Revenue Management: #9 Revenue Recognition in Media & Publishing

   

Media & Publishing industry has evolved in recent times. It offers subscriptions, bundles digital and print access, runs sponsored content, and sometimes even sells ad spaces. If you run a media or publishing business, you will always get into a situation where you get paid in advance, but how do you determine what part of the money is earned today versus what needs to be deferred for the future? Can you recognize all of them upfront? Or should it spread across issues or impressions?

How do publishers and media platforms handle revenue?      

Revenue Recognition Scenarios in Media & Publishing

Subscriptions, advertising contracts, bundled content, and sponsored campaigns often complicate revenue recognition in media and publishing. Though accounting guidelines like ASC 606 and IFRS 15 apply, how you use them varies based on how you deliver content.

Subscription Revenue

When a customer pays for a weekly, monthly, or annual subscription, the revenue must be spread across the subscription period, as content is delivered over time rather than upfront.

Example: A $120 annual magazine subscription should be recognized at $10 monthly over 12 months.

Bundled Offerings

You may offer print+digital access, or magazine+e-book bundles. Each component should be recognized separately based on delivery schedules and relative values.

Example: A $240 subscription includes $180 of weekly print magazines and $60 for e-book access. Revenue is recognized $15/month for print and $60 once access is granted.

Advertising Revenue

Advertising may be sold per issue, impressions, or based on clicks. You can recognize revenue only after delivery of an impression or publication, not when the ad is sold or paid for.

Example: A $5000 ad campaign for 1,00,000 impressions recognizes revenue only as impressions are delivered (say $500 for every 10,000)

Sponsored Content or Paid Articles

Sponsored stories or influencer placements should be recognized on publication date or campaign completion, depending on the agreement.

Example: A $2000-paid article is published on July 5th, and revenue is recognized on the same day.

Cancellations & Refunds

If a subscriber cancels mid-cycle and gets a partial refund, revenue must be adjusted with only the earned portion as recognized.

Example: $120 yearly subscription cancelled after 3 months. Only $30 will be considered recognized.

These scenarios highlight how delivery, not payment, drives revenue recognition. With multiple formats and monetisation models in place, manual revenue recognition handling is a huge task prone to errors and misstatements.

Scenario: 

Your publishing company sells an annual subscription package at $240. This subscription covers weekly print magazine work of $15 and on-demand access to the digital library, which is valued at $60. The customer pays upfront on the 1st of January.  

Zoho Billing for Media Revenue Recognition

Publishers and content creators will be able to work with Zoho Billing to define revenue recognition rules based on content delivery and access architecture.

For the scenario above, you may go with the following revenue recognition rule configuration,

Component	Recognition Frequency	Recognition Method	Recognition Time
Print Magazines	Monthly	Evenly Distributed Prorated	Period Start
Digital Library	Once	One-Time (Daily)	Period Start

 

Even though the $240 is received upfront, revenue must be split evenly for the subscription-based service.

Reports in Zoho Billing

Let's say you are checking the reports during March.

i) Recognized Revenue Report

Component	Recognized Revenue	Description
Digital Library	$60	Fully recognized on the subscription start date
Print Magazine	$45	$15x3 issues delivered
Total Recognized	$105	recognized at the end of three months

 

ii) Deferred Revenue Report

After three months of offering, nine print issues are still pending delivery.

Component	Deferred Amount
Digital Library	$0
Print Magazine	$135 (9 months of deliverables)
Total Deferred	$135

 

iii) Revenue Waterfall Report

Month	Digital Library	Print Magazine	Total
Month 1	$60	$15	$75
Month 2	----	$15	$15
Month 3	----	$15	$15
Month 4 (upcoming)	----	$15	$15
Month 5 (upcoming)	----	$15	$15
Month 6 (upcoming)	----	$15	$15
Month 7 (upcoming)	----	$15	$15
Month 8 (upcoming)	----	$15	$15
Month 9 (upcoming)	----	$15	$15
Month 10 (upcoming)	----	$15	$15
Month 11 (upcoming)	----	$15	$15
Month 12 (upcoming)	----	$15	$15
Total (after 3 months)	$60	$45	$105

 

Only at the end of one year will the full payment you received be considered recognized revenue.

