Do not automatically claim all future rent as investment. State Department guidance distinguishes actual payments and advance rent from an annual or multi-year obligation that has not been paid.
Prepare a payment-based premises schedule
List deposits, prepaid rent, periodic payments and fitout separately with evidence and review of their treatment. The overall commercial budget should still include future rent and other occupancy obligations even when they are not counted as invested capital. Add current application charges and professional costs separately.
A longer lease can increase liabilities without creating an equivalent increase in qualifying investment. Build the schedule from bank records, not from the lease summary. For each entry record the payer, the payee, the date, the amount and what it discharged: deposit, prepaid rent, periodic rent, or fit-out.
Where the payer is not the enterprise, say who it was and how the payment relates to the investment. Treat refundable amounts differently from spent ones. A security deposit that returns on exit and a fit-out payment that cannot be recovered occupy different positions in an at-risk analysis.
Hypothetical example: a robotics assembler prepays a period of rent to secure a unit with suitable floor loading. Prepaid rent and the deposit sit on separate lines, each with its receipt attached, and their treatment is reviewed rather than assumed.