This is yet another shocking account of an organization running lease management services without a software solution.

Our second cautionary tale in this eye-opening series reveals how a company missed out on $1 million during the acquisition of a new location. 

Following a five-year plan for expansion, a regional retail franchisee secured a second location in a neighboring city. Because the company only had one site in their portfolio they had grown confident and accustomed to utilizing spreadsheets for their lease management and accounting needs.

After procuring their new location the company wanted to invest in more expansion opportunities. To make their process more efficient hey started researching lease management solutions. After a few in-depth consultations, the franchisee learned something much more valuable than originally anticipated: They discovered $1,000,000 went missing during their acquisition!

This cautionary tale is about a smart, yet Excel-dependent victim unknowingly overpaying $157,920 on a property lease. Not because of a corrupt landlord or getting tricked into a scam. The significant overpayment was simply due to a lack of data insight and access to information.

Unfortunately, shocking accounts of overpayments on leases occur more often than imagined. In the case referenced above, the lessee used spreadsheets for lease administration and lease accounting, believing these tools to be sufficient. 

Despite Excel being a useful application with countless benefits, the popular software does have limitations which can often lead to costly errors.