I threw together a handy spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel to do all of the lease calculations for you, and I figured others could benefit from it.

Simply enter the MSRP, Invoice Price (optional, it will show you what % your negotiated price is above/below invoice), Negotiated Purchase Price, any Cap Cost Reduction, and Residual %'s and Money Factor for 24/36/39 months, and it will show you all of your costs, monthly payment, total paid for the life of the lease, and how much the total cost to own would be if you purchased the car outright after the lease (the total lease payments + residual). If you include your tax rate at the top, tax will be included in the payments. I made a note at the top that, since not all states calculate lease tax the same way, your method may vary. You can also select to include up to 9 security deposits on a separate line for each lease quote, which will allow you to see how this can affect your payment (and how much you're saving in the long run). If you include all fees (title, registration, bank fee, any applicable tax on the fees) in the field labeled Fees, it will also show you an accurate Out of Pocket amount due (assuming 1st month's payment up front) when you pick up the car.

Hope someone finds this useful...

Attachment is a .zip file (only way I could attach it) with one .xlt file inside (an Excel Template).

 

Thanks for the spreadsheet.

I have a spreadsheet that does the same thing (actually it is super-simplified) and we get the same numbers BUT I heard from somewhere else that the forumlas that we are using are only "estimates" to how the lease is actually calculated. I think this is true as leasecalc (on the web from leaseguide.com) comes up with different numbers. In my case, $11 more per month.

 

There are various factors that could effect the numbers: including any up front costs into the cap cost instead of paying them up front, money factors that are marked up from the published ones, being taxed on the whole car rather than the payment, etc.

If you know the money factor, residual, and cap cost that the dealer is using, the numbers will be 100% accurate. I had the exact numbers I wanted before the dealer even calculated it.

 

That's good to hear. I guess leaseguide is off then. I used zero for all fees, etc so as to check the spreadsheet and I still am off by $11 somehow. Regardless, I've been using it (modified for BMW as well) to put numbers together.