Revenue Management: #8 Revenue Recognition in Educational & Training Institutions

Revenue Management: #8 Revenue Recognition in Educational & Training Institutions

Educational Institutions and training centres typically collect course fees at the time of enrolment, sometimes for a one-day workshop and sometimes for a year-long certification course. You might also charge separately for course materials or evaluation. But when can you actually recognize that income? Would you be able to recognize it on payment? Spread it across the course period? What happens if a student cancels midway?


How do institutions manage revenue when learning is delivered over time?

Revenue Recognition Scenarios in Education & Training
Education institutions and training providers often deal with varying course durations, delivery models (online, in-person, hybrid), and fees collected upfront. Though the five-step revenue recognition model remains constant, the timing and allocation of revenue depend on the learning service's structure. Here are common revenue recognition scenarios for this industry:

Upfront Free for Long-Term Course
When a learner enrols in a course that runs for several months and pays the full fee in advance, the institution cannot recognize the entire amount immediately. Instead, the revenue should be spread out across the period the training is delivered.

Example: A $6000 certification course runs for 6 months. Revenue should be recognized at $1000 per month during the course period.

Short-Term Workshops & Seminars
For one-day or short-duration workshops, revenue can often be fully recognised once the sessions are delivered, assuming there is no refund window.

Example: A $500 weekend workshop is recognized on the day it occurs.

Course Materials & Exams
Institutions that charge separately for materials, exams, or certification must split those payments and recognize those amounts individually.

Example: $1200 total course fee, including $900 for training for three months and $300 for materials. Revenue should be recognized $300 upfront and $300/month for three months.

Cancellation, Refunds, and Attendance-Based Pricing
Refund policies and partial completions must be factored into recognition. If a student drops out after 1 month of a 3-month course, only one-third of the revenue should be recognized unless a refund is issued.

Example: A $900 course is cancelled after 1 month. You must recognize $300 and defer or refund the rest based on the policy. Credit note will be created, and the deferred $600 will be reversed to the customer as credits or issued a refund.

These scenarios show that educational institutions must align revenue with actual learning delivery and not merely based on fee collection. Automating this alignment avoids revenue overstatement and ensures compliance.


Info
Scenario :

A training company signs up a student for a three-month Data Analytics certification program for a fee of $3000. The payment is made in full at the start. The course includes three months of training and $600 worth of course material.  



Zoho Billing for Education Institution Revenue Recognition
Zoho Billing enables learning platforms to automate revenue recognition by setting up roles that separately reflect course delivery and service components.

For the above scenario, you can configure the recognition rule as follows,

Component

Recognition Frequency

Recognition Method

Recognition Time

Course Material

Once

One-Time (Daily)

Period Start

Training Session

Monthly

Evenly Distributed

Period Start

 

Although $3000 is collected upfront, only $600 for the course material can be recognized immediately according to the performance obligation. The remaining $2400 will be spread evenly across the three-month training period.


Reports in Zoho Billing

i) Recognized Revenue Report
Two months into the course, the course material is delivered, and one month of training is pending.

Component

Recognized Revenue

Description

Course Material

$600

Recognized fully at the start

Training Session

$1600

out of $2400 for two months of training given

Total Recognized

$2200

Recognized in two months

 


ii) Deferred Revenue Report
After two months, it will be left with the training session payment alone as deferred.

Component

Deferred Amount

Course Delivery

$0

Training Session

$800

Total Deferred

$800

 


iii) Revenue Waterfall Report

Month

Course Material

Training Session

Total

Month 1

$600

$800

$1400

Month 2

----

$800

$800

Month 3

----

$800

$800

Total

$600

$2400

$3000

 

Idea

Best Practices for Education Institution Revenue Recognition

  • Separate Instructional & Non-Instructional Items: Classify course material, training, certification, and exam components distinctly
  • Align Revenue with Course Delivery: Ensure the recognition rule is set based on course delivery and that the revenue is recognized when the student receives the instruction.
  • Set Return/Refund Policy Clearly: Establish a clear policy and terms to account for students who drop out or cancel courses after signing up.

 

Notes
Up Next: Revenue Recognition in Media & Publishing


      • 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

        • Send Whatsapp with API including custom placeholders

          Is is possible to initiate a session on whatsapp IM channel with a template that includes params (placeholders) that are passed on the API call? This is very usefull to send a Utility message for a transactional notification including an order number

        • Configurable Zoho Cliq Notifications for Zoho People Alerts

          Hello Zoho People Product Team, Greetings and hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to Zoho People notifications, enabling a native delivery via Zoho Cliq with admin-level control, similar to the notification settings available

        • Add Israel & Jewish Holidays to Zoho People Holidays Gallery

          Greetings, We hope you are doing well. We are writing to request an enhancement to the Holidays Gallery in Zoho People. Currently, there are several holidays available, but none for Israel and none for Jewish holidays (which are not necessarily the same

