After over a year of lease accounting in legacy software, Black Rock Coffee Bar left their old legacy software behind and implemented Occupier

Sarah Iams, VP of Finance & Accounting says “With Occupier, my time is freed up and I have this sense of comfort that our details within our lease administration program are incredibly accurate.”

In 2008, Black Rock Coffee Bar opened its doors to Portland caffeine lovers. Over the past 15 years, they have expanded to more than 125 coffee shops across 8 states. As a suburban coffee shop at heart, Black Rock built its brand on the ethos of coffee, connection and community. 

With a growing real estate footprint and a long-term vision of expansion, Black Rock Coffee was in need of a modern lease management tool for her real estate, accounting & operations teams to collaborate in.

In 2022, Sarah Iams, the VP of Finance & Accounting at BR Coffee implemented Occupier. Her and her team were in favor of a more seamless and user-friendly platform that powers the entire lease lifecycle — from site selection to critical date management, and lease accounting compliance.

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What Went Wrong with Black Rock Coffee's Legacy Lease Accounting Software?

The implementation with that legacy lease accounting software provider did not go smoothly. They noticed several issues with the accuracy of the lease information entered. “When I began to compare the lease information to statements from our landlords, I realized the payment schedules and start dates in the legacy lease accounting system were incorrect. I pulled on one thread just to find that most everything was incorrect.” Iams recalls.

According to Iams, “When we went through our audit with KPMG in 2021, we had two years' worth of ASC 842 activity to address, which was an incredibly painful process. Nailing down delivery dates, possession dates, and commencement dates in the old legacy lease accounting system was a manual process — that turned into me literally reviewing more than forty lease documents every month.” said Iams.

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How Does Combining Lease Administration and Accounting in One Platform Improve Accuracy?

“I did not appreciate how important the lease administration piece was in coming up with accurate lease accounting. If you cannot collaborate with the development, legal team, real estate and accounting team to take action on those pertinent dates in a timely manner, then it makes the lease accounting side nearly impossible. Thankfully Occupier enables us to do that,“ exclaimed Iams.

Iams continues to say, “Occupier allows us to tag people, assign tasks, and change a lease commencement date. With our previous system, if we changed a commencement date then we’d have to re-enter all the financial information. With dozens of date changes a year, this was wildly frustrating. Luckily Occupier’s software can calculate off that date change and shift the financials for us automatically.

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"If you cannot collaborate with the development, legal, real estate and accounting teams to take action on those pertinent dates in a timely manner, then it makes the lease accounting side nearly impossible. Thankfully Occupier enables us to do that."

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What Did Black Rock Coffee Gain by Unifying Their Lease Data in One Platform?

Black Rock Coffee Bar identified several key benefits of implementing Occupier's lease management software:

• Quick Lease Abstraction: Within a few days, the entire lease is entered into Occupier
• Complete Transparency into Lease Lifecycle: Lease administration data flows cleanly into the lease accounting module
• Centralized System: Lease management is no longer a tedious manual process with leases floating around via email
• Automatic Lease Data Updates: Changes in lease administration automatically adjust the financials in lease accounting
• Cross-Team Collaboration: Seamless collaboration between development, legal, real estate, and accounting teams

According to Iams, “Once you get everyone in the tool that can manage the entire lease lifecycle then it brings complete transparency into the story of your lease data.” Our AP team has direct access to Occupier and knows when lease payments are meant to start. Our legal team can easily ping the Occupier team for support in the abstraction of new contracts. And the accounting team now has complete visibility into the complete history of a lease contract. 

“At the end of the day, you have to get the leasing data right upstream to accurately capture the accounting calculations downstream. Anytime you create transparency you create efficiency. For us, the flexibility of the Occupier system is awesome. It delivers exactly what our development team, legal team, and accounting teams need to do our jobs accurately and effectively.” says Iams.