Tools · For bookkeepers

A client forwarded a CAM rec. Here is the first pass.

Guide · August 2026 · Not legal, tax, or accounting advice

You are not the tenant. A client, a store manager, or a controller dropped a CAM, NNN, or operating-expense reconciliation in your inbox and asked whether the bill is right. This page is the first pass: what you can reconstruct from the letter, what you must match to the books, and when to stop. It is not a CPA product.

Who this is for

The packet arrived because someone on the tenant side pays additional rent and wants a second set of eyes before they write a check or book a credit. That person forwarded the cover letter, a two-page rec, or a PDF dump, often with a one-line question: “Does this look right?”

You can answer a narrower question than that. You can say whether the stated share times the stated pool, minus what the tenant actually paid, produces the billed true-up. You can say whether the estimates on the letter match the tenant’s cash or accounts payable. You can list what is missing. You cannot, from the cover letter alone, opine that the pool is the right pool. That is a lease-reading plus backup. See the first-hour checklist for the reading order, and CAM audit cost when the next step is a professional, not another pass in the general ledger.

What a first pass is (and is not)

A first pass is reconstruction, not an audit. You recast the landlord’s arithmetic from the figures on the statement. You tie the credit for estimates to the tenant’s books. You write down the objection date if the letter or the lease shows one. You list lines you cannot check. Then you stop.

A first pass is not:

• A finding that a cost is excluded. The lease’s definitions and exclusions control. Marking a line is not the same as taking it out.
• A “standard CAM %.” There is no standard CAM percentage on this site. Pro-rata is tenant SF divided by the denominator the lease names.
• A savings claim. Some reconstructions match the letter. Some do not. Matching is not a recovery.
• Legal, tax, or accounting advice. This site does not create a professional-client relationship.
• A substitute for a CAM auditor, a CPA, or a lawyer. See when to hire.

If the client asked you to “make sure we are not overpaying,” restate the assignment: reconstruct the headline, list missing backup, flag items that need the lease. Do not certify the pool.

What you need before you open the spreadsheet

Do not start from the billed amount and work backwards. Start from documents. If the forward is only a cover letter, you can still do a sketch. Label it a sketch.

• The year-end statement (not only the invoice). Property, tenant, suite, CAM year, denominator, tenant SF, pool, gross-up, fee, cap, estimates, true-up.
• The lease, or at least the CAM / OpEx exhibit and any commencement letter that fixed the square footage. A share without the denominator clause is a guess.
• The tenant’s additional-rent payments for that year. “Estimates paid” on the letter is a landlord figure. Match it to what the tenant paid.
• The prior-year statement if a cap is in play. You need last year’s controllable as the lease defines it.
• Dates: letter date, date received if you know it, last day of the CAM year. This site does not tell you whether the objection window is open.

If the client cannot send the lease this week, say so in the email you send back: first pass is limited to the letter versus the books. You will not invent a market share to fill the gap.

Reconstruct the headline

The one formula does not change with the heading on the envelope. CAM true-up, NNN true-up, OpEx reconciliation, additional-rent settlement: allocated recoverable amount minus estimates paid. Positive means the tenant owes. Negative means a credit. Near zero is a settlement, not a finding that the pool is clean. See what a CAM true-up is for the definitions.

Write four numbers on the letter before you touch occupancy or fees:

1. Denominator the landlord used (GLA or other).
2. Tenant SF they used.
3. Stated pro-rata. Recompute it: tenant SF ÷ that denominator.
4. Stated pool (the recoverable total before share).

If the recomputed share does not match the stated percentage, that is the first written question. We do not substitute a typical percentage. If the lease uses a stipulated area that ignores vacancy, that stipulated number is the denominator.

Then decide whether the letter even contains enough to recast gross-up, fee, and cap. A one-line “your share of CAM” plus a bill is not enough. Request the rollup. The CAM reconciliation chapter is the spine for how those lines are supposed to sit. For packets labeled OpEx or additional rent, see operating-expense pass-throughs. When tax and insurance travel in the same envelope, see NNN true-up.

Match estimates to the books

This is the part that is actually bookkeeping. The true-up moves if a month never posted, if a mid-year estimate change was billed and not paid, or if a credit hit base rent instead of additional rent. The pool can be right and the settlement still wrong.

