Revenue Management: #10 Common Mistakes while Recognizing Revenue

Revenue Management: #10 Common Mistakes while Recognizing Revenue


We are at the end of the series on Revenue Management, covering how different businesses recognise revenue. Even with clear standards like ASC 606 and IFRS 15 in practice, businesses often struggle with the nuances of revenue recognition. Especially growing businesses that are so keen on scaling take a wrong foot.


Where do businesses often go wrong, and how can they avoid it? 


Here are some of the common mistakes businesses make and suggestions for avoiding them before they cause us harm.


Recognizing Revenue Early
A common mistake is recording the full value of a contract or an invoice as recognized immediately upon payment, especially for services or subscriptions delivered over time. This inflates revenue in the short term and understates liabilities.

To avoid this, Businesses should ensure revenue is recognized only when performance obligations are met, not when billing or cash collection. This avoids overstating earnings in the short term and ensures compliance with ASC 606/IFRS 15. Deferred revenue schedules and automated recognition tools can help align recognition with delivery.

Ignoring Performance Obligation
Many companies fail to separate multiple deliverables in a contract, such as onboarding, training, support, or updates. This results in an improper allocation of revenue across the contract's life.

Contracts often include multiple deliverables, such as onboarding, training, or ongoing support. Each should be treated as a separate performance obligation, and revenue should be allocated based on its standalone selling price.

Overlooking Discounts
Revenue must be recognized based on the actual transaction price, not the list price. Failing to adjust the discounts, credits, or rewards provided will inflate the financial figures.

To overcome this, Revenue must be recorded at the true transaction price, not the list price. Discounts, reductions, credits, and incentives should be factored in from the start, and estimates for variable consideration should be reassessed periodically. This ensures reported revenue reflects the real value of the customer contracts.

Failing to Update Contract Amendments
Mid-term changes like upgrades, downgrades, or cancellations must be tracked properly. A reassessment must be performed based on the revised obligations and the revenue that remains deferred. Many companies fail to do this or skip this recalibration step.

Upgrades, downgrades, extensions, or cancellations require proper revenue reassessment. Businesses should clearly distinguish whether a change creates a new contract or modifies the existing one. Automated systems that recalculate deferred balances can simplify this process and ensure accurate reporting.

Manual Spreadsheets
Racking revenue manually through spreadsheets increases the risk of errors, especially when managing deferrals, returns, or variable billing models. Automating this process with tools like Zoho Billing ensures accurate, hassle-free recognition with audit-ready reporting.

Manual spreadsheets are prone to errors and limit scalability. Adopting automated revenue recognition software ensures accuracy and reduces compliance risk. Strong internal policies, approval workflows, and finance team training enhance accuracy and reliability. 



Notes
Key Takeaway

With the right processes and tools, these challenges can be avoided. Businesses that invest in automation and adopt best practices early on will be better positioned to scale sustainably while maintaining compliance with recognition standards. 

Zoho Billing is designed to simplify revenue management by automating recognition, tracking contract changes, handling deferred revenue schedules, and ensuring audit-ready compliance. It provides the accuracy, transparency and scalability needed for growing businesses to keep revenue recognition on the right foot. 








      Zoho Campaigns Resources


        • Desk Community Learning Series


        • Digest


        • Functions


        • Meetups


        • Kbase


        • Resources


        • Glossary


        • Desk Marketplace


        • MVP Corner


        • Word of the Day


        • Ask the Experts


          • 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

          Zoho CRM Plus Resources

            Zoho Books Resources


              Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                Zoho Projects Resources


                  Zoho Sprints Resources


                    Zoho Orchestly Resources


                      Zoho Creator Resources


                        Zoho WorkDrive Resources



                          Zoho CRM Resources

                          • CRM Community Learning Series

                            CRM Community Learning Series


                          • Tips

                            Tips

                          • Functions

                            Functions

                          • Meetups

                            Meetups

                          • Kbase

                            Kbase

                          • Resources

                            Resources

                          • Digest

                            Digest

                          • CRM Marketplace

                            CRM Marketplace

                          • MVP Corner

                            MVP Corner




                            Zoho Writer Writer

                            Get Started. Write Away!

