Revenue Management: #2 How to compute revenue?

Revenue Management: #2 How to compute revenue?

 

In our previous post, we discussed the revenue recognition standards under IFRS 15 and ASC 606 and the five-step model. Now, let's examine three distinct business scenarios to see how the standards and model work in practice. This will help you understand the timeline and values, as well as the challenges that lie behind them. 


Scenario 1: One-time Product/Service Delivery

Imagine a custom furniture maker who takes an order in January and is paid $5000 up front for a handcrafted wall hanging that will be delivered in March. Applying the five-step logic from the previous post, the performance obligation here is fulfilled only when the wall hanging is delivered. That means the $5000 sits on the balance sheet as unearned/deferred revenue until March (promised delivery), and computation for a one-time product or service is simple. Record $5000 as recognized revenue in March in one short.

Service

Handcrafted Wall Hanging

Month

Deferred Revenue

Recognized Revenue

January

$5000

$0

February

$5000

$0

March

$0

$5000

 

Scenario 2: Subscription-based Services

Let's picture an online training application that charges $120 for a 12-month training, paid upfront in January. The seller's obligation is to provide sessions once a month. The computation here is straightforward. $120 / 12 = $10 per month. Recognition happens each month as the service is delivered throughout the subscribed period.

Service

Online Training Application

Months

Deferred Revenue

Recognized Revenue

January

$110

$10

February

$100

$20

March

$90

$30

April

$80

$40

May

$70

$50

June

$60

$60

July

$50

$70

August

$40

$80

September

$30

$90

October

$20

$100

November

$10

$110

December

$0

$120

 

Scenario 3: Hybrid Model

Consider a marketing agency that sells a $5000 package made up of two components: a $2000 website redesign, which will be completed in two months, and $3000 of social media management spread across six months. Under the five-step approach, there are two obligations, and while recognizing the revenue, recognize each portion as its obligation is satisfied.


While computing, $2000 is recognized fully in the second month as and when the website goes live, and $3000 will be divided for the six months and recognized at $500 per month. 

Service

Website Redesign

Social Media Management

Months

Deferred Revenue

Recognized Revenue

Deferred Revenue

Recognized Revenue

January

$2000

$0

$2500

$500

February

$0

$2000

$2000

$1000

March

 

 

$1500

$1500

April

 

 

$1000

$2000

May

 

 

$500

$2500

June

 

 

$0

$3000

 

The Real Challenge in Revenue Recognition

While these examples are easy to follow individually, businesses rarely operate with just one recognition rule or pattern. A software company might bill monthly for some services and yearly for others, and sell one-off onboarding sessions. A manufacturer might deliver large contracts in milestones while earning recurring revenue for maintenance contracts.

So, a single business may have a recognition period that is monthly, yearly, or sometimes quarterly. One can recognise revenue at the start of a specific service, and the other may decide to do it at the end of the period.   
AlertDifferent recognition periods, billing cycles, start and end dates, upgrades and downgrades, and other contract amendments can easily make revenue recognition a nightmare for business stakeholders.
That's why businesses use revenue management tools like Zoho Billing to automate the calculation and gain accurate, detailed, and meaningful insights. These tools encapsulate the five-step model framework into repeatable calculations, so every contract is treated consistently and in compliance with global standards.

The next post'll show how a revenue management tool helps you configure recognition settings and turn these computations into audit-ready reports. 



    • 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

    Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


      • Recent Topics

      • Send Email Directly to Channel

        Hi, We are coming from Slack. In Slack each channel has a unique Email address that you can send emails too. I currently forward a specific type of email from my Gmail InBox directly do this channel for Verification Codes so my team doesn't have to ask
      • Secure your external sharing process with OTP Authentication

        For any business, it's crucial to share files externally in a way that is both secure and controlled. Let's say you want to share confidential data with your partners and vendors. You must ensure that only your intended recipients can access the shared
      • Items attribute questions

        Many of my items have attributes, such as size and color. How can I add new fields to the "New Items" screen to capture that in my Purchase Orders, Items, and Sales Order pages? I only see these attribute fields when adding an Item Group. Also, on the
      • Is there a way to search mail for items you haven't yet responded to?

