Revenue Management: #7 Revenue Recongition in Construction & Real Estate Industry

Revenue Management: #7 Revenue Recongition in Construction & Real Estate Industry

If you are in the construction or real estate business, you are used to long project timelines and progressive invoicing to keep up with your billing. But when does revenue get recognized? Will it happen when the contract gets signed? At different milestones or only at the end of the project? Each phase has its own pace, and the revenue needs to be tracked carefully throughout the end.


How do long-term projects and contract-driven businesses recognize revenue?   

Revenue Recognition Scenario in Construction & Real Estate

With long-term projects and multiple deliverables in place, construction and real estate businesses often stretch the process across months or even years. Revenue recognition in these industries is less about timing and more about progress.


Long-Term, Multi-Phase Projects

Construction projects often span many months or years. Recognizing revenue based solely on billing milestones (say 30% upfront, 40% midway, and 30% on completion) doesn't reflect the actual progress or value delivered. Companies must track and report revenue based on performance progress, not payment terms.


Example: $5,00,000 real estate development, $1,00,000 recognized after land acquisition, $2,00,000 during construction in progress and remaining during handover.

Percentage of Completion Method

This industry often uses the percentage of completion method, where revenue is recognized based on the cost incurred or work completed relative to the entire project. Misjudging this percentage can result in misstated finances.


Example: For a $1 million project, if 40% of the work is completed, $4,00,000 is recognized regardless of its payment terms.

Retainage Clauses

In construction, it's common for clients to withhold a portion of the contract until completion. Although the work is completed, the revenue may remain deferred depending on the contract terms.

Example: 10% of the $2,00,000 contract is retained as a deposit. That is, $20,000 will be kept as deferred revenue until completion.

Change Orders and Delayed Delivery

Projects might include design, foundation, electrical, plumbing, and landscaping. Each component might have a separate delivery schedule and must be tracked as a performance obligation. When the scope changes during the progress, companies must reassess the total contract value and the revenue allocation accordingly. On the other hand, if the project execution is postponed, all the revenue earned will remain deferred even if an upfront payment was made.


Example: If a client makes a $5,00,000 upfront payment but the work is delayed, the entire amount will stay in deferred revenue until the obligations are fulfilled.

Proper recognition in this space depends more on accurately tracking project progress and billing terms. It's hard for any business to track all these manually, as any deviation in this might lead to the risk of under- or over-recognition. Sometimes, automated recognition rules may not fit a construction contract, specifically when project timelines are uncertain, milestones don't follow a uniform schedule, or the scope frequently changes.

Businesses may prefer manual revenue recognition to mitigate the risk of miscalculation or inappropriate revenue recognition. This ensures revenue is recorded only when specific deliverables are actually completed.


Info

Scenario:

A construction company signs a $600,000 contract to build a commercial warehouse. The client pays the full payment upfront, but the contract specifies that revenue will only be recognized at key stages of the project completion and not based on the period.

Project stages are defined as:

  •  Site Preparation & Foundation: $100,000

  • Structural Framework: 30% of contract value

  • Roofing & Utilities Installations: 40% of the contract value

  • Interior Finishing & Handover over: Remaining balance


Revenue Recognition with Zoho Billing

Zoho Billing enables businesses like the one above to create flexible revenue recognition rules tied to the project progress and with several deliverables.


Companies rely on manual revenue recognition in most construction projects because project timelines and deliverables are often unpredictable. Manual recognition ensures revenue is recorded only when specific milestones are completed. Automated rules like the percentage of completed or scheduled milestones can still be configured where timelines are more predictable, but manual recognition remains the default approach in this industry. In such cases, rules don't need to be pre-configured; the revenue is recognized manually when the milestone is completed.

Reports in Zoho Billing

At the end of the project, recognition happens only at milestone completions based on the manual entry made by the project management team.


