GASB 87 puts almost every government lease on the balance sheet as a lease liability and an intangible right-to-use asset. Before any accounting system can build that entry, each lease has to be read and turned into structured fields: the lease term including options reasonably certain of exercise, the payment schedule, the variable payments, and the discount rate inputs. That abstraction is the slow, error-prone part. Upload any lease and get those GASB 87 fields extracted, each citing its source page, then export them into whatever GASB 87 accounting engine your government runs. Free to try, no demo, no minimum lease count.
Upload a document to extract
Drop files here or click to upload
Up to 50 files
Uploading...
A GASB 87 calculation is only as good as the fields it runs on, and getting those fields out of the leases is a separate job from booking the entry. These are the three ways government finance teams do it, and how they differ on speed, whether you can test the output yourself first, and who each suits.
| Method | Speed | Self-serve / free to try | Best for | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LeaseAbstractors This tool | AI abstracts each lease into GASB 87 fields, then export to your accounting engine | Minutes per lease | Yes, free, no demo | Teams that want the fields out fast and want to verify them first |
| Full GASB 87 accounting platform | Books the liability, asset, interest, and amortization once the fields are keyed in | Fast to calculate, slow to populate | Sales-led / demo | Governments that need the journal entries and disclosures produced in-system |
| Spreadsheet plus manual entry | Staff read each lease and key the term, payments, and rate into a workbook | Slow and error-prone | Not applicable | A handful of leases only |
LeaseAbstractors is the abstraction layer, not a GASB 87 accounting engine: it extracts the fields, it does not produce the journal entries or the note disclosures. Most governments pair fast abstraction with the accounting platform they already run. Vendors in this category do not publish reliable public pricing; treat any third-party figure as unverified.
GASB 87 uses a single lessee model, so there is no operating-versus-finance split to worry about. What the standard does need is a clean set of fields for every lease that is not short-term, each tied back to the lease so an auditor can follow it.
The noncancelable period plus any extension options the government is reasonably certain to exercise and termination options it is reasonably certain not to, because the term drives every amount GASB 87 recognizes.
The fixed lease payments over the term, structured period by period, so the lease liability and the interest and amortization built on it match the contract.
Payments that depend on an index or rate measured at commencement, versus usage-based variable payments that stay off the liability, plus any lease incentives, separated so the measurement is right.
The rate the lessor charges the lessee where it is readily determinable, otherwise the inputs for the government incremental borrowing rate, captured so the present value is defensible.
Whether the maximum possible term, including every option to extend regardless of probability, is 12 months or less, because a short-term lease is expensed and stays off the balance sheet.
Each extracted value links to the page and clause it came from, so the person loading the accounting engine can verify a number in seconds and the audit trail is built in.
From a lease PDF to a GASB 87-ready file, with a source citation on every field so review is fast and the entry ties back to the document.
Add the base lease plus every amendment, renewal, and side letter. Scanned and older documents are fine.
The model returns the lease term with reasonably certain options, the fixed and variable payments, and the discount rate inputs as structured fields.
Each field links to its source page, so you confirm the term, the payment schedule, and the rate in minutes and fix anything before it reaches the accounting engine.
Download an Excel or CSV file and load the fields into whatever platform your government uses to book the liability, the right-to-use asset, and the disclosures.
Last updated July 2026. What GASB 87 requires, what "GASB 87 software" actually has to do, how the abstraction fits, and how to speed up the part that slows every implementation.
GASB 87 lease accounting software is the tooling a state or local government uses to comply with GASB Statement No. 87, which requires almost every lease to be reported on the balance sheet. In practice the work splits in two. First, every lease has to be abstracted into structured fields: the lease term including options reasonably certain of exercise, the fixed and variable payments, and the discount rate. Second, an accounting engine turns those fields into the lease liability, the intangible right-to-use asset, the interest and amortization, and the note disclosures. Some platforms try to do both; the abstraction half is where implementations stall, because the fields have to be pulled out of the lease language accurately and tied back to the document for the audit. LeaseAbstractors does that first half fast and self-serve, then exports the fields into whatever engine books the entries. The field set overlaps heavily with what a private-company lease needs, which is why the same commercial lease abstract template works as a starting point.
State and local government reporting entities: states, cities, counties, public colleges and universities, school districts, transit authorities, public utilities, airports, and special districts. If you follow US GAAP as a private company or nonprofit, you report under ASC 842 instead, not GASB 87, and a lot of lease software only speaks one of the two standards. That distinction is a hard filter when you choose a tool, and it is the first thing to confirm. The full side-by-side is in GASB 87 vs ASC 842. GASB 87 has been effective for fiscal years beginning after June 15, 2021, so this is compliance work governments are already living with, not a future deadline.
