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.
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.
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.
Different 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.
Topic Participants
Hari Hara Sudhan. S
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'sCommunity 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 youCommunity 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 mostIntroducing: 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
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 bookingOrganize and manage PDFs with Zoho PDF Editor's dashboard
Hello users, Zoho PDF Editor's dashboard is a one-stop place to upload, sort, share PDF files, and more. This article will explore the various capabilities that Zoho PDF Editor's dashboard offers. A few highlights of Zoho PDF Editor's dashboard: UploadFeature Request - Allow Customers To Pick Meeting Duration
Hi Bookings Team, It would be great if there was an option to allow customers to pick a duration based on a max and minimum amount of time defined by me and in increments defined by me. For example, I have some slots which are available for customersNew feature: Invite additional guests for your bookings
Hello everyone, Greetings from Zoho Bookings! We are happy to announce the much-awaited feature Guest Invite, which enhances your booking experience like never before. This feature allows additional participants to be invited for the bookings to makeChanging the owner of a call
Am I correct in my conclusion that I cannot change the owner of a call in Zoho? The field does not show up in the screen, nor can I make it show up as the systems does not give me that option. I cannot "mass update" it either. I tried it, but Zoho refuses to change the name of the owner. Please help out: how do I change the owner of a call.Unified Notes View For Seamless Collaboration
To facilitate better coordination among different departments and team members, the notes added to a record can now be accessed in all its associated records. With this, team members, from customer service representatives to field technicians, can easilyRemove Profiles from "Forecast" Module
How can I remove Profiles from My forecast Module? Image Below The only revenue generators are the VP's, and the Estimation Managers, and the Estimators subordinate to the Est. Managers. How can I remove the unused Profiles? Its frustrating to see themIntegrate Excel or Zoho Sheet functions / calculations to CRM product module
Hello Community, I hope someone more experienced can help me with this question. Our price / payment plan calculations are in an Excel spreadsheet and I would like to use all those functions / calculations in my Products module. So when we send a quoteSync CRM Contacts to USER'S contacts on Office 365
I can see that the O365 sync is transferring contacts backwards and forwards between Zoho CRM and Office365. But it has created a separate address book in Office 365 called "Zoho CRM Contacts". This address book is not used by Office/Outlook's email functionUplifted homepage experience
Editions: All editions. Availability update: 17th February 2026: All editions in the CA and SA DC | JP DC (Free, Standard and Professional editions) 23 February 2026: JP (All Editions) | AU, CN (Free, Standard, Professional editions) 27 February 2026:Logging Out of FSM
I have tried to log out of FSM app of the last person and it will not let me do so. I need to log in to my account.Restoring records from the recycle bin programatically
Background I'm working on a piece of software to automate conversion of Leads into Deals based on order status from my company's website. The process is mostly complete, right now I'm just working on handling a few edge cases to ensure data integrity.Does Zoho Learn integrate with Zoho Connect,People,Workdrive,Project,Desk?
Can we propose Zoho LEarn as a centralised Knowledge Portal tool that can get synched with the other Zoho products and serve as a central Knowledge repository?All new Address Field in Zoho CRM: maintain structured and accurate address inputs
Availability Update: 29 September 2025: It's currently available for all new sign-ups and for existing Zoho CRM orgs which are in the Professional edition exclusively for IN DC users. 2 March 2026: Available to users in all DCs except US and EU DC. LatestCreate static subforms in Zoho CRM: streamline data entry with pre-defined values
Last modified on (9 July, 2025): This feature was available in early access and is currently being rolled out to customers in phases. Currently available for users in the the AU, CA, and SA DCs. It will be enabled for the remaining DCs in the next coupleSalesIQ Identity Update for Logged In Wordpress User
Hey folks, SalesIQ does not automatically detect when a visitor logs in to WordPress and update their identity to match. For example, if a client of ours visits the site and logs in, SalesIQ will not track them correctly by default. The Solution The solutionFeature Request – Conditional Visitor Information Request in Zoho SalesIQ
We would like to request the ability to conditionally ask for visitor details based on the communication channel used in Zoho SalesIQ. Specifically: When a visitor initiates a conversation through the live chat widget on the website, we want to continueZoho Sign Not Delivering
I have sent several contracts out via Zoho Sign. They do not seem to be getting delivered. I had one person receive it, but the others have not. I had one person tell me they sent it back to me and never got it and doesn't show as signed. I've sentAdd zoho calendar to google calendar
Hi I keep seeing instructions on how to sync Zoho CRM calendar with google calendar but no instructions on how to view Zoho calendar in my google calendar.Promote a layout to standard so I can delete one layout
Similar to this and many other topics: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/set-layout-as-standard The problem, every model has a standard layout, which is what we use most of the time... But as the business grows and evolves we may have toWorkdrive on Android - Gallery Photo Backups
Hello, Is there any way of backing up the photos on my android phone directly to a specific folder on Workdrive? Assuming i have the workdrive app installed on the phone in question. EmmaAuto sync Photo storage
Hello I am new to Zoho Workdrive and was wondering if the is a way of automatically syncing photos on my Android phone to my workdrive as want to move away from Google? ThanksIs anyone experience missing functions in the new UI until hard refresh?