Recognised Revenue Report: 

Phases

Completion Date

Recognized Revenue

Site Preparation & Foundation

15/Jan/2025

$100,000

Structural Framework

10/Mar/2025

$180,000

Roofing & Utilities Installation

25/May/2025

$240,000

Interior Completion & Handover

30/Jul/2025

$80,000

Total Recognized

 

$600,000

 


Deferred Revenue Report: 

Month

Deferred Amount

Jan 2025

$500,000

Feb 2025

$500,000

Mar 2025

$320,000

Apr 2025

$320,000

May 2025

$80,000

Jun 2025

$80,000

Jul 2025

$0

 


Revenue Waterfall Report

Billing Date

Total Billed

Jan 2025

Feb 2025

Mar 2025

Apr 2025

May 2025

Jun 2025

Jul 2025

Recognized Revenue

Deferred Revenue

Jan 2025

$600,000

$100,000

$0

$180,000

$0

$240,000

$0

$80,000

$600,000

$0

 


Zoho Billing can efficiently handle change orders, as revenue is recognized manually (Manual Recognition Method). It also allows contract amendments and dynamic revenue reallocation based on project alignment.

Idea

Best Practices for Construction & Real Estate Firms' Revenue Recognition

  • Break Down Phases as Obligations: Identify architecture and construction as distinct deliverable components.
  • Use Percentage of Completion Metrics: Set the base recognition based on cost or time progress, not on the invoicing period.
  • Handle Change Orders: Adjust the revenue schedule dynamically when the scope of the project changes. 

      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

                                  • I'd like to suggest a feature enhancement for SalesIQ that would greatly improve the user experience across different channels.

                                    Hello Zoho Team, Current Limitation: When I enable the pre-chat form under Brands > Flow Controls to collect the visitor’s name and email, it gets applied globally across all channels, including WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. This doesn't quite align
                                  • Enhance Barcode/QR Code scanner with bulk scanning or continuously scanning

                                    Dear Zoho Creator, As we all know, after each scan, the scanning frame closes. Imagine having 100 items; we would need to tap 100 times and wait roughly 1 second each time for the scanning frame to reopen on mobile web. It's not just about wasting time;
                                  • Non-depreciating fixed asset

                                    Hi! There are non-depreciable fixed assets (e.g. land). It would be very useful to be able to create a new type of fixed asset (within the fixed assets module) with a ‘No depreciation’ depreciation method. There is always the option of recording land
                                  • Managing Rental Sales in Zoho Inventory

                                    I am aware that Zoho Inventory is not yet set up to handle rental sales and invoicing. Is anyone using it for rentals anyway? I'd like to hear about how others have found work arounds to manage inventory of rental equipment, rental payments, etc. Th
                                  • Megamenu

                                    Finally! Megamenu's are now available in Zoho-Sites, after waiting for it and requesting it for years! BUT ... why am I asked to upgrade in order to use a megamenu? First: Zoho promised to always provide premium versions and options for all included Zoho-applications
                                  • Cannot access KB within Help Center

                                    Im working with my boss to customize our knowledge base, but for some reason I can see the KB tab, and see the KB categories, but I cannot access the articles within the KB. We have been troubleshooting for weeks, and we have all permissions set up, customers
                                  • Zoho Flow to Creator 3001 Respoonse

                                    I have updated my Flows with the new V2 connection to Zoho Creator, but now some Flows do not work. They take in data from a Webhook and are supposed to create a record in Creator, however creator returns a 3001 message along with a failure, but I cannot
                                  • File Upload to Work Drive While Adding Records in Zoho Creator Application

                                    Hi I am trying to set a file attachment field in zoho creator form, to enable the user to upload a scanned document from their local pc. The file should be uploaded to zoho workdrive and not to the default zoho creator storage. The file link should be
                                  • Why not possible to generate?

