For decades the answer to "is our landlord overcharging us?" was a lease audit firm: send the documents, wait a few months, give up a large share of whatever comes back. That still works for some tenants. But there are now at least five other ways to do it, and for a business with more than a few locations, the firm is rarely the best one.
This is an honest comparison. Tenantback is one of the options, and we say where it is the strongest choice and where it is not. Each option is judged on the same five things.
- One lease and a free afternoon: do it yourself, with AI doing the reading.
- One large office lease headed for an on-site books inspection or litigation: a firm or counsel.
- Many locations, every year, without your team running it: Tenantback.
What actually matters when you choose
- Coverage. Is every statement at every location checked, every year, or only a sample?
- Speed. Most leases give you 90 to 180 days to object. Anything that takes months eats the window.
- Cost, and how it scales. Hourly fees punish you for having many leases. Contingency fees punish you for winning.
- Who deals with the landlord. A findings report recovers nothing. Someone has to send the letter, answer the pushback and confirm the credit.
- Evidence. Every finding should quote the lease and show the math. That is what gets claims conceded instead of argued.
The six options
1Do it yourself with a spreadsheet
Read the lease, pull the share, caps, fee and exclusions, and check each line of the statement by hand. Our guide on how to audit a CAM reconciliation is the playbook.
Free, and you learn your leases. For a single location with a short lease it is very doable.
Slow, easy to get wrong under deadline, and it does not scale past a handful of leases. You also write and chase the dispute yourself.
2Ask ChatGPT or Claude
Upload the lease and the statement to a general assistant and work through it with structured prompts. We wrote the full method, with five copy-paste prompts, in how to use AI to audit your CAM charges.
Fast reading of long leases, good at spotting excluded costs and odd lines, and you probably already pay for it.
Unreliable at multi-step arithmetic and exact quotes unless you force it, no memory of your deadlines, and nothing happens with the landlord unless you do it. Fine for one lease, tiring for twenty.
3Your CPA or accountant, by the hour
Some accounting firms review reconciliations as an add-on to their regular work.
Someone you already trust, who knows your books. Useful when the reconciliation feeds into bigger accounting questions.
Billed by the hour whether or not anything is found, so it gets expensive across a portfolio. Many accountants are not lease specialists, and the landlord negotiation is usually out of scope.
4A contingency lease audit firm
Specialist firms review leases and statements and take a share of what they recover. Contingency shares are commonly quoted between 25% and 50% of the recovery.
Experience with complex office and industrial leases, and the ability to inspect the landlord's books on site when the lease allows it. Nothing to pay up front.
The share is large, engagements often take months, and firms tend to sample the biggest locations rather than check every statement every year. Some leases restrict contingency-fee auditors or require a CPA, so read the audit clause first.
5Lease administration software
Platforms built to hold the lease record, run lease accounting and track critical dates. Some include modules for checking expense statements.
The system of record for your portfolio: dates, options, payment schedules and reporting in one place.
Their core job is the record and the accounting, not the recovery. In most setups, someone on your team still reviews the findings, writes the letter and handles the landlord.
6Tenantback
An AI recovery team that audits every reconciliation against the lease, drafts the dispute for your approval, runs the landlord thread and records the credit. You can start by forwarding two PDFs to audit@tenantback.com, from ChatGPT or Claude through our connector, or from the web app.
Every statement at every location as it arrives, findings in minutes rather than months, every quote verified against the lease page and every dollar computed by code. It handles the letter, the follow-up and the deadline. You pay 25% of what is actually recovered on the Recovery plan, and nothing if nothing is found.
It does not send someone to inspect the landlord's books in person, and it is not a law firm: disputes headed for litigation belong with counsel. If your lease restricts contingency-fee auditors, read that clause first. Tenantback flags it when it reads the lease.
Side by side
| Option | Cost | Coverage | Speed | Who handles the landlord |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Do it yourself | Your time | What you get to | Days per lease | You |
| ChatGPT or Claude | Your subscription and time | One lease at a time | Hours per lease | You |
| CPA, hourly | Hourly, found or not | What you pay for | Weeks | Usually you |
| Audit firm | Often 25% to 50% of recovery | Often a sample | Months | The firm |
| Lease admin software | License fees | Depends on setup | Depends on setup | Usually your team |
| Tenantback | 25% of recovery, or 12% plus $49 per location per month | Every statement, every location | Minutes to findings | Tenantback, with your approval |
Where Tenantback shines the most
The clearest case is a multi-location operator: a franchisee with a dozen restaurants, a dental group, a retail chain. Each location has its own lease, its own landlord and its own window, and nobody on the team has time to read sixty pages per store every year. That is exactly the work that slips, and exactly what Tenantback was built to do without your team in the loop until there is something to approve.
- Nothing gets sampled. Forward statements as they arrive, or give landlords your Tenantback address, and each one is audited the same day.
- No window gets missed. Every objection deadline becomes a dated task, with reminders and a calendar feed.
- The landlord gets evidence, not opinions. Each finding quotes the lease word for word and shows the arithmetic, like our sample report.
- You stay in control. Nothing reaches a landlord until you approve it, and one switch pauses all outbound email.
For a single large office lease with a contentious landlord and an on-site audit right, a specialist firm or counsel may be the better call. We would rather say so than lose your trust on the first claim. The longer version of that comparison is in Tenantback vs a lease audit firm.
Questions
What do lease audit firms usually charge?
Most work on contingency, taking a share of what they recover. Shares between 25% and 50% are commonly quoted, depending on the portfolio and the work involved. Ask for the fee in writing, including whether it applies to future savings as well as refunds.
Can my lease stop me from using an outside auditor?
Some leases limit who may audit, for example by requiring a CPA or barring auditors paid on contingency. Read the audit clause before you hire anyone. Tenantback flags these clauses when it reads your lease.
Is Tenantback cheaper than an audit firm?
On the Recovery plan you pay 25% of what is actually recovered, at or below what firms commonly charge, and nothing if nothing is found. Larger portfolios usually choose the Portfolio plan: 12% of recoveries plus $49 per location per month.
Do I need to switch from my lease administration software?
No. Keep it as your system of record. Tenantback sits next to it and does the auditing, the disputes and the follow-up.
