How it works
A lease record holds the key facts of each lease: parties, premises, area, rent and increases, service charges, term, renewal and break options, notice periods, and obligations such as repairs and reinstatement at the end.
Critical dates drive the work. The team tracks each notice deadline, rent review and expiry and acts early, because a missed break notice can lock the organization into years more rent. Finance also needs lease data for accounting: under IFRS 16 and the US standard, ASC Topic 842, lessees recognize most leases on the balance sheet.
Linking leases to use turns a record into a decision tool. Setting each site's cost against its measured occupancy shows which buildings are worth renewing, which can shrink and which can go.
How to measure it
- Keep one record per lease with every critical date and its notice period.
- Set each site's annual cost against its measured peak occupancy to get the cost per seat actually used.
- Review each lease event early enough that relocating is still possible.
Common mistakes
- Tracking dates in a spreadsheet that one person owns, so deadlines slip when that person leaves.
- Renewing on the same area by default without checking how the space is used.
- Keeping lease data apart from occupancy data, so cost and use are never compared.
How Kadence helps
Kadence supplies the usage side of lease management. Workplace Insights reports attendance and occupancy from check-in data, with CSV export, and the public API lets teams bring that data into the systems that hold lease records. SpaceOps scenario planning then tests renewal options against measured use.
Workplace analytics · Workplace API · Scenario planning
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between lease management and lease administration?
The terms overlap. Lease administration usually means the day-to-day record keeping: summarizing leases, paying rent and tracking dates. Lease management is broader and includes using that data, with occupancy and cost, to decide what to renew, shrink or exit.
What are critical dates in a lease?
Dates when the tenant must act or loses a right: break option notice deadlines, renewal option deadlines, rent reviews and expiry. Missing one can mean paying for space the organization no longer needs.
Why link lease data to occupancy data?
A lease shows what a site costs and occupancy shows how much of it is used. Together they show the cost per used seat at each site and which leases to renew, shrink or exit at their next event.
Related terms
- Lease event A lease date that forces or allows a decision, such as an expiry, a break option, a renewal option or a rent review.
- Real estate portfolio optimization Matching the buildings, floors and leases an organization holds to the space its people actually need.
- Total occupancy cost Everything an organization spends to occupy a workplace in a year: rent, operating costs, utilities, services and fit-out.
- Integrated Workplace Management System (IWMS) Enterprise software that runs real estate, leases, space, maintenance and assets from one shared database.
- Stay vs go decision The choice, ahead of a lease event, between staying in a building (and possibly reconfiguring it) or relocating.
- Sublease Letting leased space you no longer need to another party, while staying responsible to the landlord under the original lease.
Sources
- IFRS 16 Leases, IFRS Foundation
- Leases (Topic 842), post-implementation review, Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)
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