Why Lease Rater

Companies need a rate that reflects what they could borrow a similar amount at, over a similar term, but obtaining one is harder than it sounds:

• Banks rarely quote hypothetical facilities. A relationship manager may give a ballpark figure, but it is seldom documented in a form you can put in a file, and formal rate letters for facilities that will never be drawn are rare.
• Loan comparison sites fall short. Generic advertised rates don't account for your entity's credit profile, sector, size, or lease term, which is what Section 20 asks the rate to reference.
• DIY guesswork leaves nothing in the file. Picking "4–5%" from gut feel gives a reviewer no basis to work from. A transparent, evidenced methodology does.
• Commissioning a bespoke study is costly. Traditional manual studies cost £500–£2,000+ per calculation, with 2–4 week turnarounds. Not practical for multiple leases or tight deadlines.

Result? Finance teams are stuck between expensive delays and a rate they cannot evidence.

Lease Rater gives you a credible, auditable OBR in minutes, not weeks, combining market data, UK SME lending practice, and credit risk factors into a single, transparent calculation.

• Instant results. Enter your lease and company details; get your OBR, range, and PDF report immediately.
• Audit-support documentation. Professional PDF showing the rate, methodology, assumptions, and risk drivers, ready for your audit file.
• Term-matched & credit-reflective. Rates adjust for lease duration, security, sector, size, and financial strength, not one-size-fits-all.
• Built by bankers & auditors. Methodology rooted in real UK SME lending criteria, documented so a reviewer can follow how the rate was reached.
• No subscriptions. No sales calls. Pay per use or bulk packs. No ongoing fees. No onboarding hassle.

Stop wasting time and money

You need a discount rate you can evidence under FRS 102. You don't need a multi-week consulting project or a vague guess from your bank.

• Fast: Calculate an OBR in minutes, not weeks. Ideal for year-end crunch periods.
• Affordable: Low per-use pricing. No retainer. No minimum commitment.
• Repeatable: Run calculations for every lease in your portfolio. Consistent approach across entities and periods.
• Defensible: Clear narrative showing how the rate was derived. Auditors see the logic; you keep control.

Get your OBR now

Independent, third-party OBR support

You need to verify that management's discount rate is reasonable but deriving a full OBR from scratch carries risk, takes time, and isn't your core value-add.

• Third-party validation. Lease Rater provides an independent benchmark so you're not solely relying on management's estimate or your own back-of-envelope calc.
• Transparent methodology. Every assumption is disclosed. You can see why the rate landed where it did and whether it's appropriate for the client.
• Something to point to. An independent, documented benchmark, rather than an unsubstantiated rate or one built in-house with no record of how.
• Efficiency gains. Spend less time building rates; more time on judgement, testing, and value-adding review work.
• Consistent standard. Apply the same rigorous approach across all your FRS 102 clients. Supports quality control and firm-wide consistency.

Use Lease Rater as a starting point, sense-check, or corroborating input for sign-off. You retain professional judgement; we provide the toolkit. For a detailed explanation of the regulatory basis, including what published guidance from ACCA, ICAEW, KPMG, BDO, and others says about how OBRs should be determined, see our Our Methodology & Regulatory Basis page.

• Headline OBR with a defensible range (low/mid/high) for sensitivity and professional judgement.
• Lease liability PV calculation. The opening present value of future lease payments discounted at the OBR: the core number for your balance sheet.
• Monthly amortisation schedule. A full month-by-month lease liability amortisation table showing interest, principal repayment, and closing balance for every period of the lease term.
• ROU asset depreciation schedule. Straight-line depreciation of the right-of-use asset over the lease term, with opening and closing net book values each month.
• Balance sheet and P&L impact summaries. Annual snapshots of the ROU asset, lease liability (current and non-current), depreciation charge, and interest expense, ready for disclosure.
• Ready-to-adapt journal-entry templates. Day 1 recognition, monthly lease payment, and monthly depreciation entries, structured for easy adaptation to your chart of accounts. (Your accountant should review and map these to your entity's specific account codes.)
• Draft disclosure-note template. A draft FRS 102 Section 20 disclosure note covering the lease liability maturity analysis, discount rate, and key accounting policy. Consult your accountant for entity-specific requirements.
• CSV export. Full schedule and summary data exportable for working papers and audit files.
• Professional PDF report including rate, methodology summary, key drivers, and assumptions ready for working papers.
• Market-anchored base rate. Aligned to observable UK risk-free benchmarks (SONIA term structure), not plucked from thin air.
• Credit-adjusted spread. Based on 14 industry-standard financial metrics (profitability, liquidity, leverage, coverage, cash flow, balance sheet strength), security quality, sector risk, the credit size band derived from turnover, and lease concentration. Each metric is banded on a six-point scale. The pillars, their weights and the metrics are set out on Our Methodology; the basis-point values within each band are proprietary.

See how it works

We show you how the rate is built: an observable base rate plus a credit spread assembled from a four-pillar assessment covering financial strength, security and structure, sector and size, and exposure. The report prints the inputs used, the calculated ratios, and each pillar's assessment and contribution in basis points, so a reviewer can follow the reasoning rather than take the number on trust.

The pillar weightings, the metrics behind each one, and the basis for the calibration are set out in full on Our Methodology & Regulatory Basis. Spread ranges are informed by the author's professional experience in UK SME commercial lending and credit risk pricing, in the absence of a published market dataset for this asset class.

• Pay per use: £49 for a single OBR calculation, with no subscription.
• Volume packs: five calculations for £199 (£39.80 each) or ten for £349 (£34.90 each), down to £26.63 each on the 30-credit pack. Ideal for portfolio work or accountants with multiple clients.
• No subscriptions. No onboarding. No sales calls. No auto-renewals.

Simple, transparent pricing. You pay for what you use.

• Reports stored securely for your records and audit trail. You can revisit and download past calculations anytime.
• UK-hosted application with encrypted transport (HTTPS) and secure authentication.
• No third-party selling. Your data is yours. We don't sell to advertisers or data brokers.
• See our full Privacy Notice and Terms of Use.

• Finance Directors & Controllers who need quick, credible OBRs for FRS 102 lease accounting.
• Audit teams (Big 4, mid-tier, boutique) seeking independent third-party input to validate client discount rates and reduce audit risk.
• SME advisors & accountancy practices preparing multiple sets of accounts under FRS 102 (2026). Consistent, scalable approach across clients.
• CFO service providers supporting portfolio companies or outsourced finance functions.

No setup. No demo calls. Just fast, defensible OBRs when you need them.

Calculate your OBR now