How do I compare T12 financials across multiple periods?

What is T12 Comparison?

T12 Comparison lets you view financial performance across multiple trailing twelve-month periods in a single, stitched view. Rather than toggling between separate documents or manually assembling year-over-year data in a spreadsheet, Archer combines all parsed T12 documents into one unified timeline. This makes it easy to spot trends, validate performance claims, and identify discrepancies across periods.

This feature is most commonly used by debt brokers and lenders evaluating multi-year financial history as part of their underwrite, and by acquisition teams validating whether a seller's performance narrative holds up over time.

When should I use it?

T12 Comparison is useful any time you want to answer questions like: Are this property's financials improving, flat, or declining year over year? Does the rent growth story the seller is telling match the actual numbers? Where did income or expenses shift between periods, and why? Did any financials change for months that appear in both documents? Is a specific line item (e.g., repairs and maintenance, cleaning charges) trending in a concerning direction?

For debt brokers and lenders, this is a core part of the underwriting review. Most lenders are looking at year-to-date plus two to three years of history, and T12 Comparison surfaces the full picture without requiring manual assembly. For acquisition teams, it is a fast way to pressure-test a seller's financials during due diligence, particularly when you receive updated documents mid-process.

How do I access T12 Comparison?

You can access the T12 Comparison view in three ways:

At the end of an underwrite: After you complete the underwriting flow and your documents have been parsed, a T12 Comparison or Financials Comparison button will appear on the final screen.
From the Property page: Open the relevant property, click the Actions menu, and select T12 Comparison.
From Parsed Financials: On the Activity Page navigate to the Parsed Financials Tab, select an individual parsed T12 record to open its analytics and comparison options.

How do I read the T12 Comparison view?

When you have multiple T12 documents parsed for a property, Archer stitches them together into a continuous timeline. For example, if you have uploaded an October document and a November document, the table will display the full combined period as a single connected view. Archer automatically handles overlapping date ranges -- if two documents cover the same months, it uses the data from the more recent file for those months.

The comparison view is organized into three zones. The overlap section shows months that appear in both documents side by side, so you can verify whether any revenue or expense figures changed between versions. The overhang section shows the period that extends beyond the overlap -- the months that only appear in one of the documents. The full stitched timeline shows everything together so you can visualize trends across the entire history.

The comparison is organized into high-level income and expense buckets such as Rental Income, Other Income, Repairs and Maintenance, and Contracted Services. Each bucket can be expanded to see the individual line items beneath it. A good workflow for spotting discrepancies is to start at the bucket level and look for meaningful swings between periods, then drill into any bucket that shows a notable change. You can also use the Debt Summary view within the underwrite for a period-by-period snapshot showing T12, prior T12, and the T12 before that side by side -- the format most lenders and brokers expect.

Filtering by variance threshold

If you want to focus only on meaningful changes rather than scanning every line, you can set a variance threshold to filter the comparison. For example, setting it to 3% will show you only the line items where month-over-month change exceeded that amount. This is useful for quickly surfacing anything that warrants a closer look without getting lost in minor fluctuations.

Line item continuity

Archer normalizes line item names across documents, even when property management systems or ownership has changed between periods. If Cleaning Charges appears in one document and Cleaning in another, Archer will place them on the same row so you can track the trend without manually reconciling names.

Notes and limitations

The analytics charts in the parsing flow show 12 months only. The full stitched history is available in the table view and in the Excel model via the Financials tab after refreshing data. If your most recent T12 document covers fewer than 12 months (for example, a year-to-date file), annualization in the analytics view may not reflect accurately -- use the table view or Excel for full historical context in those cases. T12 Comparison requires that your model uses a Chart of Account. Models set up prior to Chart of Accounts support, or that have In-App Parsing turned off, will not have access to this feature.