncements, so treat a government requirement as a superset rather than a variant.
What programs do leasing consultants use?
Outsourced preparers and CPA firms frequently work in their own licensed platform, and several products document shared access between a firm and its client for that reason. The buying question is not the product name but ownership: who holds the lease record, who can export the full measurement history without the provider, and who owns the accounting conclusion.
