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.
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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
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