                                    Using this https://desk.zoho.com/DeskAPIDocument#TicketCount#TicketCount_Getticketcountbyfield on my ZML script url :"https://desk.zoho.com/api/v1/ticketsCountByFieldValues?departmentId=XXXXXXXXXXX&accountId!=XXXXXXXXX&customField1=cf_country_1:XXXXXX&field=overDue"
                                  • email

                                    Hi My crm email is not working, can you check, I have zoho one account.
                                  • Need option to see Mass Emails & Cadences in Gmail Outbox OR a dedicated Zoho Outbox

                                    Hi everyone, Right now, when we send 1:1 emails from gmail (with gmail API connected to Zoho CRM), those emails appear both in gmail's sent folder and in Zoho CRM. That works well. But when we send Mass Emails or Cadence emails form Zoho CRM, they are
                                  • I can't found API for Sales Receipts

                                    Hello May you please help me to find an API document for Sales Receipts to get data and retrive a custom fields like Invoice and credit notes Regards
                                  • Kaizen #205 - Answering Your Questions | Managing Picklists and Enabling History Tracking via Zoho CRM APIs

                                    Hello everyone! Welcome back to another post in our Kaizen series. In this post, we will look at how you can manage picklist fields in Zoho CRM using APIs. This topic was raised as feedback to Kaizen #200, so we are taking it up here with more details.
                                  • Multiple Vendor SKUs

                                    One of the big concerns we have with ZOHO Inventory is lack of Vendor Skus like many other inventory software packages offer. Being able to have multiple vendor skus for the same product would be HUGE! It would populate the appropriate vendor Sku for
                                  • Internally created tickets

                                    Hi there When tickets are created internally on-behalf of customers - there is nothing to show that the ticket was created by an internal agent. This means, that it's easy for our agents to confuse tickets which were created by internal team members and
                                  • Automatically change website passwords

                                    Hi everyone, We just switched to a Professional package to also use the "Automatically change website passwords" function. But I cannot find anything about it, how to use it, anywhere. Does anyone know how I can use this function? Best, Caspar
                                  • Change Invoice Prices for an Effective Date

                                    Hi, It would be a really good feature to be able to change the prices on invoices/recurring invoices from an effective date in the event of price increases. For instance, I am in the process of increasing prices that will be effective from a specific
                                  • "Other Current Asset" accounts as "Paid Through" accounts in Expense

                                    It would be incredibly useful to be able to assign accounts of type Other Current Asset as Paid Through accounts in Expense. Currently, Other Current Liability are permitted as Paid Through Accounts. This makes sense, as Credit Cards are current liabilities.
                                  • Multi column open text questions that allows respondents to add rows for additional information

                                    I need to create a question that has 2 columns with open text, but I also need to allow respondents to click a "+" button, or something similar, so that they can add additional information if they choose to. I've tried using the Multiple Textboxes type
                                  • Bot Filtering & Apple Mail Privacy Protection Compliance in Zoho Campaigns

                                    Dear Campaigns Users, The wait is over! We’re excited to announce that the enhanced bot filtering feature is now live in Zoho Campaigns. This update brings greater accuracy to your email campaign reports by distinguishing real user engagement from automated
                                  • Découvrons les détails qui simplifient vos journées de travail avec Trident

                                    Nous nous installons dans des routines efficaces et rodées avec le temps. Chaque matin, nous ouvrons nos e-mails, passons aux messages, consultons notre agenda, puis attaquons nos tâches. Ce processus nous semble maîtrisé, mais est-il réellement optimisé
                                  • Issue with Purchase Rate Showing as “0” After Importing Items List

                                    Dear Zoho Books Support Team, Good day. I’m reaching out regarding an issue I’m facing while importing my items list into Zoho Books. Despite mapping all fields correctly and including the purchase price for each product in my Excel file, the Purchase
                                  • API for Task Entity in Zoho Books

                                    I’m working on automating task creation in Zoho Books via a custom button in the Bills Module. The goal is to create a task in the Tasks Module and assign it to the Finance Team, so they can track progress efficiently. While reviewing Zoho Books documentation,
                                  • create invoice in zoho books from the zoho forms

                                    Is there a native way to have create invoice in zoho books, when zoho form is completed?
                                  • Email undelivered

