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TRIRIGA to Maximo REF lease data migration checklist

IBM has set the dates. The platform team has a technical runbook. What most programmes still lack is a plan for the lease data itself: the commencement dates, payment schedules and options that drive your ASC 842, GASB 87 or SFFAS 54 numbers. This checklist covers that part.

Published November 2026 · About an eight-minute read

The dates you are planning against

IBM has announced that support for all versions and releases of IBM TRIRIGA® software and the IBM TRIRIGA Application Suite (TAS) ends on 30 September 2027, and that new software orders, including TRIRIGA SaaS, closed on 28 January 2026. IBM names IBM Maximo® Real Estate and Facilities 9.x, part of IBM Maximo Application Suite (MAS), as the designated upgrade path.[1]

Two further dates matter. Customers who stay on TRIRIGA or TAS after September 2027 can move to IBM Sustained Support for up to five years, with chargeable Extended Support available for the first 12 months. Customers who trade up to MAS get dual support for up to 19 months beyond the base support end date, and IBM states that dual support under the MAS licence ends on 30 April 2029.[1][2]

IBM's documentation is also clear that lease customers may face a longer road than others. Non-lease customers can often upgrade in a single step using the merge capability of the Object Migration tool. For lease customers, IBM says a multi-step upgrade might be required depending on the source application version. Its example: moving from 10.8 needs two steps because of Patch Helper dependencies, first to 11.2, then to 9.2.[3]

WHAT THAT MEANS FOR LEASE DATA

Every extra upgrade step is another point where lease records are transformed by workflows rather than read by people. A migration proves that a value moved. It does not prove the value was ever right.

Phase 1: Before scoping is signed off

  1. Count the portfolio from the documents, not the system. Reconcile the number of active lease records against the lease files you actually hold, including amendments, side letters and assignments. Records with no document behind them, and documents with no record, are both findings.
  2. Name the reporting standard for each entity. Corporate entities report under ASC 842, state and local governments under GASB Statement No. 87, and US federal entities under SFFAS 54. The fields that matter, and how they are judged, differ by standard.
  3. Agree who owns the lease data. The integrator owns the platform and the accounting team owns the ledger. Write down, in the statement of work, who is responsible for confirming that each critical value matches the signed lease.
  4. Identify your critical fields. Start with the list in Phase 2 below and add anything your own disclosures or chargebacks depend on.
  5. Decide your evidence standard. For each critical field, decide what an auditor would need to see: the clause, page and line it came from, and who resolved any ambiguity.

Phase 2: The fields that move the numbers

Not every field in a lease record carries the same risk. These are the ones where a single wrong value changes a liability, a schedule or a disclosure.

Commencement date
It sets the start of the payment schedule and the term used to discount the liability. Check it against the lease and any commencement-date memorandum, not against the date the record was created.
Lease term and options
Under GASB 87 the lease term is the noncancelable period plus periods covered by extension or termination options that are reasonably certain to be exercised, or not exercised, by the lessee or lessor.[4] ASC 842 requires lessees to disclose the existence and terms of options to extend or terminate, and which are recognised in the right-of-use asset and liability.[5] Every option clause needs to be captured, with its notice period.
Payment schedule
Base rent, step increases, abatements and free-rent periods, each tied to the clause that sets it. Escalations stored as a single percentage often hide fixed-step schedules that were never entered.
Variable payments
ASC 842 requires disclosure of the basis and terms on which variable lease payments are determined.[5] Capture index-linked rent, percentage rent and operating cost pass-throughs separately from fixed payments.
Discount rate
Under GASB 87, payments are discounted at the rate the lessor charges, which may be the rate implicit in the lease; if that cannot be readily determined, the lessee's estimated incremental borrowing rate is used.[4] Record which basis was used for each lease and where the rate came from.
Residual value guarantees, covenants and restrictions
ASC 842 calls for disclosure of residual value guarantees and of restrictions or covenants imposed by leases.[5] These usually live in the body of the lease, not in any structured field.
Subleases and leases not yet commenced
Both carry their own disclosure requirements under ASC 842.[5] Flag them explicitly so they are not lost in a bulk load.

A useful test: ASC 842 asks for a weighted-average remaining lease term and a weighted-average discount rate, separately for operating and finance leases.[6] If you can recompute both from the migrated data and get the figures in your last filed statements, the critical fields are probably intact. If you cannot, you know where to look.

Phase 3: Preparing data for the move

  1. Take a frozen baseline. Export every critical field, plus the current lease liability and right-of-use balances, before any upgrade step runs. This is the version everything after it is compared to.
  2. Sample against source documents. Pick a risk-weighted sample, with large leases, recently amended leases and leases with options weighted most heavily, and check each critical value against the signed document.
  3. Log every exception with a reason. For each value that disagrees with the document, record what the document says, where it says it, and how the difference was resolved. This log becomes audit evidence.
  4. Fix in the source, once. Correct confirmed errors before migration so that the corrected value, not the old one, is what loads into Maximo Real Estate and Facilities.
  5. Re-read where the sample fails. If error rates in a segment are high, the honest answer is to re-abstract that segment from the documents rather than extrapolate.

This is the work our lease abstraction and lease data assurance services are built around: a field set, a citation for every value, and an exception report for everything a person touched.

Phase 4: Cutover and parallel reporting

  1. Reconcile record counts and balances between the frozen baseline and the migrated environment, by entity and by lease classification.
  2. Field-compare the critical set. A count match does not mean the values match. Compare commencement dates, terms, payment schedules and discount rates field by field.
  3. Recompute the schedules. Regenerate amortisation schedules in the new environment for the sample leases and compare them to the baseline. Any difference needs an explanation before go-live.
  4. Run at least one close in parallel where the programme allows, and compare the lease disclosures produced by each system.
  5. Hand the evidence to finance. The baseline, exception log and reconciliations should be filed where the controller and auditors can find them.

Phase 5: After go-live

  1. Keep the citation trail with the record. Store the clause and page reference against each critical field so the next reviewer does not start from zero.
  2. Set an intake rule for new leases and amendments. Every new document gets abstracted to the same evidence standard, before it reaches the ledger.
  3. Plan for the first audit cycle. Expect auditors to sample migrated leases. The question will be simple: show me where this value came from.

Why start now

The September 2027 date is less than a year away, and programmes that need several upgrade steps, parallel reporting and a clean close have less runway than the calendar suggests. A migration is also the one moment an organisation can justify re-reading its leases: the budget is approved and attention is already on the portfolio. After cutover, that window usually closes for years. For more on the dates and how lease data fits a programme, see our IBM TRIRIGA® migration page.

Sources

  1. IBM Support, Maximo Real Estate and Facilities (The Evolution of TRIRIGA).
  2. IBM Support, IBM Maximo Application Suite with IBM TRIRIGA or IBM TRIRIGA Application Suite Dual Support.
  3. IBM Documentation, Upgrading from TRIRIGA to Maximo Real Estate and Facilities.
  4. GASB, Summary of Statement No. 87, Leases, and Statement No. 87, paragraph 23.
  5. FASB ASC 842-20-50, Lessee disclosure, via PwC Viewpoint.
  6. Deloitte DART, 15.2 Lessee Disclosure Requirements.

IBM dates are taken from IBM's published notices as of November 2026. Confirm against IBM's own pages before relying on them for planning. This article is general information, not legal, accounting or tax advice.

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