Roll forward reports, commonly requested by auditors for each audit, have long been known for being demanding and taxing on company resources. But there’s no need to spend hours each period inputting data manually. With innovative lease accounting software, lease accounting data can automatically merge into a roll forward report so that anytime it is requested, it is available with a touch of a button.

An auditor needs the roll forward report to examine company accounting records. The report displays the beginning balance, all transactions for the selected period, and the ending balance.

The roll forward report presents an organization’s financial balances from the beginning to the end of a period, which could be monthly, quarterly, year-to-date, or annually. Each lease held is listed on the report by row and contains separate columns of categories: scheduled amortizations, additions, terminations, impairments, renewals, adjustments, ROU asset balance closing, and liability balance closing.

Creating the roll forward report each time it’s requested can be challenging to accomplish manually using a spreadsheet application like Excel. For each lease, an accountant would have to input all journal entries that have been posted to an account and then classify them into the previously mentioned categories. However, the entire process can be automated with lease accounting software. The roll forward report automatically captures the beginning and ending balances and tracks changes in real-time, so the report is available at any time with the touch of a button.