Lease Management Software is better than Excel for Your Business Needs

By Ryan Hendrie | 30th April 2015 | 4 min read

Many organisations initially utilise Excel spreadsheets to manage their lease data, but as businesses evolve and their lease portfolios expand with them, Excel can no longer be considered the most suitable option.

We’ve already looked into the problems with Excel for optimal lease management, but what is the alternative?

Many of the world’s leading brands have realised Excel doesn’t quite cut it anymore and are now using cloud-based lease management software instead. There are numerous benefits to utilising cloud-based solutions for your organisations lease management software, which we’ve listed here for your convenience:

- Higher Productivity: Having a platform specifically designed for lease management will enable users to focus on their core business requirements as opposed to setting up spreadsheets, learning formulas and organising complicated worksheets. The simplicity of such platforms encourages organisations to establish more effective workflows that will save on resources and time frames as most of these processes are automated.

- Straightforward Set Up: Cloud-Based solutions offer an out of the box simplicity to software. With an easy to use interface designed for lease management, users will quickly become fully operational in a matter of hours. They are extremely intuitive to use and require little or no training, so users will become proficient extremely quickly.

- Data Migration: Most cloud-solution vendors offer data migration services, so transferring critical lease data is a straightforward and painless process. This means users can concentrate on their core business as opposed to undertaking time consuming data entry tasks.

- Centralisation: When you store all your critical data in one secure location, accessing, organising and maintaining important information becomes extremely simple. No more searching around complicated file systems and shared drives trying to locate a specific spreadsheet. Cloud-software offers excellent search and filtration options to minimise time wasted searching and processing data.

- Facilitates Fast Decisions: Dashboards offer greater visibility, access to up-to-date critical lease data and can help vastly improve the decision making process. Coupled with tailored user levels and filtration systems; lease management software can make getting the right people seeing the right information an extremely simple process.

- Real-Time Information 24/7: Users can access lease portfolio data 24/7 from multiple devices via a web browser, providing total control over your leasing whenever or wherever they are. This ensures your business will always be equipped with the most up-to-date leasing information on the system.

- Pre-Established Reporting: As cloud-based lease management software is developed by lease professionals with lease management in mind, most software offerings come equipped with powerful reporting facilities. So say goodbye to complicated worksheets, formulas or pivot tables. Accessing live reports in real-time couldn’t be faster or simpler.

- Full Audit Trail: All necessary historical data, decisions and dates from inception to termination can be reviewed at the click of a button. You can view who agreed what, when and any additional notes that may have been added.

- Decreases the Chance of Fraud: With lease management software the chance of fraud is severally decreased as full audit trails and tailored user levels mean you’ll always know who’s making what changes and when. Providing organisations with that much needed peace of mind.

- Highly Scalable: With regular updates, upgrades and enhancements, your lease management software will evolve with your organisation as it grows. Furthermore, these updates are managed by the software vendor, meaning users always have the most up-to-date version at their fingertips. In many cases, the software can be tailored and customised to meet specific business requirements.

- Data Security: Data back-ups and checks are carried out on a regular basis to ensure all critical information is safe and secure. As this is a service provided by the software provider, organisations can rest assured that their data is protected without the hassle of having to store files on their own internal systems that requires investing in an experienced and knowledgeable IT team to manage this to the same standard. Additionally, by outsourcing the security aspect of data storage, this frees up a company’s IT department to focus on other projects and initiatives.

- Ensure Full Accounting Compliance: The complexities of lease accounting and the associated administrative requirements are easily overcome with the use of specialised features and calculation tools that can be used to help ensure compliance. With current changes to IFRS lease accounting rules expected to take place this year, the importance of having an application that works with your organisation cannot be underestimated.

Excel will always have a place within the business world, at least for the foreseeable future.

However, with alternative software solutions that are better placed to tackle specific business problems - such as lease management, contract management and accounting solutions - there is an opportunity to embrace change and move towards specialised cloud-based software that is better suited to your organisations ever changing business demands.

With the lease management industry evolving and the changing lease accounting requirements set to be announced towards the end of 2015, unless companies are willing to adapt to the new pressures, there is a chance they will be left behind as technology moves forward.

At Innervision we’ve developed solutions that can help free your organisation from the shackles of spreadsheet mediocrity and help elevate your lease portfolio management to new heights.

For more information, download our guide to lease management software here.