Item: Visual Lease
Rating: 5
Author: Cherisse Ratan

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It was used to address the new lease accounting standard ASC 842 and also used to keep track of our real estate leases and also copier leases. It was mainly used by our accounting and real estate teams. Our real estate team wanted to have a system that generates abstract reports, and Visual Lease has this feature.

Pros and Cons

Generates abstract reports
Allows us to include lessor's leases
Fairly user friendly

Journal entries look confusing and generate XXX as codes
Customer service should show concerns. When asked about XXX as codes in journal entries, customer support brushed off our concern as it was a default.
No API interface with Intacct

Return on Investment

We did not end up using the system too much because the lease accounting standard got postponed by FASB.
Our real estate team did not use the system as they found it cumbersome. They still entered lease information into the system for accounting to have the information. They preferred to continue using Excel to track their leases.

Alternatives Considered

We also evaluated Lease Accelerator and Lease Query. We didn't go with Lease Accelerator because it didn't have lessor leases. We did not go with Lease Query because they did not have abstract reports.

Key Insights

Do you think Visual Lease delivers good value for the price?

Are you happy with Visual Lease's feature set?

Did Visual Lease live up to sales and marketing promises?

Did implementation of Visual Lease go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Visual Lease again?

Other Software Used

Sage Intacct, Concur Invoice, Concur Travel and Expense

Usability

Because of the fact that the journal entries were generated with XXX as codes, it would have caused a problem bringing in the journal entries into our accounting software Intacct. I did not know how to get rid of it, and reaching out to the customer service showed a lack of concerns about these XXX codes.

Support Rating

Visual Lease support was not too impressive to me because when I reached out to ask about the XXX codes in the journal entries, they did not seem concerned. They just said they were default accounts, but I did not know what I was supposed to do with them since we did not have these accounts. Also, when I asked about API integration, I could not get a good response on how to get Visual Lease to be connected with Intacct.

Likelihood to Recommend

Visual Lease can be used for organizations that have intercompany leases as it allows for both lessors and lessees. It is not appropriate if you want to have a system that can integrate easily with your accounting system. I found that the company did not appear concerned to try to address issues with the system until we decided to discontinue using the system by not renewing the contract.

Maybe not this time

Overall Satisfaction with Visual Lease