Trullion Alternatives for Small Accounting Firms (2026)

Trullion Alternatives for Small Accounting Firms (2026)

If you're a CPA firm partner advising clients on ASC 842 compliance, you've probably run into Trullion. It's a capable platform — AI-assisted lease abstraction, automated journal entries, solid disclosure drafting. The demo is impressive.

Then you see the pricing, and the conversation ends.

Trullion is built for mid-market and enterprise clients: companies with 100+ leases, dedicated accounting teams, and implementation budgets to match. For a 10–25 person CPA firm serving small business clients with straightforward lease portfolios, it's an expensive solution to a manageable problem.

The good news: there are five solid Trullion alternatives that handle ASC 842 compliance at a scale and price that actually fits small firms.

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Why Small Firms Look Beyond Trullion

Trullion's strengths are real. Its AI can extract key data fields from lease documents automatically — dates, escalation clauses, renewal options — faster and more accurately than manual abstraction. For a company managing 200 leases across multiple entities, that capability pays for itself quickly.

But most small business clients don't have 200 leases. They have an office, maybe a few equipment leases, possibly a vehicle fleet. The compliance requirement under ASC 842 is identical — right-of-use assets on the balance sheet, amortization schedules, disclosures — but the complexity doesn't justify an enterprise contract.

Three problems push small firms toward alternatives:

Pricing mismatch. Trullion doesn't publish pricing, which is itself a signal. When you need a discovery call to get a number, expect a number that fits an enterprise budget. For a client with 5–15 leases, that calculus doesn't work.

Implementation overhead. Trullion's full feature set requires setup time, data migration, and onboarding. For small business clients, you — the CPA — will absorb most of that burden. That's unbillable time on a low-volume engagement.

Feature excess. Trullion includes portfolio analytics, multi-entity management, and audit-trail features that matter to large companies. For a 12-person consulting firm with an office lease and three copier contracts, most of those features collect dust.

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5 Trullion Alternatives for Small Accounting Firms

Here's how the main alternatives break down, by use case.

1. LeaseQuery (by FinQuery) — Best Overall for Small CPA Firms

LeaseQuery is purpose-built for lease accounting compliance under ASC 842 and IFRS 16. It's not trying to be a full portfolio management platform — it does the accounting job well, at a price point that makes sense for small and mid-size clients.

What it does well:

• Automated journal entry generation based on lease inputs
• Built-in ASC 842 classification tool (operating vs. finance)
• Disclosure report outputs formatted for audit support
• Clean, non-technical interface that clients can use without CPA hand-holding

Who it fits: A CPA firm advising 5–30 person clients who have anywhere from 2 to 50 leases and need to get compliant without a major software implementation. LeaseQuery has SMB-specific pricing tiers, and FinQuery's support team is responsive to accounting professionals (not just in-house teams).

What to watch: LeaseQuery is leaner on the lease management side — it tracks accounting data well, but if your client needs robust renewal alerts or landlord/tenant reporting, you may want to layer a separate tool.

2. LeaseChief — Best for Very Small Clients (Under 10 Leases)

LeaseChief targets small businesses and the CPA firms that serve them. It's lighter than LeaseQuery, more affordable, and gets the compliance core right without the add-ons.

What it does well:

• Fast onboarding — most clients are fully set up in a single session
• Clean ASC 842 amortization schedules and journal entries
• Transparent, low pricing that you can quote to a client without a sales call
• Designed for non-accountants to manage their own lease data between reviews

Who it fits: A retail client with three store leases. A professional services client with one office and two equipment leases. Any engagement where the lease portfolio is small, simple, and stable.

What to watch: LeaseChief's reporting and audit support features are minimal compared to LeaseQuery or Visual Lease. For clients with complex lease modifications, subleases, or audit scrutiny from a Big Four firm, it may not meet the bar.

3. Visual Lease — Best for Clients Growing Into Mid-Market

Visual Lease sits a step above LeaseQuery on both features and price. It's a full lease management and accounting platform — the kind of tool a client might grow into if they're expanding, acquiring properties, or moving toward a future audit.

