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Help Clients With Policy Decisions in the New Lease Standard

The article emphasizes the importance of advising clients on critical policy elections under the new lease accounting standard—such as distinguishing lease components, utilizing short-term lease exceptions, presentation preferences, and practical expedients—and highlights that trusted experts can use resources like the LeaseCrunch (now Crunchafi) guide to help clients make informed decisions and prepare their financial statements effectively, especially during off-peak times.

Policy elections that must be made under the new lease accounting standard are a critical part of implementation planning. They impact your clients’ future accounting and financial statement disclosures, and your clients may not have even considered them yet. For example:

  • Do they understand the difference between lease and non-lease components?
  • Do they know that there is a short-term lease exception available?
  • Do they know how they want the presentation of lease assets and liabilities on their statement of financial position to appear?
  • Do they know that there are a number of practical expedients available that can save them time, but that they must elect them?

These policy decisions require knowledge of the details of the new standard and will require time to evaluate. The good news is that you, as a trusted expert, can offer both advice and resources to help your clients make the best policy decisions. Even better is that much of this work can be provided outside of busy season, providing you with additional off-peak, billable hours.

The time is now to start talking to your clients about the policy decisions under the new lease standard, and LeaseCrunch, now Crunchafi Lease Accounting, can help. There is a guide available that you can offer your clients that provides a summary of these policy decisions, along with a way for them to document their decisions.

For additional information about how LeaseCrunch, now Crunchafi, can support you as you talk to your clients about the impact of the new standard and what they should be doing to prepare now, contact Crunchafi for more details.