GASB 87 uses one lessee model for essentially every lease longer than short-term. There is no operating-versus-finance classification the way ASC 842 keeps for private companies. The government records a lease liability at the present value of the payments and an intangible right-to-use lease asset, then recognizes interest expense on the liability and amortizes the asset over the shorter of the lease term or the asset useful life. Many finance teams find the single model simpler to administer once the leases are abstracted, precisely because there is no classification test to defend. What it does not remove is the need for accurate term, payment, and rate fields on every lease, since those three inputs drive every number the single model produces.
A short-term lease has a maximum possible term of 12 months or less at commencement, including every option to extend, regardless of how likely each option is to be exercised. A short-term lease stays off the balance sheet: the government simply recognizes the payments as expense over the term. The trap is the "maximum possible term" wording, because a 6-month lease with two 6-month renewal options has a maximum possible term of 18 months and is not short-term, even if nobody expects to renew. Getting this test right on every lease is the first thing the abstraction settles, so leases that belong on the balance sheet are not missed.
Use the interest rate the lessor charges the lessee when that rate is readily determinable. When it is not, which is the common case, use the government incremental borrowing rate, meaning the rate the government would be charged to borrow, over a similar term, the amount needed to buy the asset. The rate matters because the whole liability is a present value, so a wrong rate misstates both the liability and the interest that runs off it for the life of the lease. Abstraction captures the rate stated in the lease where one exists and flags the leases where the government has to supply an incremental borrowing rate, so the accounting team knows exactly which leases need a rate decision.
GASB 87 has two siblings that governments implement alongside it. GASB 96 applies the same right-to-use logic to subscription-based information technology arrangements, so cloud and software subscriptions get a subscription liability and an intangible right-to-use subscription asset. GASB 94 covers public-private and public-public partnerships and availability payment arrangements. All three turn on the same core discipline: identify the arrangement, pull out the term, the payments, and the rate, and tie each to its source. A tool that abstracts leases cleanly gives you a head start on the SBITA and P3 populations too, because the fields and the review workflow are the same.
No, and it is worth being clear about it. LeaseAbstractors extracts the fields GASB 87 runs on; it does not produce the journal entries, the amortization schedules, or the note disclosures. Those come from your accounting platform. What it removes is the slowest, most error-prone step in front of that platform: reading hundreds of leases and keying the term, payments, and rate by hand, which is where most GASB 87 implementations lose their time and pick up their mistakes. Abstract the leases here, verify each field against its source page, then export into your engine. If you are still choosing an approach, the best lease abstraction software roundup and the prepare lease data walkthrough cover the options; the same critical date extraction keeps renewal and termination options from lapsing after the data is loaded.
Still have questions? Our team is happy to help.
Talk to our teamIt is the tooling a government uses to comply with GASB 87, which puts almost every lease on the balance sheet. The work has two halves: abstracting each lease into structured fields, then booking the liability, right-to-use asset, interest, and amortization. LeaseAbstractors does the abstraction half fast and self-serve, then exports into your accounting engine.
State and local government reporting entities: states, cities, counties, public universities, school districts, transit authorities, utilities, airports, and special districts. Private companies and nonprofits report under ASC 842 instead. GASB 87 has been effective for fiscal years beginning after June 15, 2021.
No. GASB 87 uses a single lessee model for essentially every lease longer than short-term. The government records a lease liability and an intangible right-to-use asset, then recognizes interest and amortization. There is no operating-versus-finance classification like ASC 842 keeps.
A lease whose maximum possible term is 12 months or less at commencement, including every option to extend regardless of probability. A short-term lease stays off the balance sheet and its payments are recognized as expense. A 6-month lease with two 6-month options has an 18-month maximum term and is not short-term.
The interest rate the lessor charges the lessee when it is readily determinable, otherwise the government incremental borrowing rate. Because the liability is a present value, the rate drives both the liability and the interest recognized over the life of the lease, so it has to be captured or decided per lease.
No. LeaseAbstractors extracts the fields GASB 87 runs on and cites the source page for each; it does not produce journal entries or note disclosures. Those come from your GASB 87 accounting engine. It removes the slow, error-prone abstraction step in front of that engine.
GASB 87 covers leases of tangible assets. GASB 96 applies the same right-to-use logic to subscription-based IT arrangements, producing a subscription liability and an intangible right-to-use subscription asset. Governments implement both, and the abstraction discipline (term, payments, rate, tied to source) is the same for each.
The same discipline for private-company lease accounting.
Learn moreThe option and notice dates GASB 87 keys the term off.
Learn moreThe field set that feeds a GASB 87 calculation.
Learn moreAn honest comparison of the tools, side by side.
Learn moreThe full overview of our AI lease abstraction tool.
Learn moreFrom the same family of tools