        I'm trying to create a search to show emails that haven't been responded to and that have also been assigned a tag or label. Is there a way to search for the inverse of replied?
      • Zobot and Sales IQ

        What will happen to the Zoho Sales IQ being integrated to the website after creating the Zobot on the website too
      • Subtotals per Header

        Hey, we would like to display subtotals per header in our invoices:
      • upgrade storage

        how to upgrade my storage
      • Linking items from books and subscription

        Linking books and subscription It is a pity that it is not possible to associate with a product an article present in ZohoBooks This would make it possible to manage products composed of a nomenclature of articles of books
      • Add the ability to view number of hours planned for a workorder while in the Dispatch Console

        Hi Zoho, When dispatching a work order through the Dispatch Console, there's currently no way to view the number of planned hours for the service tasks associated with that specific work order. Having to click into the details each time to check planned
      • Uploading Files from uploads api

        I tried uploading the image from the API call but its giving me unauthorized error even i have given valid token in header. After uploading i need that id to pass in create ticket api uploads but its not uploading that file. Please help me out in th
      • Categorize Items with Item Headers

        Hello customers, Did you ever want to classify items based on specific categories to help your customers understand your invoice better? With the new Item Header feature, you can easily categorize items in your invoices and estimates and give them a common title.  Item Headers are available in the Invoices, the Recurring Invoices and the Estimates module. It can be carried forward from estimates to invoices at the time of converting the estimates.  To add an item header: Go to the Estimates, Invoices
      • URLs being masked despite disabling tracking

        Hey, We had disabled click tracking from an email update we are sharing with our users. Despite this, the URL the end user is receiving is masked, and looks like "https://qksyl-cmpzourl.maillist-manage.net/click/1d8e72714515cda6/1d8e72714515ca70" instead
      • Change format of quantity format

        Hi,  I would like to change the qunatity format from 1,00 to 1.  Is this possible?   thanks!
      • square up and Zoho books

        Since we set up the app connection between square up and Zoho books we have realised that when the amounts are getting transferred Zoho is adding VAT again making the numbers 20% more than they should be. We have checked our settings and they VAT/ Tax
      • How to provide Access rights to specific Bank accounts

        We have several bank accounts. I want to provide certain members access to only 2-3 accounts. It appears that when I give permissions, they are for ALL bank accounts. How do I do that?
      • Errors Getting a Bank Transaction

        Using Postman(for testing), I am receiving errors when attempting to get a single bank transaction. I am able to receive the list of bank transactions with https://www.zohoapis.com/books/v3/banktransactions/?organization_id={org_id} but when I try to
      • Subscriptions Plans and CRM Products Integration?

        Is there any way to set up plans and pricing in Zoho Subscriptions and have those available as Products in the CRM? We are trying to set up the CRM and the Products seem to be more geared toward selling products that are not subscription based.  So if we sell annual or monthly contracts which are $10/seat/month, I can set this up as a plan in Subscriptions, but how can I set the same thing up in the CRM for the salespeople to sell/quote? What is the best practice for setting up the CRM Products to
      • Mapping Zoho Subscription Plans and Products to CRM and Books

        We have products that are one time products and subscription products.   1) We would like to have the ability to create an opportunity in CRM that includes both one-time charge products and subscription products.  Currently the only way of creating a subscription product is by defining a "Product->Plan" hierarchy in Zoho Subscription.  It appears that the only SYNC between Subscription and CRM is around contacts and the Product->Plan hierarchy doesn't sync to CRM, thus, you would need a duplicate
      • Zoho People Attendance Module - Split Shifts

        Hello, Our business employs a number of college students who often split their workdays between work hours and class schedules, resulting in split shifts. For example: Employee 1 works 9am to 11:30am and then leaves for class, returning to work at 3pm
      • Bulk update fields based on date

        Hi! I need all the quotes with "Quote Stage" set to "Next Year" to update to "Draft" every January 8 (every year). Can you help?
      • Target for a campaign

        Hi, Hope you can help me. I need to create a report (for a marketing campaign) that combines Deals and Contacts to export all the contacts with closed deals. I can easily do that, what I cannot do is to remove from the target the contacts that have more
      • Zoho Desk + Jira integration - Email notifications and comments posted by administrator instead of real user

        Dear All, I set up the integration under my admin account, and now when users leave comments in Jira (to created tickets in Zoho Desk), the email notifications show that the ‘Administrator’ left a comment, not a real user. The same happens in the ticket
      • Celebrating the power of visuals

        On World Photography Day, we would like to highlight the power of visuals in customer service. Visuals promote learning and understanding in less time. A photograph can rekindle a memory, convey more than words, and give a fresh perspective. How does
      • Customer address in Zoho Bookings

