Lease Administration RFP Checklist: Requirements to Include

Eleven responses come back to your lease administration RFP. Every bidder has ticked "fully compliant" in every row of the requirements matrix, because every row was a yes/no question. The procurement lead now has eleven identical columns and no basis for a decision, so the evaluation falls back on price per sensor and a demo that showed a dashboard nobody in leasing will ever open. That is the predictable result of a requirements list written as capabilities instead of as testable obligations.

The checklist below is written the other way round. Each section lists what the RFP document itself should contain, phrased so that a bidder has to produce evidence rather than agree. It covers the lease data, the footfall linkage, the calculations, the integrations, the commercial model and the scoring. Security and data-handling requirements deserve their own section of the document and are covered separately in our article on security requirements for a leasing automation tender, so they are not repeated here.

Section 1: the lease data the system must hold

Most RFPs describe the sensors in detail and the leases not at all. Reverse that. State the lease objects and fields the platform must store or receive, because every automated statement depends on them:

• Lease unit, lease line and tenant as separate records, each with effective start and end dates
• Turnover-rent clause parameters: threshold type (footfall, sales or both), period, percentage and any cap or collar
• Reporting obligations written into the lease, such as monthly footfall statements or quarterly performance reviews, with the named recipient
• Service-charge apportionment formulas where footfall share is an input

Attach an anonymised sample of three real leases with different clause structures and require each bidder to show, in writing, which fields they would populate and from where. A vendor who cannot map your lease to their data model will not be able to automate it later either.

Section 2: linking entrances to lease units with dates

Counters sit at doors. Leases sit on units. The requirement that keeps the two aligned is short, and it belongs in the mandatory column:

• Entrance, zone and lease unit shall be separate objects, and every link between them shall carry an effective-from and effective-to date
• After a unit split, merger or shared-entrance arrangement, the bidder shall describe who performs the re-mapping, within how many working days, and at what cost or confirm it is included
• Historical trends for a re-mapped unit shall remain comparable with the pre-change period

Add one evidence request: a description of a unit merger the bidder has handled for an existing client, including how the tenant statement for the merged unit was produced in the first month after the change.

Section 3: calculations, statements and the accuracy clause

This is where a lease administration RFP differs from a plain footfall purchase. Numbers that trigger rent will be challenged, so the document needs three things most tenders leave out.

A contractual accuracy floor. Write the number into the requirements, not the brochure. Vemco Group, for example, commits contractually to a minimum of 96% counting accuracy, with typical performance between 98% and 99% where lighting, layout and visitor behaviour allow. Whatever floor you set, require the bidder to state in writing whether they accept it and what remedy applies if it is missed.

A validation protocol. Specify manual count sample size, which entrances, who performs it and how often after go-live. Ask for the bidder's standard protocol as an attachment and score whether it matches yours.

An audit trail per statement. Every tenant footfall statement and every turnover-rent trigger calculation shall be reproducible from stored inputs: the raw counts, the mapping in force on each day, and the clause parameters used. Ask for a sample statement and the data behind it.

Section 4: integrations written as test cases

Name the systems where your leases actually live: the ERP or property management module, the BI tool used for renewal analysis, and any POS feed arriving under lease reporting clauses. For each one, write a test case rather than a requirement: "Push the monthly footfall figure for unit X into field Y of system Z and show the result." Vemco Group's VemFusion layer connects counting data to POS, BI, ERP and CRM systems; whichever bidder you consider, require a live or recorded demonstration of a comparable push, and ask who maintains the integration when either side upgrades.

State also whether the platform must be device-independent. A sensor-agnostic platform able to ingest data from existing counters matters for acquisitions, phased replacement and mixed estates. Request the list of supported sensor types and manufacturers as an attachment.

Section 5: commercial model and a cost comparison you can defend

Bidders will quote in different structures: per sensor, per site, per lease unit, or a platform subscription plus hardware. The RFP should force a common basis. Require every bidder to complete a cost table over the contract term covering hardware, installation, software subscription, integration set-up, re-mapping work and support, so that totals are comparable regardless of the pricing model.

Then put your own ROI assumptions in the document so bidders argue with your inputs rather than their own. An illustrative example, with every figure an assumption to replace with your data: a centre with 80 lease units where analysts spend an assumed 2 days per month on footfall statements and reconciliation; at an assumed internal cost of 400 per analyst day, that is 9,600 per year in manual effort. Add an assumed one disputed turnover-rent calculation per year costing an assumed 5,000 in advisor time, and the avoidable cost is roughly 14,600 per year before any uplift from faster renewals. Compare each bidder's completed cost table against that figure over the same term.

Section 6: scoring with gates, not just weights

Set a small number of pass/fail gates before any weighted scoring: acceptance of the accuracy floor in writing, effective-dated unit mapping, a completed cost table, and the attachments requested (SLA, validation protocol, two reference sites with a comparable number of lease units). Only bids that clear the gates are scored. A weighting that has worked for portfolio landlords is 30% workflow coverage, 20% contractual accuracy and validation, 20% integration demonstration, 15% hardware independence and migration path, 15% commercial terms. Price per sensor sits inside that last 15%, which is where it belongs in a leasing automation tender.

Frequently asked questions

How long should the requirements section of a lease administration RFP be? Long enough to include sample leases, named target systems and test cases, which usually means more pages than the sensor specification. Length matters less than testability: each line should let an evaluator say "shown" or "not shown".

Should we specify the sensor technology in the tender? Specify the conditions at your entrances and the accuracy floor, and let bidders propose the device. Requiring a device-independent platform keeps that choice open for later phases and acquisitions.

Can tenants be given access as part of the same tender? Yes, but state it as a landlord decision: who gets a login, what they see, and whether access is a product tier with a cost. Ask for it in the cost table so it does not arrive as a change request after award.

If you are drafting a leasing automation tender or a lease administration RFP and want the lease data section, the accuracy clause or the integration test cases reviewed before the document goes out, contact Vemco Group. We will compare your requirements against what we have seen hold up in shopping centre and retail portfolio tenders and tell you plainly where the gaps are.