Best Practices for the Media Industry while recognizing revenue

• Break Down Subscriptions: Separate print, digital, access, ads, and events into individual deliverables.
• 
  Match Revenue to Delivery: Recognize only when issues go out, impressions are served, or access granted.
• 
  Account for Returns & Refund: Handle cancellations by adjusting the deferred revenue schedules automatically.
• 
  Monitor Reports Monthly: Revenue Waterfall and Deferred reports ensure timely recognition tracking. 

Up Next: Common Mistakes while Recognizing Revenue

• Topic Participants

• Hari | Zoho Billing

  

• Sticky Posts

• Community Learning Series | Digest #5 — September 2020

  Dear customers, We're happy to bring you the September edition of our #CommunityDigest! Keep track of your subscription KPIs right from your smartphone: Last month, we enhanced our Android mobile app to help our customers get daily updates on their business health. We got to know from a lot of customers that this has made their job much more easier because they no longer have to keep a reminder to manually check on the previous day's revenue or activations. If you have not downloaded it yet, here's

• Community Learning Series | Digest #4 - August 2020

  Dear customers, We hope you're staying safe and healthy. I'm happy to bring you the fourth edition of our #CommunityDigest with some brand-new updates from us. 1. Daily Business Updates (for Android users) The Zoho Subscriptions Android app has got a cool new update: You can now get a push notification to your smartphone that lets you know how many activations and cancellations have taken place, and what's the net revenue for the previous day. The best part is, you can tell the app when exactly you

• Community Learning Series | Digest #3 - July 2020

  Dear customers, We hope you're staying safe and healthy. We're glad to bring you the July edition of our #CommunityDigest. New community members can view our previous newsletters here. This time, we have two major updates and three interesting topics for you: 1. Zoho Subscriptions Developer Community Since the inception of Zoho Subscriptions, our team believed that the recurring billing platform we provide should be able to offer an extensive API library that empowers businesses to automate most

• Introducing: Community Learning Series | Digest #1 - May 2020

  Dear customers, We hope you are staying safe and healthy. Helping businesses manage their customer subscriptions more efficiently has always been, and always will be, our goal at Zoho Subscriptions. We strongly believe this is possible if we grow together as a community and share what we know with each other. To nurture this shared learning experience, here is our brand-new Community Learning Series! ​ Welcome to the first edition of our digest! Each edition of our community digest includes guides

• Recent Topics

• What is the maximum file size of a video upload in Zoho chat?

  Can I upload a 20 mb video file and share it with my colleagues? 

• Update a field in ALL all calls under a contact

  HI guys! I have written some deluge code to update a field in my calls after i have comepleted the call, i need this field to update in all my scheduled calls as well that are comeing up. I just cant seem to get it to work, i have put teh code below,

• Automatic Matching from Bank Statements / Feeds

  Is it possible to have transactions from a feed or bank statement automatically match when certain criteria are met? My use case, which is pretty broadly applicable, is e-commerce transactions for merchant services accounts (clearing accounts). In these

• Verifying Zoho Mail Functionality After Switching DNS from Cloudflare to Hosting Provider

  I initially configured my domain's (https://roblaxmod.com/) email with Zoho Mail while using Cloudflare to manage my DNS records (MX, SPF, etc.). All services were working correctly. Recently, I have removed my site from Cloudflare and switched my domain's

• Fat Download of Ulaa Browser

  I just observed that Ulaa Browser is offering an one-capsule big download. These days it is a custom to offer a small bootstrap downloader and based on user customization options an appropriate download completes. And this is particularly common with

• Cancelled Transfer order problem

  Hello, We've canceled a transfer order, and we can't add the related items to a new Transfer Order. The system tells us that the bin doesn't have the required quantity, but when we check the item, it indicates that there are 2 units in the bin. It also

• Billing Management: #8 Usage Billing in Logistics & Delivery Services

  The logistics and delivery industry thrives on movement and precision. Every delivery completed, every kilometre driven, and every ton transported is a measurable activity. However, billing often lags behind. Many logistics companies still rely on fixed-rate

• Tags for New Tickets

  Hi there, When creating a new ticket, there is currently no way to choose a tag you would like to associate with the new ticket. Being able to associate a tag while creating a new ticket will be very beneficial as it will save time and flow well with

• Zoho Desk: No Incoming email

  Is Zoho Desk services down? No incoming email reflect to desk tickets.

