Read time 4 minIntroduction: The Rising Need for Lease Abstraction
Commercial lease abstraction is a fundamental and a critical part of the real estate industry. Accurate, timely and concise lease abstraction helps manage a variety of processes and operations efficiently. Plus, efficient lease abstraction means effective lease data management that helps gain a lot of timely insights that support strategic and profitable business decision making.
It, therefore, comes as no surprise that the demand for lease abstraction is rising exponentially.
However, despite its criticality, real estate players often struggle to streamline the process of lease abstraction due to numerous challenges they face in effectively managing lease abstractions.
Let’s take a look at some of the most arduous challenges.
Major Challenges in Commercial Lease Abstraction
1. Lease volume and complexity
This is the most fundamental issue facing every organization. Extensive volumes and broad scope and complex terms of commercial leases can pose daunting challenge in managing the abstraction efficiently. The issue is further compounded by stringent timelines, largely manual processes and mounds of paperwork and several iterations of the lease contract.
While there are software solutions for lease document management, players largely rely on traditional ways, which is a mix of manual and technology based document management system. This adds to the woes of property managers as they need to gather information from a decentralized system and complex paper trail, making it a herculean task to abstract every critical information within a set timeline.
Plus, managing and updating new lease information and modification to continually update lease database while ensuring high information quality is a lofty demand that requires specialized skills and right tools.
2. The new lease accounting standards
The new lease accounting standard ASC 842 issued by Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) presents not just accounting challenges but significant lease data management problems. In order to comply with this new requirement, organizations are scrambling to manage their lease data.
However, siloed lease information, complex, arduous, and tedious manual processes, ineffective data management systems and controls, and others make it increasingly challenging to meet the new stringent and meticulous lease data management requirements.
Lack of resources and ability to abstract lease information and categorize them as per the new accounting standard can have significant negative impact on business.
3. Lease in foreign languages
This is yet another major challenge facing global commercial real estate players. Multilingual lease abstraction is absolutely key to profitably and efficiently managing lease portfolio, however, it is an area that most companies struggle to streamline. Multilingual lease abstraction requires not just linguistic knowledge but also an in-depth understanding of the lease contract.
Because of lack of specialized skill most companies end up with poorly done abstraction rife with errors and misinterpretation that often result in severe consequences. It is huge undertaking and requires professional expertise.
Springbord has been a partner of choice in offering lease abstraction services. We can help you address these challenges and meet every other lease data management requirement within your budget and timelines.
Talk to us to find out how we can help you with commercial lease abstraction of any volume and type and to get a quote.
When Should Companies Consider Outsourcing Lease Abstraction?
Lease abstraction can become overwhelming when portfolios grow in volume and complexity. Knowing when to outsource can help companies stay efficient and compliant.
You should consider outsourcing lease abstraction services when:
- Managing a high volume of commercial leases across locations
- Preparing for financial audits or meeting compliance deadlines
- Undergoing mergers, acquisitions, or rapid portfolio expansions
- Handling multilingual or international lease agreements
- Lacking internal bandwidth or specialized lease abstraction expertise
Choosing the right time to engage a trusted lease abstraction partner can dramatically improve speed, quality, and resource allocation, especially when navigating time-sensitive or high-risk situations.
Benefits of Professional Lease Abstraction Services
While internal teams may handle lease abstraction on a limited scale, outsourcing to professionals offers distinct advantages, particularly in terms of scale, accuracy, and cost efficiency.
Key benefits of outsourcing lease abstraction services include:
- Improved accuracy and consistency across your lease database
- Faster turnaround and scalability as your portfolio grows
- Access to multilingual and domain-specific experts
- Seamless compliance with ASC 842 / IFRS 16 and other regulations
- Reduced administrative burden and operational costs
By choosing outsourced lease abstraction services, companies can unlock both strategic and operational value while ensuring better control over lease data quality.
Why Partner with Springbord?
Springbord brings years of industry expertise and proven lease abstraction capabilities tailored for commercial real estate portfolios of any size.
Here’s why businesses choose to partner with Springbord:
- Deep experience across multiple sectors and a global client base
- Flexible delivery and engagement models to fit your budget and needs
- Use of industry-standard tools and technologies to ensure data accuracy and faster turnaround
- Multilingual experts with domain proficiency in U.S., European, and APAC lease structures
- Transparent pricing, SLAs, and a service-oriented approach
Whether you’re looking to streamline lease data operations or scale abstraction efforts during an expansion, Springbord is the outsourcing partner you can count on.
FAQs
1. Why is lease abstraction important in commercial real estate?
Lease abstraction helps extract key financial, legal, and business information from lease agreements, supporting better decision-making and efficient portfolio management.
2. What challenges do companies face in managing lease volumes?
Large volumes, complex terms, and manual processes make lease abstraction time-consuming and error-prone—especially when lease data is decentralized.
3. How do new lease accounting standards impact lease abstraction?
Standards like ASC 842 require meticulous lease data tracking and classification, which increases the need for accurate and timely abstraction.
4. When should a company consider outsourcing lease abstraction?
Outsource when dealing with high lease volumes, international leases, compliance deadlines, or if your internal team lacks capacity or expertise.
5. What are the benefits of outsourcing lease abstraction services?
Outsourcing improves accuracy, speeds up turnaround, ensures compliance, and reduces operational costs through expert support.
6. Is multilingual lease abstraction necessary?
Yes, especially for global portfolios. It ensures accurate translation and interpretation of lease clauses, minimizing risk of errors or miscommunication.
7. Why choose Springbord for lease abstraction services?
Springbord offers domain expertise, multilingual capabilities, flexible engagement models, and proven experience across commercial real estate sectors.