        • Keep Zoho People Feature Requests in the Zoho People Forum

          Hello Zoho People Product Team, Greetings. We would like to submit a feature request regarding the handling of feature requests themselves, specifically for Zoho People. Issue: Feature Requests Being Moved to Zoho One Zoho People feature requests are

        • ZO25: The refreshed, more unified, and intelligent OS for business

          Hello all, Greetings from Zoho One! 2025 has been a remarkable year, packed with new features that will take your Zoho One experience to the next level! From sleek, customizable dashboards to an all-new action panel for instant task management, we’ve

        • Introducing Multi-Asset Support in Work Orders, Estimates, and Service Appointments

          We’re excited to announce a highly requested enhancement in Zoho FSM — you can now associate multiple assets with Work Orders, Estimates, and Service Appointments. This update brings more clarity, flexibility, and control to your field service operations,

        • [Product Update] Locations module migration in Zoho Books integration with Zoho Analytics

          Dear Customers, As Zoho Books are starting to support an advance version of the Branches/Warehouses module called the Locations module, users who choose to migrate to the Locations module in Zoho Books will also be migrated in Zoho Analytics-Zoho Books

        • Introducing Schedules for smarter availability management

          Greetings from the Zoho Bookings team! We’re excited to introduce Schedules, a powerful enhancement to manage availability across your workspace. Schedules are reusable working-hour templates that help you define and maintain consistent availability across

        • Why Zoho Contracts Prefers Structured Approvals Over Ad-hoc Approvals

          Approvals are one of the most important stages in a contract’s lifecycle. They determine whether a contract moves forward, gets revised, or needs further discussion. The approval process also defines accountability within the organization. Zoho Contracts

        • Whatsapp Connection Status still "Pending" after migration

          Hello, I migrated my WhatsApp API to Zoho from another provider a day ago. So far the connection status is still “Pending”. There is a problem? How long does it usually take?

        • Kaizen #226: Using ZRC in Client Script

          Hello everyone! Welcome to another week of Kaizen. In today's post, lets see what is ZRC (Zoho Request Client) and how we can use ZRC methods in Client Script to get inputs from a Salesperson and update the Lead status with a single button click. In this

        • How to use Rollup Summary in a Formula Field?

          I created a Rollup Summary (Decimal) field in my module, and it shows values correctly. When I try to reference it in a Formula Field (e.g. ${Deals.Partners_Requested} - ${Deals.Partners_Paid}), I get the error that the field can’t be found. Is it possible

        • How to Filter timewise question to check uploaded one month or two months before in these community question ?

          i want to find the question that is asked some month or before any particular year, so how can i filter it ?

        • Proposal for Creating a Unique "Address" Entity in Zoho FSM

          The "Address" entity is one of the most critical components for a service-oriented company. While homeowners may change and servicing companies may vary, the address itself remains constant. This constancy is essential for subsequent services, as it provides

        • Workflow Down/Bug

          We have a workflow that sends an email to one of our internal departments 10 minutes after a record is created in a custom module. The workflow actually works correctly. However, we have now noticed that on January 8, between 3:55 p.m. and 4:33 p.m.,

        • Service Locations: Designed for Shared Sites and Changing Customers

          Managing service addresses sounds simple—until it isn’t. Large facilities, shared sites, and frequently changing customers can quickly turn address management into an operational bottleneck. This is where Service Locations deliver clarity and control.

        • Can I re-send the Customer Satisfaction Survey after a ticket closure?

          Hello, Some customers does not answer the survey right after closure, is it possible to re-send after a few days or weeks? Best Regards!

        • Account blocked

          Yesterday I got my Zeptomail account blocked due to too many hard bounces. My account is used exclusively for sending transactional emails (eg. your order has been shipped, a form has been filled, etc) and the sudden blocking impacted hundreds of websites

        • Filter contacts based on selected category in Zoho Desk ticket

          Hello community, I’m setting up the Tickets module in Zoho Desk and I need help implementing the following: When a category is selected in a ticket, I want the Contact field to be filtered so that it only displays contacts that are related to that category.

        • Mapping a new Ticket in Zoho Desk to an Account or Deal in Zoho CRM manually

          Is there any way for me to map an existing ticket in Zoho desk to an account or Deal within Zoho CRM? Sometimes people use different email to put in a ticket than the one that we have in the CRM, but it's still the same person. We would like to be able

        • Assign Income to Project Without Invoice

          Hello, Fairly new user here so apologies if there is a really obvious solution here that I am just missing... I have hundreds of small deposits into a bank account that I want to assign to a project but do not want to have to create an invoice every time

        • Tracking Non-Inventory Items

          We have several business locations and currently use zoho inventory to track retail items (sales and purchase orders). We were hoping to use zoho inventory to track our non-inventory items as well (toilet paper, paper towels, etc). I understand that we

        • Profile Page View Customization

          I need to change the fields, sections from the profile view of an emplyoyee.

