Revenue Management: #1 What does it mean to "recognize" revenue?
Earning revenue isn't just about collecting cash from your customers. It's about recording the income correctly and consistently. Revenue recognition is the process of deciding when and how to record revenue in financial statements so that they reflect the true value after the goods or services are delivered.
Today's business models are more dynamic than ever. Subscriptions, long-term projects, bundled products, and usage-based pricing make it challenging to determine when a sale is truly earned.
Today's business models are more dynamic than ever. Subscriptions, long-term projects, bundled products, and usage-based pricing make it challenging to determine when a sale is truly earned.
We will be going through a series of posts on Revenue Recognition and how it works with different industries, starting with,
We will be going through a series of posts on Revenue Recognition and how it works with different industries, starting with,
➤ What is revenue recognition?
➤ What are the principles behind the standards?
What is Revenue Recognition?
Revenue Recognition is an accounting principle that defines when and how businesses can record revenue in their books. It ensures revenue is reported only when the company has delivered the promised goods or service, not simply when a payment is received.
For instance, if a customer pays upfront for 12 months of service, the business cannot recognize all of that money immediately. It must recognize it gradually over the period the service is delivered.
To address these challenges, Accounting standards like IFRS 15 and ASC 606 were introduced.
What Do IFRS 15 & ASC 606 Say?
Both IFRS 15 & ASC 606 are closely aligned. They denote that companies must recognize revenue when they satisfy their performance obligation, that is, when they deliver the promised goods or services fully to the customer.
The core principle is:
"Recognize revenue to depict the transfer of promised goods or services to the customer in an amount that reflects the consideration to which the entity expects to be entitled."
To make this consistent across industries, these standards use a five-step model.
This model helps businesses recognize revenue accurately by following a structured process. Each step ensures that income is recorded only when a company truly earns it by delivering the promise.
This model helps businesses recognize revenue accurately by following a structured process. Each step ensures that income is recorded only when a company truly earns it by delivering the promise.
Steps | Description | Example |
Step 1: Identify the Contract with a Customer | Confirm there is a legal, enforceable agreement with clear payment terms and obligations. | A software company signs a 12-month service contract with a client with proper terms and a clear payment schedule. |
Step 2: Identify the Performance Obligations | Break the contract into separate performance obligations that provide unique values. | Contract includes access to software, onboarding support, and monthly training. These are distinct services and are treated separately. |
Step 3: Determine the Transaction Price | Calculate the total expected payment, including any discount, bonus, or other variables. | The total contract worth is $12,000, but the customer gets a discount of $1000 for an annual payment upfront. The transaction price becomes $11,000 in this case. |
Step 4: Allocate the Transaction Price to the Obligation | Distribute the transaction pricing across the performance obligation based on their standalone selling prices. | If software is usually sold for $9,000, support for $1500 and training for $1500, the $11,000 will be proportionally allocated to each of these. |
Step 5: Recognize Revenue When (or As) Obligations Are Satisfied | Revenue is recorded either over time or at a point when the customer gains complete control of the product or service. | In case of software licensing and implementation, the revenue is recognized monthly over 12 months, but the onboarding is recognized as and when it's delivered. |
This single contract shows how IFRS 15/ASC 606 helps businesses handle complexity like discounts, variable consideration, multiple deliverables and other aspects in recognizing revenue.
Ultimately, these standards require companies to:
- Recognize revenue only when the performance obligation is met.
- While selling services and goods together, consider them as individual deliverables.
- Allocate the total contract value fairly across all deliverables.
- Adjust discounts, bonuses, and other variable pricing.
- Provide an audit-ready document for how and when revenue is recognized.
The bottom line of revenue recognition is straightforward. But while computing, it doesn't look the same when you are dealing with different billing models and while handling hundreds of contracts/transactions.
In the next post, we'll look at where computing revenue recognition gets tricky with some real-time business scenarios.
Access your files securely from anywhere
New to Zoho Recruit?
Zoho Developer Community
New to Zoho LandingPage?
Zoho LandingPage Resources
New to Zoho Survey?
New to Zoho CRM Plus?
Deliver unforgettable customer experiences
New to Zoho CRM Plus?
Deliver unforgettable customer experiences
New to Zoho Marketing Plus?
Everything you need to run your marketing
New to Zoho Marketing Plus?
Everything you need to run your marketing
New to Bigin?
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'sCommunity 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 youCommunity 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 mostIntroducing: 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
New to Zoho TeamInbox?
Zoho TeamInbox Resources
Zoho CRM Plus Resources
Zoho Books Resources
Zoho Subscriptions Resources
Zoho Projects Resources
Zoho Sprints Resources
Qntrl Resources
Zoho Creator Resources
Zoho CRM Resources
Design. Discuss. Deliver.
Zoho Show Resources
Get Started. Write Away!
Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.
Zoho CRM コンテンツ
-
オンラインヘルプ
-
Webセミナー
-
機能活用動画
-
よくある質問
-
Ebook
-
-
Zoho Campaigns
- Zoho サービスのWebセミナー
その他のサービス コンテンツ
Nederlandse Hulpbronnen
ご検討中の方
Recent Topics
Should I Use DMARC?
