Building a rent roll from leases means pulling the same set of fields out of every lease, tenant, suite, rentable square footage, base rent, escalations, recoveries, term, and options, and lining them up in one row per tenant. Done by hand across a portfolio it is days of reading and retyping, and the result only holds up if it matches the actual leases rather than a seller summary. Upload your leases below and the AI abstracts each one into rent roll fields and exports a clean commercial rent roll to Excel or CSV in minutes, with every number linked back to the page it came from.
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A rent roll is only as reliable as its source. Each column has to be read off the actual lease and its amendments, not copied from a prior rent roll or a broker summary. Here is the standard commercial rent roll column set, where each value lives in the lease, and why pulling it from the document matters.
| Rent roll column | Where it comes from in the lease | Why it must come from the lease |
|---|---|---|
| Tenant and suite | Parties clause, premises and suite description, exhibits | Names the legal tenant and the exact space, including any expansion or contraction premises |
| Rentable square footage | Premises clause, area certification, or amendment | Drives rent per square foot and pro-rata share; a stale number throws off both |
| Lease start and expiration | Commencement and expiration clauses, plus amendments that extend the term | Sets rollover, holdover, and weighted average lease term across the portfolio |
| Current base rent | Base rent schedule and the escalation that applies as of the rent roll date | The in-place rent has to be the step in effect now, not the starting rent on page one |
| Escalations and future steps | Escalation method: fixed bumps, CPI, or percentage rent | Lets the rent roll show next-year income and the rent curve, not just today |
| Recoveries and CAM | Pro-rata share, base year, caps, gross-up, and expense pass-throughs | Reimbursements are part of total income and are easy to misstate or omit |
| Options and free rent | Renewal, termination, and expansion options, plus any free-rent period | Options and abatements change the income and the risk a buyer or lender prices |
This is a standard US commercial rent roll field set. Always show the "as of" date prominently so a reader knows when the in-place rent was current. Adjust columns by asset class: retail adds percentage rent and breakpoints, industrial leans on the net-lease recovery structure.
Most rent rolls are built by copying from the last rent roll, a seller summary, or memory, then patched when something looks off. That is fast until a buyer, lender, or principal checks a number against the lease and it does not tie out. Building the rent roll directly from the leases is more work by hand, which is exactly why it usually gets skipped.
A rent roll copied from last quarter or from a seller-provided file inherits every stale rent step and every error in it. The in-place rent shown is often the starting rent, not the escalation in effect today.
Base rent escalates on a schedule. Reading the right step for the rent roll date means tracking every bump and amendment, and a single missed 3 percent increase understates income for that tenant for the rest of the term.
CAM, tax, and insurance reimbursements are real income, but they hide in the operating-expense clauses and are easy to leave out of a quick rent roll, which understates total income on the asset.
When every value was retyped, there is no fast way to prove a rent or an expiration date against the lease. Diligence turns into a manual hunt through PDFs every time a buyer questions a line.
Upload the leases and the AI abstracts each one into the rent roll fields, reads the right escalation step for your as-of date, captures recoveries and options, and exports a clean, consistent rent roll with every value linked to its source page.
Every lease is abstracted to the same columns, so the rent roll lines up tenant for tenant with no per-analyst variation in how a field is recorded.
The AI reads the full base rent schedule and applies the escalation in effect on your rent roll date, so the in-place rent is the real current number, not the starting rent.
Pro-rata share, base year, caps, and expense pass-throughs are abstracted alongside base rent so total income on the rent roll reflects reimbursements, not just rent.
Commencement and expiration, renewal and termination options, and any abatement period are pulled so the rent roll supports rollover and weighted average lease term analysis.
Download the completed rent roll as an Excel or CSV file that drops into your model, offering memorandum, or lease administration system with no reformatting.
Each rent, date, and recovery links to the exact lease page, so when a buyer or lender questions a line you confirm it in seconds instead of re-reading the document.
From a folder of lease PDFs to a clean, exportable commercial rent roll, with no template to build first.
Use the standard column set above as your template: tenant, suite, area, in-place rent, escalations, recoveries, term, and options. Add asset-specific columns like percentage rent for retail.
Tip: Set your "as of" date before you start so the in-place rent is read for that date.
Drag in each lease with its amendments, riders, and area certifications. The AI reads them together so the current term and rent step drive the rent roll, not the original document alone.
OCR reads each page, then the AI populates the tenant, area, in-place rent, escalations, recoveries, term, and options for every lease and flags any low-confidence value for review.
Check the flagged fields against their linked source pages, confirm the as-of date, then export the completed rent roll to Excel or CSV for your model or offering package.
Any team that has to prove income on a commercial property builds a rent roll from the leases, because the leases are the source of truth a buyer, lender, or principal will check.
