After you have input or modified the information on the leases, you can update the "As Of" date by clicking the button on the Input tab and changing the date as appropriate (Figure 3). Changing the "As Of" date updates all of the computations for each lease and the Summary computation to use the new date.

Lease Summary Sheet

The second tab is the Summary Sheet, or the summary of all lease key dates, their GAAP and Cash Rent amounts and the amount of deferred rent. At the bottom of the page are totals for all entered leases. This information is used to update the GL entry for deferred rent according to the new GAAP treatment.

Figure 5. Summary Sheet and computations for GAAP Rent, Cash Rent and the resulting Deferred Rent.

The remaining worksheets are the detail tabs for all created leases (up to 15). Empty workbooks will have only the first lease tab ("Lease 1") and the other tabs will be hidden. For each created lease, you will see a tab for each of the 15 leases and after modification, each lease tab will be updated with the new information. On these tabs, you will see the detailed computations that underly the analysis including formulas for the days in each period, the computation for rent amounts and the resulting straight-lining of the rent to produce the deferred rent amount. (See Figure 6)

Figure 6. Computation table for a single lease showing the detailed values for each rent period and the number days under the lease contract and GAAP and Cash Rent values for the specific "As Of" date.

Conclusion

The Lease Management Tool provides all of the features you need to record your leases in accordance with GAAP. Its user friendly interface and helpful question marks will take the headaches out of your straight-line rent computation.