        Hello,  Is it possible to add customer address information to the Zoho bookings appointment screen? Or have it pull that information automatically from the CRM? We are wanting to use this as a field management software but it is difficult to pull the address from multiple sources when it would be ideal to have a clickable address on the appointment screen that opens up the user's maps.  It would also be advantageous for the "list view" to show appointment times instead of just duration and booking
      • Blocking / black listing customers

        Hi, We have a situation, we observed that certain customers are blocking multiple appointments with our advsiors but not showing up. Some of these are repeat offenders. This leads to those service hours getting blocked and not available for genuine customers.
      • Option to block bookings from specific email address or ip adresss in zoho booking

        Sometime few of our client keep booking irrelevant booking service just to resolve their queries and they keep booking it again and again whenever they have queries. Currently its disturbing our current communication process and hierarchy which we have
      • Feature Request: Email Templates for notifications accross all services

        Currently in Zoho Bookings, email notifications (such as booking confirmations, reminders, and cancellations) must be customized individually for each service. This becomes time-consuming and error-prone when managing multiple services that require consistent
      • Allow customers to choose meeting venue and meeting duration on booking page

        My business primarily involves one-to-one meetings with my clients. Given the hybrid-work world we now find ourselves in, these meetings can take several forms (which I think of as the meeting "venue"): In-person Zoom Phone call I currently handle these
      • Approval-based booking with Zoho Creator and Zoho Bookings

        Hi community members, We have developed a workaround for approval-based booking using Zoho Creator and Zoho Bookings! This provides a temporary solution as we work on the native feature, and it's useful for anyone needing an approval workflow when confirming
      • Member Accounts in Related List

        Hi Team, Currently, when a parent account is associated with an account in FSM, there is no related list displaying the associated member accounts under the parent account’s related list section. To view member accounts, I have to manually search using
      • how do i remove a specific Zoho Service from my account

        I no longer need Zoho CRM, ZRM Assist nor ZRM BugTracker. How do I remove them from the list of apps for my account?
      • I Want migarte all invoice details to zoho sheets

        I want to migrate all existing invoice details to Zoho Sheet, and automatically update the sheet whenever a new invoice is created.
      • were can i find my invoices i need this for my accountant

        were can i find my invoices i need this for my accountant, how can i get id direct to my email?
      • ONLY email field not populating Writer fillable document (randomly)

        I have a Zoho Writer fillable document that has pulled all my data from my Zoho Sheets file, EXCEPT the email column. It pulled every data before and after that column with no issues. Screenshots attached. It's not my first time using the app or the feature,
      • My number is marked as spam

        Hello Zoho Mail Support, My phone number was incorrectly flagged as “spam” during sign-up. This is my personal number, and I have not engaged in any spam activities. Kindly review and verify my account so I can proceed with my email setup. Thanks.
      • Personnalisation des paramètres dans Zoho Mail

        Pourquoi cela compte-t-il ? La personnalisation des paramètres dans Zoho Mail permet aux administrateurs de configurer l’environnement de messagerie en fonction des besoins spécifiques de leur organisation. Que ce soit pour alléger l’interface pour certaines
      • How To Save Data Into Zoho CRM Sandbox

        Hi Community, I want to save data into my zoho sandbox , for this I am using this api endpoint - https://www.zohoapis.com/crm/v8/Patients but I am getting this error - { "success": false, "message": "Zoho API request failed", "error": { "code": "INVALID_MODULE",
      • Automate pushing Zoho CRM backups into Zoho WorkDrive

        Through our Zoho One subscription we have both Zoho CRM and Zoho WorkDrive. We have regular backups setup in Zoho CRM. Once the backup is created, we are notified. Since we want to keep these backups for more than 7 days, we manually download them. They
      • Question about retrieving unsubscribed contacts (outside of lists) via API

        Hello, I am currently using Zoho Marketing Automation and would like to integrate it with our company’s core system. For this purpose, I am exploring the API options available to retrieve contact information. Specifically, I would like to know if there
      • Getting “mandatory field missing: Service_Line_Items” When Creating Work Order via Zoho Flow Deluge

        Hi Team, I’m trying to create a Work Order in Zoho FSM with only a Service Line Item (no Parts). However, I keep getting this error: Work Order Response: {"code":"MANDATORY_NOT_FOUND","details":{"api_name":"Service_Line_Items"},"message":"required field
      • Next Page