Chasing sales figures every month
In a shopping centre or a retail parade with turnover leases, the asset manager depends on each tenant sending its sales figures. Some send monthly by email. Some send a quarterly spreadsheet. The national chain's finance team sends an annual certificate months after the year end. The independent café sends a photo of a till report.
Someone at the landlord's office copies each figure into a spreadsheet, applies the lease's percentage above the base rent, and raises the top-up. When the annual audited certificate arrives, it rarely matches the monthly figures and someone has to reconcile.
Why turnover rent is hard to administer
Each turnover lease defines turnover, the reporting periods, the base rent and the percentage slightly differently, and tenants report in whatever way their own systems produce.
| Lease detail | Why it creates work |
|---|---|
| Definition of turnover | What is included or excluded varies by lease |
| Reporting frequency | Monthly, quarterly or annual, per tenant |
| Base rent | Changes at review and must be applied correctly |
| Turnover percentage | Sometimes stepped by turnover band |
| Annual certificate | Must reconcile to periodic figures |
| Late reporting | The lease may allow estimates, which then need correcting |
What the chasing costs
Turnover rent is billed late, or not at all for tenants who never send figures. Differences between periodic returns and certificates go unnoticed. The asset manager has no reliable view of trading across the centre, which is useful for leasing, marketing and valuation. And staff spend days a month chasing and retyping.
The sums at stake per tenant may be modest, but they add up across a centre and across years. More importantly, turnover rent that nobody bills teaches tenants that reporting is optional. Once a tenant has gone a year without being asked, the conversation about the missing figures is harder than it needed to be.
The turnover process we build
- Each turnover lease's rules are recorded: definition notes, reporting frequency, base rent, percentage or bands, certificate requirements. Your asset manager checks each against the lease.
- Requests go to each tenant's finance contact on their schedule, with a link to a simple portal where they enter the figure or upload a file.
- Uploaded files and emailed reports are read with AI extraction, and a person confirms anything that is not a clean entry.
- Figures are checked against the tenant's history and seasonality, and unusual drops or jumps are flagged before billing.
- The turnover rent due is calculated for each period, and a draft demand is prepared for a person to approve and post to your accounts system.
- Annual certificates are compared with the periodic returns, and differences are shown for follow-up.
- A trading dashboard shows sales by tenant and category across the centre, for leasing and asset management.
What counts as turnover under a lease, and any action if a tenant does not report, remain decisions for you and your advisers.
What you get each month
Figures arrive through one route, in one format. Late tenants get reminders without anyone chasing by hand. Turnover rent is calculated from recorded rules and billed on time. And the asset manager can see trading across the centre, which helps in lettings conversations and in explaining performance to investors.
Tenants gain something too. A short portal entry replaces writing a letter or filling in a different spreadsheet for every landlord, and they can see what they submitted and when. That is a small thing, but it removes one of the reasons figures arrive late.
Is this how turnover rent works for you?
- You chase retail tenants for sales figures every period.
- Figures arrive in different formats and are retyped.
- Turnover rent is calculated in a spreadsheet per lease.
- Annual certificates do not reconcile to periodic figures.
- You lack a clear view of trading across your centre.