The set of functions including search is almost always missing upon loading an app in the new UI. If you refresh, the functions return. (see second screenshot) Anyone else experiencing this?Conversion Rate – Won Deals over Assigned Prospects
Hello, I would like assistance configuring a KPI in Zoho Analytics titled: Objective of the calculation: Number of Won Deals divided by Total number of assigned prospects (not only converted prospects). Important clarification: The denominator must includeNot receiving New Ticket Emails
Hello! The company I work for uses the Zoho ticketing system, however, I've noticed I'm not receiving email notifications when new tickets are published. I have admin rights to see these tickets on Zoho Desk and respond to them, but am not receiving theCan't update a field on a parent form from a child form's On Success workflow
Title: Can't update a field on a parent form from a child form's On Success workflow Hi everyone, I'm building a simple Golf Lesson Tracker app and I'm stuck on what should be a basic operation — updating a number field on a parent form when a child formApprovals in Zoho Creator
Hi, This is Surya, in one of my creator application I have a form called job posting, and I created an approval process for that form. When a user submits that form the record directly adding to that form's report, even it is in the review for approval.Upload from Zoho Creator File Upload field to OpenAI Vector Store
I’ve struggled for quite a while to get this working properly. For a long time we relied on Azure Functions as a workaround to handle file transfers between Zoho Creator and OpenAI Vector Stores. It worked, but added unnecessary infrastructure and complexity.Allow Admin to Configure Report > More Options Button
As an Admin, I want to configure the options of the Report > More Options button to improve UX and reduce Developer overhead. See attached screenshot. Original question posted here: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/modify-standard-repCalendar start time limit
Hi all, Has anyone found a magical way to filter calendar reports to start from, let's say 8:00, and not 0:00? Or at least to auto scroll there like Google Calendar for example?Enable Free External Collaboration on Notecards in Zoho Notebook
Hi Zoho Notebook Team, I would like to suggest a feature enhancement regarding external collaboration in Zoho Notebook. Currently, we can share notes with external users, and they are able to view the content without any issue. However, when these externalEU Problem
Hi all, we've been facing issues with the Europe data center for two days. It's starting to disrupt our daily workflow. Any word on when this will be resolved?How can I clone my website in order to try new templates?
I want to try a new template for my existing Zoho website without the risk of changing the current site or accidentally publishing the wrong template. Therefore I thought a 'clone website'-option should be somewhere, but I can't find it. How do I tryIs it possible to update multiple work items at once?
Hi, Is it possible to update the statuses/release tags of multiple work items at once? I came across this thread that says it's not possible at the moment, but it was related to the Sprints mobile app. Does this feature not exist in the website as well?Custom Module Missing from Roles & Permissions List
Hi Zoho Community, I created a new Custom Module in Zoho Expense. The module is fully built and I can see it in the Module Builder (Settings > Customization > Modules). However, I am unable to deploy this to my users because the module does not appearNeed Customer Item Inward Module along with QC
Need Customer Item Inward Module along with QC 1. Using Transfer Orders hit the item balance sheet 2. Items without inventory it becomes difficult for tracking purpose. 3. Custom Modules become tedious to capture multiple items, item subforms are notZoho CRM Quotes – Subform and PDF/Writer Limitations
Hello, I am encountering the following limitations in Zoho CRM Quotes: Custom product images cannot be uploaded in the subform – the image upload field cannot be added; only the file upload field is available. File upload placeholders cannot be used inApple Messages for Business in Omnichannel communications?
Hello, Apple launched "Apple Messages for Business" but Zoho CRM or Zoho Desk don't appear in the list of possible integrators. Zoho already promotes https://www.zoho.com/crm/omnichannel.html Omni Channel integration, but Apple Messages does not yet appear.Possible to Turn Off Automatic Notifications for Approvals?
Hello, This is another question regarding the approval process. First a bit of background: Each of our accounts is assigned a rank based on potential sales. In Zoho, the account rank field is a drop-down with the 5 rank levels and is located on the accountWill be possible to create a merge mail template for products?
Hi, we would need to create a mail merge template for products (native) module. Will be possibile? or do you have a smart solutions to merge products data with a mail merge? thanks ChrisNext Page