Create an amortization schedule
Upload a lease, loan, or debt document and ask Co-Audit to build the full amortization schedule from it, with period dates, interest, principal, and ending balance calculated row by row.
Amortization schedules are one of the highest-leverage things to hand to Co-Audit. The math is mechanical, but pulling the inputs (commencement date, term, payment, rate, escalators) out of a lease or loan document, then building the period-by-period table, is the slow part. Co-Audit reads the document you upload, extracts the inputs, and generates the schedule for leases, debt, notes, intangibles, or anything else that amortizes.
This page covers the general pattern, then shows a couple of common variants.
What you'll do
- Create a request for the underlying agreement (lease, loan, debt instrument).
- Upload the document so Co-Audit can read it.
- Ask Co-Audit to build the amortization schedule from the uploaded document.
- Review the extracted inputs and the calculated schedule, then validate.
The general pattern
Whether you are amortizing a lease, a term loan, a note payable, or an intangible asset, the steps are the same.
Create a request and title it
On the Request Board (or Task Board if the schedule is internal-only), click + Create → Start from Scratch. Title the request after the schedule you need, for example, Headquarters Lease ROU Amortization, Equipment Loan Amortization, or 2025 Note Payable Schedule. Leave the description blank.
Upload the underlying document
Drop the executed lease, loan agreement, promissory note, or debt instrument into the Requested Files area on the request. Wait for the green status indicator before continuing.
Co-Audit reads the document you upload. The cleaner the source (executed PDF, not a scanned image), the cleaner the extraction. If the document is scanned, OCR'd PDFs work; flattened images of pages do not.
Ask Co-Audit to build the schedule
Open the Co-Audit panel on the left and describe the schedule you need. State:
- What kind of schedule (operating lease, finance lease, debt amortization, intangible amortization).
- Which document to read from (Co-Audit can usually figure this out, but naming it helps).
- What columns you want (period, beginning balance, payment, interest, principal, ending balance, plus anything specific like ROU asset amortization or deferred rent).
- The standard or rate to apply, if it isn't in the document (incremental borrowing rate, effective interest rate).
Watch the workflow build
Co-Audit creates a Selections table seeded with one row per period and the column set you described. It pulls the inputs (commencement date, term, payment, rate, escalators) from the uploaded document and uses them to populate the schedule.
Review the inputs, then the math
Open the Workpaper tab. Two things to check, in order:
- The extracted inputs (commencement date, payment, rate, and term). Click each citation to confirm it against the source document. A wrong input cascades through every row.
- The math. Spot-check the first period, the last period, and one mid-term period. Verify that beginning balance ties to prior ending, that interest plus principal equals payment, and that the ending balance terminates at zero (or the expected residual).
Validate or refine
If the schedule ties, validate the cells. If it doesn't, ask Co-Audit to fix the specific thing, such as "the IBR should be 5.25%, not 5%" or "add a column for the ROU asset amortization on a straight-line basis." Co-Audit edits the workflow in place.
The AI can miscalculate
Amortization math is exactly the kind of calculation where AI sometimes copies a value forward instead of recomputing it. Always spot-check the math (beginning + interest − payment = ending, period by period). If the totals don't tie, ask Co-Audit to rebuild the calculated columns as Formulas rather than AI Prompts, which forces deterministic math.
Common variants
The pattern is the same; the instruction changes.
Upload the executed lease and ask Co-Audit to build the ROU asset and lease liability schedule.
Read the attached lease agreement and build an ASC 842 operating
lease amortization schedule. Pull the commencement date, lease
term, payment amount, payment frequency, and any escalators from
the document. Use an incremental borrowing rate of 5.25%.
Generate a row per payment period with columns for:
period number, period start date, payment, interest expense,
lease liability reduction, ending lease liability, ROU asset
amortization, and ending ROU asset.What to verify after the run:
- Commencement date and term match the executed lease.
- Escalators (CPI, stepped) are applied on the right anniversary.
- Ending lease liability reaches zero at the final period.
- ROU asset amortization is straight-line across the term.
Upload the loan agreement or note and ask Co-Audit to build the amortization schedule.
Read the attached loan agreement and build an amortization
schedule for the note. Pull the principal, interest rate,
term, payment amount, and payment frequency from the document.
Generate one row per payment period with columns for:
period number, payment date, beginning balance, scheduled payment,
interest portion, principal portion, and ending balance.What to verify after the run:
- Principal and rate match the agreement.
- Interest + Principal = Payment, period by period.
- Final ending balance is zero (or the expected balloon).
- Any prepayments or rate resets in the agreement are reflected.
Upload the purchase agreement, valuation memo, or intangible roll-forward and ask Co-Audit to build the amortization.
Read the attached intangible asset documentation and build a
straight-line amortization schedule. Pull the asset cost, useful
life, and in-service date from the document.
Generate one row per period (monthly) with columns for:
period, beginning carrying value, amortization expense, and
ending carrying value.What to verify after the run:
- Asset cost and useful life match the source.
- In-service date sets the first amortization period correctly.
- Ending carrying value reaches zero (or residual) at the end of the useful life.
Tie the schedule into the rest of the engagement
Once the schedule is built and validated, it doesn't need to live in isolation.
Publish key values as Engagement Variables
Promote the rate, total interest expense, or current-year amortization to an Engagement Variable so other workpapers (interest expense testing, current vs. long-term classification) can reference it with @.
Reference from a tie-out column
In another workpaper, use @ to pull the current-year amortization or interest expense from this schedule into a tie-out column against the trial balance.
Roll forward next year
When you roll the engagement forward, the schedule rolls with it. Update the period filter and Co-Audit re-uses the same inputs without re-extracting from the document.
Export to Excel
Use the Download button on the Workpaper tab to export the schedule with the underlying source documents embedded for the workpaper file.
Continue your journey
← Create a workpaper with Co-Audit
Use Co-Audit to build a full workpaper from one instruction.
Request Board →
Move into day-to-day work: the Request Board and the request tabs you work inside.
How is this guide?
Create a workpaper with Co-Audit
Describe what the workpaper needs to do and let Co-Audit generate the client-facing request, the document groups, and the column set from one natural-language instruction.
The Request Board
A tour of the Request Board and Task Board. Learn what each one is, how to read the views, filter and group requests, and create the first request in an engagement.