                            Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                              Zoho CRM コンテンツ



                                ご検討中の方

                                  • Recent Topics

                                  • Zoho mail to contacts and leads, but not to accounts?

                                    We use the accounts tab a lot for our business because they can be linked to the sales orders. Now we want to use the mail add on to link communication of our emails to our accounts. However this is only possible for contacts and leads? It would be convenient
                                  • Zoho CRM Layouts

                                    I have customised all our modules, Leads, Contacts and deals, and within them, I have created lots of different layouts depending on the type of Lead or contact, for example. Since the new Zoho UI came out, they have all disappeared. I have gone into
                                  • Zoho CRM || Unable to Bulk Assignment of Territories for Contacts

                                    Dear Zoho CRM Support Team, I hope this email finds you well. We recently performed a bulk upload of Contacts into Zoho CRM using the official sample Excel template downloaded from the CRM. The upload itself was completed successfully; however, we encountered
                                  • Python - code studio

                                    Hi, I see the code studio is "coming soon". We have some files that will require some more complex transformation, is this feature far off? It appears to have been released in Zoho Analytics already
                                  • Direct Access and Better Search for Zoho Quartz Recordings

                                    Hi Zoho Team, We would like to request a few enhancements to improve how Zoho Quartz recordings are accessed and managed after being submitted to Zoho Support. Current Limitation: After submitting a Quartz recording, the related Zoho Support ticket displays
                                  • Task Order

                                    Hello! I've recently switched to Zoho Projects and a long time user of MS Project, Asana and LiquidPlanner (which has recently been purchased) and I'm running into a frustration I'm hoping someone can assist with. It has to do with how tasks are ordered
                                  • Marketing Tip #19: Upsell on product page to increase order value

                                    Upselling doesn’t have to feel pushy. It can actually feel helpful when done right. Think "people also bought", upgrades, add-ons, or complementary items. A smart upsell increases your average order value and improves the customer experience by making
                                  • CRM limit reached: only 2 subforms can be created

                                    we recently stumbled upon a limit of 2 subforms per module. while we found a workaround on this occasion, only 2 subforms can be quite limiting in an enterprise setting. @Anonymous User I've read about imminent increase of other components (e.
                                  • Change Last Name to not required in Leads

                                    I would like to upload 500 target companies as leads but I don't yet have contact people for them. Can you enable the option for me to turn this requirement off to need a Second Name? Moderation update (10-Jun-23): As we explore potential solutions for
                                  • Kaizen #198: Using Client Script for Custom Validation in Blueprint

                                    Nearing 200th Kaizen Post – 1 More to the Big Two-Oh-Oh! Do you have any questions, suggestions, or topics you would like us to cover in future posts? Your insights and suggestions help us shape future content and make this series better for everyone.
                                  • オンライン勉強会のお知らせ Zoho ワークアウト (2/19 参加無料)

                                    ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。コミュニティチームの中野です。 2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。 ▶︎参加登録はこちら(無料) https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/6AyVUxp6QDmMQiDGXGkxPA ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 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指すイベント「Zoho
                                  • Introducing Record Category in CRM: Group options to see record status at a glance.

                                    Release update: Currently available for CN, JP, and AU DCs (all paid editions). It will be made available to other DCs by mid-March. Hello everyone, We are pleased to introduce Record Category in Zoho CRM - a new capability where the user can get an overview
                                  • Removing Tables from HTML Inventory Templates - headers, footers and page number tags only?