• Zoho CRM - Widgets | Update #3 : Introducing SDK V1.5 along with new ZDK Methods and ZRC Support

  Hello everyone! Widgets in Zoho CRM just got a big upgrade! With the release of SDK v1.5, developers can now create more immersive widget experiences. This update elevates Widget development with new ZDK methods for easier interactivity and ZRC support

• Unusual activity detected, account blocked

  I am unable to send emails and am getting the error "Outgoing blocked: Unusual activity detected. To unblock your account, please and submit a request. Learn more.". I am unsure as to why this is happening since all my activity is legitimate, mainly confirmation

• Unable to Send Emails – Outgoing Mail Blocked (Error 554 5.1.8)

  Description: Hello Zoho Support Team, I am facing an issue with my Zoho Mail account ( admin@osamarahmani.tech ). Whenever I try to send an email, I get the following error: 554 5.1.8 Email Outgoing Blocked I would like to clarify that I have not done

• Issue connecting Zoho Mail to Thunderbird (IMAP/SMTP authentication error)

  Dear Zoho Support, I am trying to configure my Zoho Mail account on Thunderbird, but I keep getting authentication errors. Account: info@baktradingtn.com Domain: baktradingtn.com Settings used: IMAP: imap.zoho.com, Port 993, SSL/TLS, Normal Password SMTP:

• Payment issue with Mail Lite plan – personal NIF not accepted as payment info

  Hello, I have already contacted Zoho Support by email regarding this, but since I haven’t received any reply yet, I’m sharing it here as well to see if the community can help. I’m facing a payment issue for my Mail Lite plan. I have a personal account

• Customer payment alerts in Zoho Cliq

  For businesses that depend on cash flow, payment updates are essential for operational decision-making and go beyond simple accounting entries. The sales team needs to be notified when invoices are cleared so that upcoming orders can be released. In contrast,

• Figma in Zoho Creator

  Hi Team, I’m creating a form using Figma and would like to know how to add workflows like scheduling, custom validation, and other logic to it. Can anyone help me understand how to set this up for a Figma-based Creator UI form?

• Restore lost Invoice!

  Some time ago I tried to Upgrade from Invoice to Books. I not upgraded and staid n Invoice. Now i tried again and first i deleted the old trial of books. But now all is gone, PLEASE HELP!! i have no backup and i have to have at least 7 years data retention by law. 

• Zoho Desk Down

  Not loading

• lookup and integrated forms

  I might be misunderstanding things but I wanted to integrate our zoho crm contacts into creator. I imagined that when I used the integration it would mirror into creator. It did brilliant. BUT We have a ticket form in creator that we want to use a lookup

• Partially receive PO without partial Bill?

  Most of our inventory is pre-paid. Let's say we purchase 30 pieces of 3 different items for a total of 90 pieces. It is common for our supplier to send us the items as they are ready. So we will receive 30 pieces at a time. How can I partially receive

• 2 users editing the same record - loose changes

  Hello, I'm very new to Zoho so apology if this has been addressed somewhere i can't find. I have noticed the following: If we have 2 users put an inventory item in edit mode at the same time: say user1 click on edit and user2 while user1 is still in edit,

• How to get the Dashboard page to be the first page when you open the app

  So when it opens on a tablet or phone it opens on the welcome page, thanks.

