Tomáš, can you briefly explain what dLease is actually for?
It’s basically a smart calculator. A tool that can calculate the impact of lease agreements on financial statements in accordance with the international standard IFRS 16. This standard must be applied by all companies reporting under IFRS – for example, companies listed on stock exchanges in the EU or subsidiaries of groups preparing IFRS-based consolidated financial statements. To properly present their lease contracts in financial statements, they need reliable calculations – and that’s where dLease comes in.

So it’s aimed at companies, not individuals?
Exclusively at companies acting as lessees that report under IFRS.

And what types of contracts does it apply to? Are we talking just about cars, offices, warehouses, or are there limits?
It applies generally – offices, warehouses, cars – but you can also lease, say, a photovoltaic power plant. For low-value assets, like computers, you can use exemptions and don’t need to report each item separately. But an office building, for example, always has to be reported.

What’s the most bizarre thing you’ve ever seen under a lease?
It was a lease of a hydroelectric power station’s weir. The contract was of course worded differently, but in essence it was a lease. So yes, even a weir can be the subject of a lease.

So dLease doesn’t deal with the leased item itself, but rather the contract parameters, right?
Exactly. The calculations are based on the contractual parameters. I dare say dLease can handle 99% of contract types. There will always be some very special case the system isn’t natively prepared for. But usually we still find a way to make it work with dLease. We just figure it out together with the client.

Why is dLease better than just keeping everything in Excel?
Mainly reliability. Excel is prone to formula errors, especially when contracts change – with extensions, indexation, and so on. dLease recalculates contracts quickly and accurately. It also generates all the required disclosures for the notes to financial statements, which saves work and provides confidence before the audit. And managing, say, fifty contracts in Excel quickly becomes very confusing.

So it’s not just that dLease makes your work easier, but it also protects you from mistakes?
Those are definitely the main advantages. I save a lot of time, but I also know I don’t have to worry when an audit comes. There won’t be any errors, and frankly, it saves work for the auditor too. The whole process is simply smoother and much less stressful.

How exactly does it work? I open the tool, and then what?
When you start with dLease, you upload all your lease contracts data using an Excel template and let dLease do the calculations. Then you just download the report and post it in your accounts. In the following periods, you enter any changes to contracts and again.

Is dLease available in Czech?
The tool was developed in the Czech Republic, originally in English, but it also fully supports Czech. Clients abroad are happy to use it in their local language as well – it’s truly flexible in this regard.

What’s the biggest headache for companies in managing leases – how does it usually manifest?
The worst part is whenever changes occur. In Excel, things simply “slip.” Imagine you have 100 contracts, each on its own tab. Or you pull a formula wrong in a cell – and suddenly you’ve got an error without even realizing it. And then there’s the time consumption – incidentally, in a recent webcast, a poll showed that many companies spend over 80 hours per year managing IFRS 16.

Want to know more? Check out our website and feel free to get in touch!