Revenue Management: #3 Revenue Recognition Simplified

In continuation of the previous post on how to compute revenue recognition, let's explore a solution that helps businesses handle real-world complexities. While the Accounting Standards provide a clear framework for recognizing revenue, the real challenge lies in implementing that guidance in daily practice. Managing multiple contracts, bundled offerings, and varying billing models can quickly complicate things and delay financial reporting.

To bridge the gap between the guidelines and the actual business routine, you need a tool that can automate the entire process. Zoho Billing brings the five-step model to life through its full-fledged, automated revenue reporting. 

Zoho Billing flexes into Revenue Recognition reporting by adopting the Accounting Standards of IFRS 15 and ASC 606. With Zoho Billing, one can define when and how revenue can be recognized. Its reporting provides businesses with a detailed breakdown of when revenue is recognized, when it is kept as deferred, and its projections.

What do you configure?

In Zoho Billing, you can define a  "Recognition Rule" where you can create and assign different rules for your services. The attributes, while configuring the rules, are:

Recognition Period:

Define how often you wish to recognize your revenue.

• Monthly: The revenue will be recognized every month. This is ideal for subscription-based services that offer monthly or weekly renewals.

• Quarterly: Revenue will be recognized every three months, which aligns with most businesses' standard financial reporting cycle.

• Yearly: The revenue will be recognized after every year. This is suitable for long-term contracts and high-value payments.

• Once: The revenue will be recognized once and for all. This is suitable for milestone-based businesses or one-time service deliveries.

 

Recognition Method:

This will help you determine what and how revenue is recognized. For your simple understanding, we will provide one example for each of these recognition methods.

• Daily: Total revenue is divided over the service period and recognized based on the number of days in the service period.

• Evenly Distributed: Total revenue is divided evenly across the subscription or recognition period.

• Evenly Distributed (with Prorated Values): Revenue that is recognized will be prorated based on the start date of the subscription.

Recognition Time:

Businesses need to define when to recognize revenue. You can determine whether revenue is recognized at the period's start or end.

If you choose,

• Period Start: Revenue will be recognized when the service period begins. Prepaid subscription-based services commonly follow this. In this way of recognition, January's revenue is recognized in January itself.

• Period End: Revenue will be recognized when the service period ends. This is suitable for contacts who bill quarterly.
  

These rules ensure that the revenue is recognized automatically and periodically as and when the service is delivered.

What do you get?

Zoho Billing automatically allocates the revenue between Recognized Revenue and Deferred Revenue. Over the contract term, the deferred revenue decreases as recognized revenue increases. The system will auto-generate:

Recognized Revenue Report: This report reflects income from completed performance obligations, providing insights into current financial performance. We have narrowed it down to give recognized revenue by customers as well as items.

Deferred Revenue Report: This report tracks revenue that has been invoiced or received in advance but not yet earned. It highlights liabilities on the balance sheet and represents future revenue to be recognized as obligations are fulfilled.

Revenue Waterfall Report: This report visualizes the flow of revenue over time, showing how deferred revenue transitions to recognized revenue. It provides a timeline of revenue recognition, offering insights into trends and future earnings.

These reports are export-ready and built to support audits and stakeholder reporting.

 

Zoho Billing simplifies revenue recognition by transferring complex accounting standards into practical, automated processes. With configurable rules, flexible methods, and in-depth reporting, businesses can ensure that their recognized and deferred revenue is tracked accurately and transparently. This automated process removes guesswork for a subscription-based model and helps the finance team stay on top of their revenue reporting.

But automation is not always the answer. In industries that work on projects, they are often tied to irregular milestones and unpredictable timelines. In such cases, automated recognition rules may not fully capture the reality of the project delivery. Guess what! Zoho Billing keeps you covered if you are into such businesses.

In the next post, we will understand the logic behind the Manual Revenue Recognition that Zoho Billing offers. 

• 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

• Billing Management: #1 Billing a Universal Business Routine

  Hello, As the saying goes, "Do the hardest job first." We started with the complex subject of finance and revenue management, which is considered the backbone of any business. Now, let's shift our focus and take a deep dive into this Billing Management,

• Show/ hide specific field based on user

  Can someone please help me with a client script to achieve the following? I've already tried a couple of different scripts I've found on here (updating to match my details etc...) but none of them seem to work. No errors flagged in the codes, it just

• What is a a valid JavaScript Domain URI when creating a client-based application using the Zoho API console?

  No idea what this is. Can't see what it is explained anywhere.