When I configure Zoho Mail's DMARC settings, it's mandatory to fill in the RUA and RUF (Aggregate notification email address*, Forensic notification email address*) addresses. When we enter an email address in these fields, we receive reports from theMail ToDo & Tasks Webhooks
Our company uses Zoho ToDo inside Mail to manage our tasks. When I create a task and assign it to a team member it does not notify them unless I add a reminder via mail. I'm trying to create a webhook for when a task is created to send a cliq messageWhat is Resolution Time in Business Hours
HI, What is the formula used to find the total time spent by an agent on a particular ticket? How is Resolution Time in Business Hours calculated in Zohodesk? As we need to find out the time spent on the ticket's solution by an agent we seek your assistanceCreate static subforms in Zoho CRM: streamline data entry with pre-defined values
Last modified on (9 July, 2025): This feature was available in early access and is currently being rolled out to customers in phases. Currently available for users in the the AU, CA, and SA DCs. It will be enabled for the remaining DCs in the next coupleCan't upload attachments.
I can't upload attachment in Zoho Mail.Tip #44 – Get Deeper Insights with Zoho Assist’s Custom Reports – ‘Insider Insights’
In today’s fast-paced IT environment, having a clear view of your remote support activities is more important than ever. Zoho Assist’s Custom Reports feature gives IT teams the ability to generate tailored reports that provide actionable insights andMessage "...does not support more than 100 distinct values..." WHY????
I get this message on one of my reports: Sorry, Zoho Reports currently does not support more than 100 distinct values in columns. 'Account Name * Sum(Amount),Count(Amount Tier)' contains more than 100 distinct values. Possibly, you can apply filter to reduce the number of distinct values in 'Account Name' or drop the 'Account Name' field in Rows. I want to list all ACCOUNT NAMES (about 500) with SALES BY ACCOUNT. What is blocking this?Need Easy Way to Update Item Prices in Bulk
Hello Everyone, In Zoho Books, updating selling prices is taking too much time. Right now we have to either edit items one by one or do Excel export/import. It will be very useful if Zoho gives a simple option to: Select multiple items and update pricesLet's Talk Recruit: Super-charge hiring with Zoho Recruit add-ons
Welcome back to our Let’s Talk Recruit series! This time, we’re diving into something that might seem like a small upgrade but has a huge impact on recruiter productivity: Zoho Recruit add-ons. Think about how much of your day is spent in your inbox orVendor Signatures Needed for Purchase Orders
Hello everyone, We have a unique requirement that necessitates that Vendors & Suppliers formally acknowledge our Purchase Orders upon receipt. I was hoping that there would be an option to do so in Zoho Books, but that does not appear to be the case.in zoho creator Sales Returns form has sub form Line Items return quantity when i upate the or enter any values in the sub form that want to reflect in the Sales Order form item deail sub form field Q
in zoho creator Sales Returns form has sub form Line Items return quantity when i upate the or enter any values in the sub form that want to reflect in the Sales Order form item deail sub form field Quantity Returned\ pls check the recording fetch_salesorderIs there an API to "File a Ticket" in Desk
Hi, Is there an API to "File a Ticket" in Desk to zoho projects?Critical Issue: Tickets Opened for Zoho Support via the Zoho Help Portal Were Not Processed
Hi everyone, We want to bring to your attention a serious issue we’ve experienced with the Zoho support Help Portal. For more than a week, tickets submitted directly via the Help Portal were not being handled at all. At the same time no alert was postedTip of the Week #72– Assign thread ownership to avoid confusion.
When teams handle a large volume of emails, managing threads becomes important to stay organized. Without a clear system, duplicate replies, missed follow-ups, or confusion over responsibilities can happen. Thread assignment solves this by designatingMigrate Your Notes from OneNote to Zoho Notebook Today
Greetings Notebook Users, We’re excited to introduce a powerful new feature that lets you migrate your notes from Microsoft OneNote to Zoho Notebook—making your transition faster and more seamless than ever. ✨ What’s New One-click migration: Easily importUnarchive tickets
How can I manually unarchive tickets?Optimize your Knowledge Base for enhanced accessibility by adding alt tags for images
Let's learn why alt tags are crucial for your articles. You can add alternative tags (alt tags) and alternative text (alt text) to the images you share on your community forums or when embedding them in articles. Alt tags refer to the HTML attribute,FSM trying again
have not linked FSM yet to the rest of out Zoho suit. It certainly looks like the apointment and service part is more manageable for our staff. The question is that our engineers multi task examples 1. deliver products to customers not fitted 2. ServiceFeature Request: Conditional Field Mandatoriness Based on Display Status
Hello Zoho Creator Team, I would like to suggest an enhancement to improve the flexibility of form validations. Currently, when we need a field to be mandatory only if it's displayed on the form, the only option is to: Set the field as not mandatory inData Migration Strategies for Moving to a Cloud Solution
Hi everyone, I’ve been working on moving some of our critical systems, including CRM and project data, to a Zoho cloud solution, and one of the biggest challenges I’ve encountered is data migration. Transferring large volumes of data while keeping itCommerce Order as Invoice instead of Sales Order?