                                    GOod Day I am always receiving an uncategorized-bounce to my email. I am not sure why this is happening.
                                  • Add inventory_valuation_method to items endpooints

                                    To ensure consistent item creation it would be helpful to have the inventory_valuation_method (FIFO vs WAC) be able to be set at item creation or as an update (consistent with current behavior where it is not allowed for items with existing transactions)
                                  • Use Zoho to send sales receipts for Gocardless transactions

                                    I've been using gocardless for years and have d/d mandates set up on there. Each week we get bulk payments from customer d/d's. However, we need to send sales receipts to these customers. So I know I can sync mandates into Zoho, and then I can set up
                                  • Zoho - Gocardless sales receipts

                                    I've been using gocardless for years and have d/d mandates set up on there. Each week we get bulk payments from customer d/d's. However, we need to send sales receipts to these customers. So I know I can sync mandates into Zoho, and then I can set up
                                  • Introducing Rollup summary in Zoho CRM

                                    ------------------------------------------Moderated on 5th July'23---------------------------------------------- Rollup summary is now available for all organizations in all the DCs. Hello All, We hope you're well! We're here with an exciting update that
                                  • Introducing Connected Workflows in Zoho CRM for Everyone : Free Your Teams to Focus on What Matters

                                    Hello Everyone, We’re thrilled to introduce the next big evolution in Zoho CRM for Everyone -- Connected Workflows. This new feature builds on our commitment to deliver a CRM that’s truly inclusive, adaptable, and designed for consistent collaboration
                                  • Introducing Connected Records to bring business context to every aspect of your work in Zoho CRM for Everyone

                                    Hello Everyone, We are excited to unveil phase one of a powerful enhancement to CRM for Everyone - Connected Records, available only in CRM's Nextgen UI. With CRM for Everyone, businesses can onboard all customer-facing teams onto the CRM platform to
                                  • Cooling-off Period Just Got Better: More Coverage, More Control

                                    We’ve enhanced the Cooling-off Period feature in Zoho Recruit to give you more control over repeat applications and referrals. This helps you maintain a cleaner, more efficient recruitment pipeline. With this enhancement, you can: Prevent duplicate candidate
                                  • Revenue Management: #7 Revenue Recongition in Construction & Real Estate Industry

                                    If you are in the construction or real estate business, you are used to long project timelines and progressive invoicing to keep up with your billing. But when does revenue get recognized? Will it happen when the contract gets signed? At different milestones
                                  • TikTok (and other social platform) Messages and comments of the past

                                    When I link a social channel, Zoho will show in "Inbox", "Messages" and "Contact" sections the interaction done in the past? (comment, messages...)
                                  • Email Integration - Zoho CRM - OAuth and IMAP

                                    Hello, We are attempting to integrate our Microsoft 365 email with Zoho CRM. We are using the documentation at Email Configuration for IMAP and POP3 (zoho.com) We use Microsoft 365 and per their recommendations (and requirements) for secure email we have
                                  • How do I fix this? Unable to send message; Reason:554 5.1.8 Email Outgoing Blocked.

                                    How do I fix this? Unable to send message; Reason:554 5.1.8 Email Outgoing Blocked.
                                  • Restrict Employee mail deletion

                                    Dear Zoho, Is there a way where i can restrict my employees to delete any mails from their account
                                  • 554 5.1.8 Email Outgoing Blocked.

                                    Hi guys, I just singed up for mateusz.nowicki@zoho.com mail and I can't send any mails.. Why? Everytime I try to send something I got error like the one in the screenshot. Please, help me.
                                  • Zoho IP blocked by SpamHaus

                                    ERROR CODE :550 - 5.7.0 Your server IP address is in the SpamHaus SBL-XBL database, bye
                                  • File Upload in Creator's Subfrom

                                    Hello Sir/Madam, Here is a Problem......... Scenario: In CRM One Custom Module (Payments) have one File Upload Field now we have to Upload that File into Creator's Custom Form (Documents) have one Subform (Documents) in Document Upload Field using Deluge
                                  • Next Page