                                    I'm a bit confused by the update that is coming to HTML Inventory Templates https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/crm-nextgen/customize-crm-account/customizing-templates/articles/nextgen-update-your-html-inventory-templates-for-pdf-generator-upgrade It says
                                  • Zoho CRM for Everyone's NextGen UI Gets an Upgrade

                                    Hello Everyone We've made improvements to Zoho CRM for Everyone's Nextgen UI. These changes are the result of valuable feedback from you where we’ve focused on improving usability, providing wider screen space, and making navigation smoother so everything
                                  • Ability to Link Reported Issues from Zoho Desk to Specific Tasks or Subtasks in Zoho Projects

                                    Hi Zoho Desk Team, Hope you're doing well. When reporting a bug from Zoho Desk to Zoho Projects, we’ve noticed that it’s currently not possible to select an existing task or subtask to associate the issue with. However, when working directly inside Zoho
                                  • How do i move multiple tickets to a different department?

                                    Hello, i have several tickets that have been assigned to the wrong department.  I am talking about hundreds of automatically generated ones that come from a separate system. How can i select them all at once to move them to another department in one go? I can select them in "unsassigned open tickets view" but i can't find a "move to another department" option. I also can't seem to assign multiple tickets to the same agent in that same view. Could somebody advice?
                                  • Let us view and export the full price books data from CRM

                                    I quote out of CRM, some of my clients have specialised pricing for specific products - therefore we use Price Books to manage these special prices. I can only see the breakdown of the products listed in the price book and the specialised pricing for
                                  • Something wrong with client script??

                                    Someone have the same feeling? Client script behavior become very strange..
                                  • Set Default Status of Assembly to "Assembled" When Entered in UI

                                    I've just discovered the new "confirmed" status of Assemblies within Inventory. While I understand the intent of this (allowing for manufacturing planning and raw material stock allocation), it was initially confusing to me when manually entering some
                                  • How to apply customized Zoho Crm Home Page to all users?

                                    I have tried to study manuals and play with Zoho CRM but haven't found a way how to apply customized Zoho CRM Home Page as a (default) home page for other CRM users.. How that can be done, if possible? - kipi Moderation Update: Currently, each user has
                                  • Increase Round Robin Scheduler Frequency in Zoho Desk

                                    Dear Zoho Desk Team, We hope this message finds you well. We would like to request an enhancement to the Round Robin Scheduler in Zoho Desk to better address ticket assignment efficiency. Current Behavior At present, the Round Robin Scheduler operates
                                  • Plug Sample #14: Automate Invoice Queries with SalesIQ Chatbot

                                    Hi everyone! We're back with a powerful plug to make your Zobot smarter and your support faster. This time, we're solving a common friction point for finance teams by giving customers quick access to their invoices. We are going to be automating invoice
                                  • Enrich your contact and company details automatically using the Data Enrichment topping

                                    Greetings, I hope you're all doing well. We're happy to announce the latest topping we've added to Bigin: The Data Enrichment topping, powered by WebAmigo. This topping helps you automatically enhance your contact and company records in Bigin. By leveraging
                                  • Zoho Analytics + Facebook Ads: Performance Alerts for Active Campaigns

                                    Is it possible with integration of Zoho Analytics with Facebook Ads and set up alerts or notifications for active campaigns when performance drops? For example, triggering a notification if CTR goes below a defined threshold or if other key metrics (like
                                  • SalesIQ Chat Owner to CRM Lead Owner Mapping

                                    There is no proper mapping between the SalesIQ chat owner and the CRM lead owner. When a chat is assigned to an agent, the lead created in CRM is often assigned to a different user, forcing admins to manually change ownership every time. This creates
                                  • Enhancements for Currencies in Zoho CRM: Automatic exchange rate updates, options to update record exchange rates, and more

                                    The multi-currency feature helps you track currencies region-wise. This can apply to Sales, CTC, or any other currency-related data. You can record amounts in a customer’s local currency, while the CRM automatically converts them to your home currency
                                  • Ensure Consistent Service Delivery with Comprehensive Job Sheets

                                    We are elated to announce that one of the most requested features is now live: Job Sheets. They are customizable, reusable forms that serve as a checklist for the services that technicians need to carry out and as a tool for data collection. While on
                                  • Any update on adding New Customer Payment Providers who support in store terminal devices?