        • Zoho Desk Android app update: Filter, Sort and Saved filters Enhancements

          Hello everyone! We are excited to introduce the below features on the Android version Zoho Desk mobile app: 1. Filter & Sort support has been introduced for the Contacts and Accounts modules. 2. Sort options is now available in Custom Modules as well.

        • Accessing shared mailboxes through Trident (Windows)

          Hi, I have a created a couple of shared mailboxes. The mailboxes are showing up on the browser based Zoho workplace, but I cannot seem to figure out how to access my shared inboxes through Trident (Windows). Am I missing something or is this feature not

        • Feature Request: Ability to set Default Custom Filters and apply them via URL/Deluge

          I've discovered a significant gap in how Zoho Creator handles Custom Filters for reports, and I'm hoping the Zoho team can address this in a future update. This limitation has been raised before and continues to be requested, but remains unresolved. The

        • Closing the Loop: Why Lookup Asymmetry is Harming Data Integrity in Creator

          TL;DR: Lookup fields allow users to add new related records inline via the "+" icon, but there's no equivalent ability to edit an existing related record without navigating away and losing form context. Adding a native "Edit" icon—with automatic User

        • filtering lookup field options based on information in another module.

          In our CRM system. We have the standard Accounts and Deals modules. We would like to introduce the ability to classify Accounts by Sector. Our desired functionality is to have a global list of all sectors that an Account can select, with the ability to

        • Service op locatie organiseren met Zoho FSM: waar lopen organisaties tegenaan?

          Bij organisaties met service teams op locatie merken we vaak dat de complexiteit niet zozeer in de planning zelf zit, maar in wat er rond die planning gebeurt. Denk aan opvolging na interventies, consistente servicerapporten, en het bijhouden van installaties

        • Introducing Assemblies and Kits in Zoho Inventory

          Hello customers, We’re excited to share a major revamp to Zoho Inventory that brings both clarity and flexibility to your inventory management experience! Presenting Assemblies and Kits We’re thrilled to introduce Assemblies and Kits, which replaces the

        • Does the ability exist to make tax on the customer profile mandatory?

          I am reaching out to inquire about the possibility of making the "Customer Tax" field mandatory when creating a new customer in Zoho. We want to ensure that all customers have their tax information recorded to maintain compliance with our internal processes.

        • email association with CRM

          Why is it 2024 (almost 2025) and Zoho has not figured out how to integrate email with CRM? It is so inconsistent at associating emails within CRM. I am an attorney. I have clients and work with other attorneys. Attorney John Doe is associated with multiple

        • Fix the speed

          It takes ages to load on every step even though my dataset is quite small.

        • Credit Note for Shipped and Fatoora pushed invoices

          We have shipped a Sales Order and created an Invoice. The Invoice is also pushed to Fatoora Now we need to create a credit note for the invoice When we try it, it says we need to create a Sales Return in the Zoho Books, we have already created a Sales

        • FSM - Timesheet entires for Internal Work

          Hi FSM Team, Several of my clients have asked how they can manage internal timesheets within Zoho FSM. Since their technicians already spend most of their day working in FSM, it would be ideal if they could log all working hours directly in the FSM app.

        • Add a way of clearing fields values in Flow actions

          It would be great if there was an option to set a field as Null when creating flows. I had an instance today where I just wanted to clear a long integer field in the CRM based on an action in Projects but I had to write a custom function. It would be

        • Role Management

          I am creating an analytics dashboard for a company that will be utilized by its various departments such as Finance, Marketing, and HR. My goal is to design the dashboard with separate tabs for each department. Additionally, I plan to implement role-based

        • Highlight a candidate who is "off limits"

          Hello: Is there a way to highlight a candidate who is "off limits"?  I would like to have the ability to make certain candidate and / or Client records highlighted in RED or something like that.   This would be used for example when we may have placed a candidate somewhere and we want everyone in our company to quickly and easily see that they are off limits.  The same would apply when we want to put a client or former client off limits so no one recruits out of there. How can this be done? Cheers,

        • Announcing new features in Trident for Windows (v.1.37.5.0)

          Hello Community! Trident for Windows just received a major update, with a range of capabilities that strengthen email security and enhance communication. This update focuses on making your mailbox safer and your overall email experience more reliable.

        • Early Payment Discount customize Text

          Hi, I’m currently using Zoho Books and am trying to customize the standard “Early Payment Discount” message that appears in the PDF invoice template. I’ve reviewed the documentation here: https://www.zoho.com/books/help/invoice/early-payment-discount.html

        • Next Page