What it does well:

• Strong multi-entity support for clients with subsidiaries or complex structures
• Built-in lease management features (renewal tracking, payment alerts, portfolio reporting)
• Robust audit trail and disclosure support for Big Four or regional audit requirements
• API integrations with major ERPs (NetSuite, Sage Intacct, QuickBooks)

Who it fits: A 25–50 person client with a growing real estate footprint, or a client your firm knows is on a trajectory toward a sale, audit, or institutional investor. The implementation effort is higher, but the scalability is there.

What to watch: Visual Lease's pricing is mid-market. For a client with 5–10 leases and no growth plans, the cost-benefit doesn't favor it over LeaseQuery or LeaseChief.

4. Occupier — Best for Clients With Real Estate as a Core Operation

Occupier was built for companies where real estate is a significant operational concern, not just a compliance checkbox. It combines lease accounting (ASC 842) with lease management, transaction tracking, and portfolio analytics in a single platform.

What it does well:

• Strongest-in-class lease management features — deal pipeline, site selection tracking, renewal workflows
• ASC 842 and IFRS 16 compliance built in, not bolted on
• Clean dashboard that real estate and operations teams can use directly
• Strong fit for retail, restaurant, or multi-location service businesses

Who it fits: A client where the lease portfolio is operationally important — a regional restaurant group, a physical therapy practice with 8 locations, or a staffing firm with offices in multiple cities. If lease decisions are business decisions, Occupier's operational features earn their keep.

What to watch: For clients where leases are purely administrative (one office, one equipment fleet), Occupier's operational features are overkill. Stick to LeaseQuery or LeaseChief.

5. Sage Intacct (Lease Accounting Module) — Best for Existing Sage Intacct Clients

If a client already runs Sage Intacct as their ERP, its native lease accounting module is the easiest path to ASC 842 compliance. No third-party integration, no duplicate data entry, no additional contract.

What it does well:

• Native integration with the general ledger — lease journal entries flow directly to financial statements
• ASC 842 amortization and disclosure built into the module
• No implementation cost beyond the module subscription if Sage Intacct is already in place
• Familiar interface for clients already using the platform

Who it fits: Any client already running Sage Intacct with a straightforward lease portfolio. This is the lowest-friction path to compliance for that segment.

What to watch: If a client is not already on Sage Intacct, adopting the full ERP to get the lease module is backward. For standalone lease accounting needs, LeaseQuery or LeaseChief will get there faster and cheaper.

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How to Choose: 3 Questions

Don't let the software decision drag out. Three questions will get you to the right answer in most cases.

1. How many leases does the client have?

• Under 10 leases: LeaseChief or LeaseQuery
• 10–50 leases: LeaseQuery or Visual Lease
• 50+ leases or growing portfolio: Visual Lease or Occupier

2. Is the client already on a major ERP?

• On Sage Intacct: use the native module
• On NetSuite, QuickBooks, or another ERP with lease integration: check the ERP's native capability first before adding a standalone tool

3. Is real estate operationally significant to the client's business?

• Yes (multi-location retail, restaurant, clinic): Occupier
• No (one office, minimal leases): LeaseQuery or LeaseChief

Most small business clients land in one of two buckets: LeaseQuery for general-purpose small-to-mid compliance, LeaseChief for simple, low-volume situations. Start there.

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The Action for This Week

Pull your client list and flag any that haven't completed ASC 842 adoption. Private companies were required to comply starting with fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2021. If you have clients on that list who are still tracking leases in Excel — or not tracking them at all — that's a compliance gap and a service opportunity.

Run one LeaseQuery demo this week with a small client in mind. The onboarding flow will tell you quickly whether it fits.

For clients already on Sage Intacct: send an email today asking whether they've activated the lease accounting module. Most haven't. It's a five-minute conversation that leads to a billable implementation engagement.

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