Why doesn't my ROU Asset = Lease Liability?

Although your ROU Asset and Lease Liability will equate each other at inception of a lease if incentives, prepaid rent, deferred rent or initial direct costs are not present, throughout the life of the lease this will not be the case.

This is due to the fact that the ROU Asset is amortized by taking the total remaining lease payments divided by the remaining periods (months).

On the other hand, the lease liability is reduced monthly by the actual cash payment for that month less the amount of interest accrued for that period.

Therefore- given that both balances are reduced/amortized using different formulas they will not equate each other (except for potentially at inception of a lease).