Pull the tenant’s additional-rent activity for the CAM year (or fiscal year the lease uses). Compare, month by month if you can, to the “estimates paid” or “prepaid CAM” column on the letter. Differences to write down:

• A month on the letter that is not on the books (or the reverse).
• A payment the tenant booked to another property or another landlord entity.
• A credit the landlord applied to base rent, late fees, or a prior year.
• A mid-year increase that started in a month the tenant still paid the old amount.

“Estimates paid” means what the tenant actually paid, or what the lease treats as paid, not what the landlord theoretically billed if a month is in dispute. Do not net a disputed month out of the credit without the client’s instruction. Note it.

Mark questions. Do not decide exclusions.

The recoverable pool is not “everything the property spent.” It is the costs the lease lets the landlord recover after inclusions and exclusions. Capital, vacancy, recoveries, income tax, off-site overhead, commissions, other tenants’ TIs, debt, depreciation, fines, related-party markup, and unspent reserves are commonly marked. None of those is automatically out. The lease controls. Use the CAM exclusions chapter to mark lines. Then ask for the GL and a sample invoice. You do not need to win the argument in the first pass. You need a dated list of questioned lines and a request for backup inside the window.

Gross-up, admin fee, and cap are the same kind of work: you can recast them if the letter shows the inputs. You cannot invent a 95% target, a 4% fee, or a 5% cap because those numbers appear in an example. Your client’s lease either has those clauses or it does not.

When to stop and get lease, backup, or counsel

Stop the first pass, in writing, when any of the following is true. This is a practical list, not a professional standard and not legal advice.

• You do not have the lease (or the CAM exhibit). You can still match estimates and recompute the stated share. Ask for the PDF before you reconstruct a pool.
• The letter is a bill without a rollup. Missing gross-up, fee, cap, occupancy, or a pool total is a backup request, not a gap you fill with a market custom.
• The dollars are material to the client and the pool is opaque. A five-figure or six-figure true-up on a thin statement is not a bookkeeping puzzle. It is a hiring decision. See CAM audit cost. “Material” is the client’s number. This page will not invent one.
• The objection window is short. If the lease requires a named-item objection, a general “we are looking at it” may not preserve the claim. Send a dated list and a backup request. This site does not tell you whether the window is open. Read the clause or tell the client to get counsel.
• A dispute already exists. Default language, a setoff, a refusal to provide backup, or a threat to draw a letter of credit. That is counsel, not a worksheet.
• Someone asked you to opine. “Is this capital under our exhibit?” is a lease-reading. “Does this related-party rate match the clause?” is evidence plus judgment. A first pass does not answer either. Do not put CPA-sounding language on a recast of the cover letter.

Stopping is not failure. It is the boundary of what the documents support. Send the client that boundary in the same email as the headline.

Worked EXAMPLE (homepage sample only)

The numbers below are the labeled sample on the homepage calculator. They are an example so a forwarded rec has a scale. They are not a real building, not a client, not a recommended rate, and not a “standard CAM %.”

What to send back to the client

Keep the return email short enough to forward. A useful first-pass note has five parts. Adapt it. This is not a legal notice.

1. Headline. Stated true-up, recomputed share, and whether the letter’s arithmetic holds on its own figures.
2. Estimates. Whether the credit matches the books, and any month that does not.
3. Missing. Lease PDF, GL, occupancy support, fee calc, cap calc, whatever you do not have.
4. Marked lines. Items that look like headings on the exclusions chapter, with “questioned, not excluded” in the same sentence.
5. Clock. Letter date and any objection date you can see. Plus: you have not determined whether the window is open.

Attach the checklist if the client wants a printout of the reading order. If they want a two-page worksheet of the line-item math plus a blank exclusion checklist to take to the landlord, that is the optional $79 packet on this site. It is a worksheet, not an audit, not a subscription, and not your signature.

This is not a CPA product

CAM True-Up does not prepare compiled, reviewed, or audited financial statements, issue an opinion, or practice public accounting. A bookkeeper using this page is doing tenant-side reconstruction for discussion. If the client needs someone who can stand behind an exception list, inspect books, or send a lawyer’s letter, hire that person. Professional CAM audits often run from the low thousands into the tens of thousands depending on size and backup. See CAM audit cost. $79 is a worksheet. It does not replace an auditor or a lawyer. Confirm every input. If you are in a dispute, get a lawyer. If the client needs a CPA, they need a CPA, not this site.