• How I set default email addresses for Sales Orders and Invoices

  I have customers that have different departments that handle Sales Orders and Invoices. How can i set a default email for Sales Orders that's different than the default email for Invoices? Is there a way I can automate this using the Contact Persons Departments

• Formula fields not refreshing until page is reloaded

  I need help/advice about the formula fields and how I can refresh the information in real-time. We have two formula fields on our deals page which show calculated prices: One formula is in a subform which calculates the subform total + 1 other field amount

• How can I setup Zoho MCP with Chat GPT

  I can set up custom connections with Chat GPT but I cat an error when I try to set it up. The error is: "This MCP server can't be used by ChatGPT to search information because it doesn't implement our specification: search action not found" Thoughts?

• API ZOHO CRM Picket list with wrong values

  I am using Zoho API v.8. with python to create records in a custom module named "Veranstaltung" in this custom module I've got a picket list called "Email_Template" with 28 Values. I've added 8 new values yesterday, but if I try to use on of those values

• Group Emails

  I have synced Zoho CRM to Campaigns but there are certain email not synced. showing it is Group Emails, but this email ids belongs to different individuals. please provide a solution as i nedd to sync the same.

• Enable Password Import option in ulaa browser

  Dear Ulaa Team, I noticed that the Ulaa Password Manager currently offers an option to export passwords, but not to import them. This limitation poses a challenge for users like me who have stored numerous credentials in browsers like Chrome. Manually

• "Is Zoho CRM customer" vs "Is linked with Zoho CRM"

  Recently while building a Flow, I was setting up a Decision action following a Zoho Invoice Fetch record action. There were 2 choices that I had not seen as something I could manually action in Zoho Invoice: "Is Zoho CRM customer" and "Is linked with

• Client Script | Update - Introducing ZRC: Simplified HTTP request library

  Hello Developers! Are you tired of juggling different methods to make API calls? Are you confused with multiple syntaxes and version restrictions? Have you ever wished for one simple way to make all API calls in CRM? We heard you :) Here comes ZRC (Zoho

• Selection Filed for Data Export section

  Hi FSM Team, I hope you are all doing well. I would like to share an idea for future development based on my experience. Currently, in FSM, we can only download up to 5,000 records at a time. If the development team could add a selection option to choose

• Text wrap column headers in reports?

  Is it possible to auto wrap column headers so that a longer multi-word header displays as two lines when the column is narrower than the width of the header title?

• What if I dont see contacts on the left side list

  My CRM does not show the contacts tab. In order to create list this is needed and I cant find it.

• Comments Vs. Replies

  I'm curious as to the difference between a "Reply" and a "Comment" on a ticket. It appears that "Replies" are what's used to determine response time SLA's and there are also used to automatically re-open tickets. I'm just trying to understand the key differences so I can educate both our clientele and our back-end users on which function/feature to use to better improve the ticket lifecycle. If anyone has any insight it would be appreciated. Thanks!

• Transitioning to API Credits in Zoho Desk

  At Zoho Desk, we’re always looking for ways to help keep your business operations running smoothly. This includes empowering teams that rely on APIs for essential integrations, functions and extensions. We’ve reimagined how API usage is measured to give

• Resetting auto-number on new year

  Hi everyone! We have an auto-number with prefix "D{YYYY}-", it generates numbers like D2025-1, D2025-2, etc... How can we have it auto-reset at the beginning of the next year, so that it goes to D2026-1? Thanks!

• Can you prevent closing Ulaa window when the last tab is closed (inadvertently)?

  Most browsers have started to bring this feature in to prevent closing their windows when the last tab is closed (inadvertently). I hope Ulaa should get this in too.

• Microsoft Phone Link

  Does anyone know if you can use Microsoft Phone Link to make calls through Zoho?

• Voip Phone system that integrates with Zoho

  Just checking to see if anyone could tell me what phone system they are using with Zoho that is on the list of systems that integrate with Zoho.  I use Vonage and have been with them for quite a few years but their service has really gone down hill and

• Removing Related Modules Lookup Fields Assignment / Relationship

  Issue: When creating a related list, I accidently selected module itself creating a circle reference. See attached. Situation: I wish to relating a custom module called "Phone Calls" to Leads and Contacts. Outcome: 1) I either want to remove the this

• Next Page