• 5名限定 課題解決型ワークショップイベント Zoho ワークアウト開催のお知らせ (9/25)

  ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。Zoho ユーザーコミュニティチームの藤澤です。 9月開催のZoho ワークアウトについてお知らせします。 今回はZoomにて、オンライン開催します。 諸事情につき、今月の開催回は中止となりました。 次回は10/31（金）14時からの開催を予定しています。 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Zoho ワークアウトとは？ Zoho ユーザー同士で交流しながら、サービスに関する疑問や不明点の解消を目的とした「Zoho ワークアウト」を開催します。 Zoho

• Zoho Calendar not syncing correctly with personal Google Calendar

  Coming to this forum as Zoho Calendar support team is not responding, any more. For the past 8 weeks, I have been having an issue with Zoho Calendar not syncing with my personal Google Calendar correctly. I subscribed to Zoho Calendar iCal in my personal

• 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

• Customer Parent Account or Sub-Customer Account

  Some of clients as they have 50 to 300 branches, they required separate account statement with outlet name and number; which means we have to open new account for each branch individually. However, the main issue is that, when they make a payment, they

• need a packing list feature

  In our business, goods listed on an invoice are packed in separate boxes and shipped off. for e.g. an invoice may have 10 items. each item could then be packed in different boxes depending on qty of each item. this packing list is as important as the invoice for purposes of shipping documents.  Request you to add this feature asap.

• Workdrive 5.0 / API Documentation Workflows

  Hi Zoho, When will the API documentation of the workflows be published? We are interested in using it to trigger manual workflows from an external application. Greetings, Justin

• How to keep track of bags, cans, drums of inventory?

  We buy and sell products that are packaged in bags 🛍️, cans🥫, drums🛢️, etc. with batch numbers. When we get a shipment of one of the products, how do we track we received (say) 10 cans each of 5L of a product and maybe we received 10 cans of another

• Zoho Error: This Operation has been restricted. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details

  Hello There, l tried to verify my domain (florindagoreti.com.br) and its shows this error: This Operation has been restricted. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details. Screenshot Given Below -  please check what went wrong. Thanks

• How many ZOHO-Sites does the ZOHO-One Suite allow for?

  The free version of ZOHO-Sites allows for two sites, but it seems that the professional version (which is included in the ZOHO-One Suite) only allows for two websites. Is that correct? How many sites can I have within one ZOHO-One account?

• Replace Lookup fields ID value with their actual name and adding inormation from subforms

  Hi everyone,  I wanted to see if someone smarter than me has managed to find any solutions to two problems we have. I will explain both below.  To start we are syncing data from Zoho CRM to Zoho Analytics and I will use the Sales Order module when giving

• Webhook from Zobot to Zoho Flow fails

  I'm trying to connect from zobot to zoho flow. When testing in zflow, I am receiving all entered data from the connector correctly. The SalesIQ connector's "outputreaction" is {} (is this normal or is there a problem?). But as soon as I try my chat bot

• Transition from Sole Proprietorship to GmbH (Limited Liability Company) – Best Approach in Zoho Books / Zoho One

  Hello everyone, I am currently operating under a Zoho One plan with a sole proprietorship in Switzerland. As of January 1st, 2026, I will be incorporating a new legal entity – a GmbH (Swiss equivalent of a Limited Liability Company). While the business

• Best way to display complex Bookings Consultation Descriptions on Zoho Site?

  I am a new user so apologies if this has been asked before. I couldn't find any answers in the forum. We offer 18 complex Consultations to our subscribers. Our current platform lets me put detail on these Consultations thoroughly (200-300 words) during

• DKIM cannot be enabled for the domain as no verified default selector present

  Hi Support Team, For Domain DKIM record trying to enable status. but showing error "DKIM cannot be enabled for the domain as no verified default selector present" So, please resolve the issue. Thank you.

• Issue Connecting My Domain to Zoho Sites Despite Purchasing It from Zoho

  Hello, I am facing an issue connecting my domain to my website on Zoho Sites. Details of the issue: I purchased the domain directly from Zoho. I am already using the same domain successfully with Zoho Mail. However, when I try to assign this domain to

• Insert auto number from main form into subform rows

  Hello. I'm trying to take from my main form "order number" which i have setup as an auto generated number into every line created in my subform. So when a row is created in my subform i want the "order number " from the main form to be inserted automatically.

• Dark Mode - Font Colors Don't Work

  When editing a document in Dark Mode and selecting font colors, they don't show up on screen.  Viewing/editing the same document in Light Mode shows them just fine.