                                    Currently there is only one Customer payment provider listed for terminal devices in USA- Everyware. They charge a monthly fee of almost $149 minimum. Will you add other providers - like Zoho Payments or Stripe or Worldpay that would allow integrated
                                  • Getting Subform Fields to Display Top to Bottom

                                    I have a form where the fields are all in one column. I want to insert a subform where the fields are stacked in one column as well. I have built both the form and subform but the subform displays the fields from left to right instead of a stacked column. This will cause a problem displaying the subform correctly on mobile apps. How can I do this please?' Here is my form with subform now. As you can see the subform "Follow Up Activity" is displaying the fields left to right. I need them to go top
                                  • [Feature Deprecated] Gamescope in Zoho Projects

                                    This feature is no longer available. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Well, yes. That's true! Tiring work, buzzing coffee makers, busy turnstiles , occupied meeting rooms, back-to-back status updates and what not. Your everyday routine need not have to be this hectic. It can be more rewarding. It can be more fun. Zoho Projects believes in this fact and hence has launched Gamescope - A module that turns every project into an exciting game and boosts the spirit of your team by leaps and
                                  • How to Convert NSF to PST Format Effortlessly? - SYSessential

                                    It is highly recommended to obtain the error-free solution of the SYSessential NSF to PST converter to convert NSF files from Lotus Notes. Using this professional software, it becomes easier to convert all NSF database items, including emails, journals,
                                  • Can't connect to POP and SMTP over VPN

                                    I use Thunderbird to access Zoho Mail via POP and SMTP. I have configured an app-specific password for Thunderbird to use. Everything is properly configured and works correctly — until I enable my VPN. I'm using a paid commercial VPN service (Mullvad).
                                  • my zoho mail is hacked

                                    my email is sending my username and password to people i dont know
                                  • Suministrar accesos

                                    Asunto: Enable UPLOAD_RULE for API Attachments Mensaje: Hola, Necesito habilitar la capacidad de subir attachments vía API en Zoho Mail. Actualmente recibo el error: "UPLOAD_RULE_NOT_CONFIGURED" al usar el endpoint: POST /api/accounts/{accountId}/messages/attachments
                                  • how to change the page signers see after signing a document in zoho sign

                                    Hello, How can I please change the page a signer sees after signing a document in Zoho Sign? I cannot seem to find it. As it is now, it shows a default landing page "return to Zoho Sign Home". Thanks!
                                  • Introducing real-time document commenting and collaboration in Zoho Sign

                                    Hi, there! We are delighted to introduce Document commenting, a feature that helps you communicate with your recipients more efficiently for a streamlined document signing process. Some key benefits include: Collaborate with your recipients easily without
                                  • Polish signer experience to compete with docusign

                                    I would like to suggest that someone spend the little bit of time to polish the signer experience, and the email templates to more of a modern professional feel. They are currently very early 2000s and with some simple changes could vastly improve the
                                  • Ticket Loop from Auto Responce

                                    We’re seeing an issue where a client’s help desk triggers a ticket loop. When they email us, our system creates a ticket and sends the acknowledgement. Their system then creates a ticket from that acknowledgement and sends one back to us, which creates
                                  • validation rules doesn't work in Blueprint when it is validated using function?

                                    I have tried to create a validation rule in the deal module. it works if I try to create a deal manually or if I try to update the empty field inside a deal. but when I try to update the field via the blueprint mandatory field, it seems the validation
                                  • How to make rule to filter out some emails from receiving the notification "Receiving a new ticket"?

                                    Good Morning, We are currently using the "Receiving a new ticket" notification rule to provide that auto reply template to a customer that emails us for support. However, there are some emails we don't want to receive this auto-reply. Where can I set
                                  • Next Page