The management fee line on a dental practice client's CAM reconciliation changed from $900/month to $1,200/month between years with no explanation on the statement. The bookkeeper processing the annual true-up caught the difference during the line-by-line review. The question was what to do with it. For more context, see what a CAM true-up means for accountants.
Raising a CAM concern with a client is one of the trickier moments in an outsourced accounting engagement. The concern is real. The finding deserves attention. But the framing matters enormously, and getting it wrong in either direction creates a problem: too casual and the client ignores it; too conclusive and the firm has made a representation it cannot support.
This article covers the specific language, documentation, and escalation framing that makes the conversation useful without overstepping the accounting scope.
Escalation Path: The sequence of steps taken after an accounting team identifies a potential landlord billing issue: documenting the finding, presenting it to the client, and, if further review is warranted, referring the client to the appropriate resource (lease reviewer, attorney, or CAM audit service) with a clear description of what was found.
What Accountants Can and Cannot Represent
The first thing to get clear before the client conversation is the boundary between accounting observations and contract interpretations.
An accountant can observe and report: "The management fee increased 33% between 2024 and 2025." That is a factual statement derived from the numbers.
An accountant cannot represent: "Your landlord is overcharging you on the management fee." That conclusion requires knowing what the lease permits, whether the management fee cap applies, and how the cap is calculated. Those are contract interpretation questions.
The practical implication is that accounting findings about landlord charges should always be framed as observations requiring further review, not conclusions. The client needs to hear enough to take the issue seriously, but not a characterization of whether the landlord has acted wrongly. That framing protects the client, who needs accurate information, and it protects the firm, which should not be providing legal opinions.
The Language That Works
When the management fee line changed from $900 to $1,200 per month on the dental practice reconciliation, the correct framing for the client was:
"We noticed the management fee in this year's CAM reconciliation is $1,200/month, compared to $900/month last year. That's a $3,600 annual increase. We wanted to flag it before we close out the reconciliation so you can confirm whether this is expected or whether you want to review the underlying basis with your landlord."
Notice what that language does. It states the finding with specificity ($900 to $1,200, $3,600 annually). It flags it before payment, which preserves the client's options. It asks the client to confirm, which creates a record of whether the client reviewed it. And it offers a logical next step without characterizing the charge as wrong.
What it does not do: accuse the landlord of anything, render an opinion on what the lease allows, or promise the client they can recover money.
For a one-time charge, the language shifts slightly: "A $7,800 tax pass-through appeared on this statement that we haven't seen in prior years. We're flagging it for your attention before coding it. Can you confirm whether this is expected, and whether you'd like us to hold payment pending documentation?"
Holding payment pending documentation is often the right move for a first-time, large, or unusual charge. The language makes that suggestion without demanding it.
Timing Is Everything
The conversation is far more useful before payment than after. Once a charge is paid and coded, the client's leverage to dispute or request documentation is not gone entirely, but it is reduced. The landlord has less urgency to respond to a question about a bill that has already been settled.
Building the CAM review into the pre-payment step in the AP workflow is the structural solution. Every landlord invoice gets a brief comparison against prior periods before it is approved for payment. Charges that match expectations go through normally. Charges that deviate above a threshold, say 15% year over year on any line item, go to a review queue before payment is approved.
For a law firm office tenant with a single location, this review takes a few minutes per statement. For a three-location retailer, running the comparison across three leases simultaneously is the kind of workflow that benefits from a tool that tracks prior-year data and flags anomalies automatically.
Documenting the Conversation
Every CAM concern raised with a client needs a documentation trail. This is not about distrust. It is about having a clear record if the issue resurfaces months later, if a different person picks up the engagement, or if the client pursues a formal audit.
At minimum, document:
The specific finding: line item, amount, prior-year comparison, date the statement was received.
The date and method of communication with the client (email, call, written note in the engagement file).
The client's response: acknowledged and approved for payment, wants further review, instructed to hold payment.
If the client approves payment without further review, document that decision clearly. "Client reviewed management fee increase and approved payment on [date]." This protects the firm if the client later claims the firm should have done more.
If the client wants further review, document the referral: "Client requested lease review. Referred to [resource] on [date]."
What Not to Say
A few phrases to avoid in any CAM advisory conversation:
"Your landlord is overcharging you." This is a conclusion that requires lease interpretation. Do not say it.
"You should dispute this." Advising a client to dispute a charge without reviewing the lease first can prompt an unproductive confrontation with a landlord and damage a tenant-landlord relationship unnecessarily.
"This looks wrong." "Looks wrong" is ambiguous. It implies a conclusion without stating one and leaves the client confused about what action to take.
"I'm sure it's fine." If you flagged it, it is not obviously fine. Do not dismiss a concern you identified.
The goal is precision. Factual, specific observations framed around the client's decision point: do you want to review this further or approve it as presented?
Creating a Repeatable Process
The one-time advisory conversation is less valuable than a standing process. Clients with NNN leases receive CAM reconciliations annually. Building a structured CAM review into the annual close cycle, with documented review steps and a clear escalation path, turns an ad-hoc catch into a reliable service.
I built CAMAudit because the manual version of this process was too dependent on individual attention. The comparison against prior years, the check against management fee caps and pro-rata share calculations, the flagging of first-time charges: all of that can be systematized so that the accounting team's job is to review the exception queue, not to build it from scratch each year.
For CAS firms that serve multiple NNN lease clients, structuring CAM advisory into the engagement scope, with defined deliverables and clear escalation steps, converts a reactive catch into a proactive service. The language for that conversation with a new client is simple: "As part of your annual close, we review your CAM reconciliation statements for line-item changes and flag anything that warrants your attention before payment."
That framing sets the expectation correctly. The accounting team will look. The accounting team will flag. The decision about what to do with a flagged item stays with the client and, when the question is about contract interpretation, with the client's lease reviewer or attorney.