• Integrate Bunq with ZOHO Bookes

  We are new users of ZOHO Books, and our bank (BUNQ, in the Netherlands) isn't listed on the bank integrations. Is there a way to handle this?

• Cliq iOS can't see shared screen

  Hello, I had this morning a video call with a colleague. She is using Cliq Desktop MacOS and wanted to share her screen with me. I'm on iPad. I noticed, while she shared her screen, I could only see her video, but not the shared screen... Does Cliq iOS is able to display shared screen, or is it somewhere else to be found ? Regards

• Access Denied

  I am iOS Developer and updating our clients project and shifted ZohoDeskPortalCore SDKs from cocoapods to SPM and changed few lines of code but now i am get access denied, the help center app is unavailable. please contact administrator.

• Using Zoho Desk to support ISMS process

  Hi, I am evaluating using Zoho Desk for security incident management. This seems to be aligned with Zoho Desk purpose as its just another type of incident. However in security incident management, ideally I can link incidents (tickets) with a risk from

• Bin Locations

  Dear all, I am wondering if someone has the ability to develop the bin locations option for zoho inventory (integrated with zoho books) Regards, Ryan

• TaxJar vs Avalara

  Hi, I'm evaluating adoption of a sales-tax service for US based business. Anyone else have experience with TaxJar and Zoho Books? I am a Zoho One subscriber so anticipate needing to use Flow to make this work. It seems like Avalara are simply too expensive

• How to check Leads with no Task (open activity)

  Hi everyone, I was wondering if there’s a way to view leads that don’t have any tasks assigned or open activities linked to them.

• What can we do on our end to improve the Answer bot answers?

  Hi, I'm using the Answer bot card in the Codeless bot builder. I've input several questions and their answers in the FAQ section to feed the Answer bot. The text is all in French, as this is the language our customers communicate in. I've tried testing

• Taxes for EU B2B Transactions

  Currently, ZC doesn't seem to have a procedure for validating VAT numbers of businesses purchasing in another EU state, and removing local VAT is valid.  This is essential for all inter EU B2B trade.

• How to upload file to Connect using API?

  Hi there. I looked at the API documentation and nowhere did it mention how to use the API method to upload a file even though it is mentioned that it is possible to be done so. Please help.

• Items Landed Cost and Profit?

  Hello, we recently went live with Zoho Inventory, and I have a question about the Landed Cost feature. The FAQ reads: "Tracking the landed cost helps determine the overall cost incurred in procuring the product. This, in turn, helps you to decide the

• Group Tax in Service Line Items

  Hi FSM Team! I noticed that when you update a tax in the service line item the group tax is not showing up as an option. Let me know what can be done thank you!

• FSM Improvement Idea - Show an Import button when there is no data

  I am setting up FSM for a client and I noticed that there is no option to import data, see screenshot below. Even when you click Create Contact there is only an option to Import from Zoho Invoice. It is only after you add at lease 1 record that the Import

• Zoho FSM API Delete Record

  Hi FSM Team, It would be great if you could delete a record via API. Thank you,

• OAUTH_SCOPE_MISMATCH Error for Marketing Automation APIs with CRM Plus Account

  I'm trying to integrate Marketing Automation journey triggering via API but getting OAUTH_SCOPE_MISMATCH errors. I need clarification on API access for CRM Plus users.

• Access token generate from the refresh token not working for API

  Dear Sir/Madam, When I use my refresh token to obtain new access_token, that token return INVALID_TOKEN when the same API is called. I made sure that my api site is correct and match the auth web site. However the original access_token work fine.

• Function #4: Schedule Customer Statements

  Regularly sending statements to customers is an imperative part of many business processes as it helps foster strong customer relationships and provides timely guidance on payments. While you can generate the statement of accounts and have it sent over

• Limiting search or dependencies with an asterisk "*".

  I have a form with several dependency fields with options still developing for each field. Since these options were developing and not yet ready to be a selection in the field, I placed a filter for the dropdown field. In this filter, I selected fields

• Improved RingCentral Integration

  We’d like to request an enhancement to the current RingCentral integration with Zoho. RingCentral now automatically generates call transcripts and AI-based call summaries (AI Notes) for each call, which are extremely helpful for support and sales teams.

• Cross Data Center Support for 1:1 Chats with External Users

  Hello Zoho Cliq Team, We hope you're doing well. We appreciate the recent enhancement that enables cross data center collaboration in external channels, which has already improved communication across distributed teams. However, we’ve noticed that this

• Next Page