A rent roll is a one-row-per-tenant summary of the income a commercial property produces: tenant, suite, rentable square footage, in-place base rent, escalations, recoveries, lease start and expiration, and options. It is the document a buyer, lender, broker, or owner reads to understand the income before opening a single lease. The catch is that a rent roll is a summary, and a summary is only as good as the leases behind it. Built directly from the lease documents, it ties out under scrutiny; built by retyping a prior file, it carries forward every error. For a fuller definition see our blog post on what a rent roll is.
A complete commercial rent roll includes, per tenant: the tenant name and suite, the rentable square footage, the lease commencement and expiration dates, the current in-place base rent, the escalation schedule, the recovery or CAM structure, the security deposit, and any renewal, termination, or expansion options plus free-rent periods. Many rent rolls add rent per square foot and a market-rent column so a reader can see loss-to-lease. Every one of those fields comes out of the lease and its amendments, which is why building the rent roll is really a lease abstraction job. The full field list lives in our commercial lease abstract template.
To build a rent roll in Excel, set up one column for each field, tenant, suite, area, in-place rent, escalations, recoveries, term, expiration, and options, then add one row per tenant. The slow part is filling each row: you have to read every lease, find the escalation step in effect as of your rent roll date, and record the recoveries and options. That is the step worth automating. Upload the leases here and the abstract populates each row for you, then you export the finished rent roll to Excel and keep working in your model. We compare the wider tooling in our lease abstraction software overview.
A lease abstract is the full structured record of one lease, every key term with its source page. A rent roll is a portfolio-level rollup that pulls a handful of income fields from each abstract into one comparable table. You build the rent roll from the abstracts: abstract every lease to the same fields, then surface tenant, area, in-place rent, term, and recoveries into the rent roll. Doing it in that order is what makes the rent roll defensible, because each line traces back to an abstract and the abstract traces back to the lease. To capture the remaining-term math that buyers and lenders weigh, see weighted average lease term explained.
A single property rent roll is a handful of leases; an acquisition or a fund-level report can be hundreds. The reliable way to do volume is to abstract the full population in one batch to the same fields, then build the rent roll from that consistent dataset rather than retyping each property separately. That keeps the in-place rent, the recoveries, and the expiration dates consistent across every asset, which is what an investment committee or a lender expects. To abstract a whole book at once, see bulk lease upload, and for the diligence workflow it feeds, lease abstraction for acquisition due diligence. Brokers building a rent roll for a listing can start with lease abstraction for CRE brokers.
Still have questions? Our team is happy to help.
Talk to our teamYou build a rent roll from leases by abstracting the same fields out of every lease, tenant, suite, rentable square footage, in-place base rent, escalations, recoveries, term, and options, then placing one row per tenant in a table. The key is reading the escalation step in effect as of your rent roll date and pulling recoveries from the operating-expense clauses, so the income shown matches the leases rather than a prior summary.
A commercial rent roll includes, for each tenant, the tenant name, suite, rentable square footage, lease start and expiration dates, current base rent, escalations, recoveries or CAM, security deposit, and any renewal, termination, or expansion options. Many also add rent per square foot and a market-rent column to show loss-to-lease, and an as-of date so readers know when the rent was current.
Create one column for each rent roll field and one row per tenant, then fill each row from the lease: tenant, suite, area, the in-place rent step for your as-of date, escalations, recoveries, term, and options. The filling is the slow part because it means reading each lease, so most teams abstract the leases first and export the populated rent roll straight to Excel.
A lease abstract is the full structured record of one lease with every key term and its source page. A rent roll is a portfolio rollup that pulls a few income fields from each abstract into one comparable table. You build the rent roll from the abstracts, so the rent roll inherits the accuracy of the abstraction step behind it.
A prior rent roll or a seller summary carries forward every stale rent step and error in it, and it often shows the starting rent rather than the escalation in effect today. Building from the leases means each line ties back to the actual document, so the rent roll holds up when a buyer, lender, or principal checks a number against the lease.
Yes. Bulk upload abstracts hundreds of leases in one batch to consistent fields, and the rent roll is built from that single dataset so the in-place rent, recoveries, and expirations stay consistent across every property. That fits acquisition diligence and fund-level reporting where the whole population has to be captured quickly.
It can and should. CAM, tax, and insurance reimbursements are real income, and leaving them off understates the total income on the asset. The abstraction pulls the pro-rata share, base year, caps, and pass-throughs from the operating-expense clauses so the recoveries appear on the rent roll alongside base rent.
The full overview of AI lease abstraction software.
Learn moreEvery field a complete lease abstract should capture.
Learn moreBuild a defensible rent roll for a listing or a deal.
Learn moreAbstract a whole portfolio in one batch to build a portfolio rent roll.
Learn morePortfolio-wide lease data for underwriting and reporting.
Learn moreCapture every renewal, option, and expiration date.
Learn more