I need a purchase made on my Commerce Site to result in an Invoice for services instead of a Sales Order that will be pushed to Books. My customers don't pay until I after I add some details to their transaction. Can I change the settings to make thisHow to set different item selling prices for Zoho Commerce and Zoho Books
Item selling prices for Zoho Commerce and Zoho Books are in sync. If we update the Item selling price in Books, the same will happen in commerce and vice versa. I need a separate commerce selling price for online users and a separate books selling priceTime Entry Notifications
Hi All - I have support staff who place notes of their work in the time entry section of Zoho Desk. Is there a specific workflow or setting I need to enable to have the ticket holder updated via email when an entry is saved?Zoho CRMの流入元について
Zoho CRMとZoho formsを連携し、 formsで作成したフォームをサイトに埋め込み運用中です。 UTMパラメータの取得をformsを行い、Zoho CRMの見込み客タブにカスタム項目で反映される状況になっています。 広告に関してはUTMパラメータで取得できているため問題ないのですが、オーガニック流入でフォーム送信の場合も計測したいです。メールやGoogle、Yahoo、directなどの流入元のチャネルが反映されるようにしたいのですが、どのように設定したら良いでしょうか。 また、How to report 'Response violation' OR 'Resolution violation'
Hi, I want to report on SLA Violation Type. I grouped my tickets on this column. It seems I only get 'Response and Resolution Violation' or 'Not Violated'. The former seems to be given to a ticket if only the Response Time was violated. I would expect[Webinar] Automate sales and presales workflows with Writer
Sales involves sharing a wide range of documents with customers across the presales, sales, and post-sales stages: NDAs, quotes, invoices, sales orders, and delivery paperwork. Generating and managing these documents manually slows down the overall salesPower of Automation :: Quick way to associate your Projects with Zoho CRM
A custom function is a software code that can be used to automate a process and this allows you to automate a notification, call a webhook, or perform logic immediately after a workflow rule is triggered. This feature helps to automate complex tasks andDate triggering Workflow rule
I have a function triggered by a workflow rule. The function takes a date and creates a task for that date and fills in a field with the name of the day for that date. It also updates the status field of the record. The workflow rule is set to run wheneverRestricting contact creation
Hi all! I am looking to use Zoho Desk in a part of the business that takes end user enquiries. These are generally single interactions, and not linked to an account name. As Desk is Account centric, has anyone designed a way to manage these incoming emailsImport Holiday Calendars
HI Zoho Is there anyway of importing an online calendar like https://www.calendarlabs.com into the business hours calendars, to speed up setup of holiday calendars. Also could we also request a feature where you can specify a Holiday as hours, i.e it could be that the company is on a 1/2 day due to a holiday or when it is Eid in the UAE and they are only allowed to work restricted hours so we need the calendar to be flexible to allow for this. Regards JamieFiltering Tickets based on Email headers
We're starting to get a lot more junk coming into our Zoho Desk, which is then triggering unnecessary email alerts to agents. Once thing we could do to cut this junk in half, is to filter tickets based on email headers. Any email containing the `List-Unsubscribe`Zoho Books - France
L’équipe de Zoho France reçoit régulièrement des questions sur la conformité de ses applications de finances (Zoho Books/ Zoho Invoice) pour le marché français. Voici quelques points pour clarifier la question : Zoho Books est un logiciel de comptabilitéAccount upgrade
Good evening, I upgraded my account and paid for it. From standard to professional. Unfortunately after the paiment my account was not upgraded. Please your advise. Best Regards Erik van StaverdenIm Stuck in an EDIT ONLY WITH WIZARD issue
So I found Wizards to be a really helpful tool in minimizing the exposure of redundant, superfluous fields to staff that would never otherwise have to edit those fields. My issue is, that when the record (in this case a lead) is created with a wizard,Bulk Moving Images into Folders in the Library
I can't seem to select multiple images to move into a folder in order to clean up my image library and organize it. Instead, I have to move each individual image into the folder and sometimes it takes MULTIPLE tries to get it to go in there. Am I missingError 550 5.4.1
I’ve tried sending an email to someone but keep receiving this back. Any help would be greatly appreciatedBilling Management: #2 Fair way of Billing- Prorated Billing
Hello, From speaking about the traditional ways of billing in the previous post, we are moving into the deep sea of billing. We are now in a zone to break out the most complex yet, I would call it the fairest way of billing, the Prorated Billing. ProratedAutomatic 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 theseHas Anyone successfully integrated Zoho and Sage Intact?
Hey all, We’re evaluating Zoho One + Sage Intacct and I’m trying to connect with anyone who has actually implemented the two together.Specifically, I’d love to know: -- Which functions you kept in Zoho vs. Intacct (e.g., Product Catalog, AR/AP, invoicing,Store "Sign in with Google/Microsoft/GitHub etc." details
Quite often now, users are using a sign-in provider like Google or Microsoft to sign into various apps and services. It would be great if Vault could remember which providers you use for each website and sign you in with that provider instead of a usernameNext Page