Revenue Management: #8 Revenue Recognition in Educational & Training Institutions

Educational Institutions and training centres typically collect course fees at the time of enrolment, sometimes for a one-day workshop and sometimes for a year-long certification course. You might also charge separately for course materials or evaluation. But when can you actually recognize that income? Would you be able to recognize it on payment? Spread it across the course period? What happens if a student cancels midway?

How do institutions manage revenue when learning is delivered over time?

Revenue Recognition Scenarios in Education & Training

Education institutions and training providers often deal with varying course durations, delivery models (online, in-person, hybrid), and fees collected upfront. Though the five-step revenue recognition model remains constant, the timing and allocation of revenue depend on the learning service's structure. Here are common revenue recognition scenarios for this industry:

Upfront Free for Long-Term Course

When a learner enrols in a course that runs for several months and pays the full fee in advance, the institution cannot recognize the entire amount immediately. Instead, the revenue should be spread out across the period the training is delivered.

Example: A $6000 certification course runs for 6 months. Revenue should be recognized at $1000 per month during the course period.

Short-Term Workshops & Seminars

For one-day or short-duration workshops, revenue can often be fully recognised once the sessions are delivered, assuming there is no refund window.

Example: A $500 weekend workshop is recognized on the day it occurs.

Course Materials & Exams

Institutions that charge separately for materials, exams, or certification must split those payments and recognize those amounts individually.

Example: $1200 total course fee, including $900 for training for three months and $300 for materials. Revenue should be recognized $300 upfront and $300/month for three months.

Cancellation, Refunds, and Attendance-Based Pricing

Refund policies and partial completions must be factored into recognition. If a student drops out after 1 month of a 3-month course, only one-third of the revenue should be recognized unless a refund is issued.

Example: A $900 course is cancelled after 1 month. You must recognize $300 and defer or refund the rest based on the policy. Credit note will be created, and the deferred $600 will be reversed to the customer as credits or issued a refund.

These scenarios show that educational institutions must align revenue with actual learning delivery and not merely based on fee collection. Automating this alignment avoids revenue overstatement and ensures compliance.

Scenario :

A training company signs up a student for a three-month Data Analytics certification program for a fee of $3000. The payment is made in full at the start. The course includes three months of training and $600 worth of course material.  

Zoho Billing for Education Institution Revenue Recognition

Zoho Billing enables learning platforms to automate revenue recognition by setting up roles that separately reflect course delivery and service components.

For the above scenario, you can configure the recognition rule as follows,

Component	Recognition Frequency	Recognition Method	Recognition Time
Course Material	Once	One-Time (Daily)	Period Start
Training Session	Monthly	Evenly Distributed	Period Start

 

Although $3000 is collected upfront, only $600 for the course material can be recognized immediately according to the performance obligation. The remaining $2400 will be spread evenly across the three-month training period.

Reports in Zoho Billing

i) Recognized Revenue Report

Two months into the course, the course material is delivered, and one month of training is pending.

Component	Recognized Revenue	Description
Course Material	$600	Recognized fully at the start
Training Session	$1600	out of $2400 for two months of training given
Total Recognized	$2200	Recognized in two months

 

ii) Deferred Revenue Report

After two months, it will be left with the training session payment alone as deferred.

Component	Deferred Amount
Course Delivery	$0
Training Session	$800
Total Deferred	$800

 

iii) Revenue Waterfall Report

Month	Course Material	Training Session	Total
Month 1	$600	$800	$1400
Month 2	----	$800	$800
Month 3	----	$800	$800
Total	$600	$2400	$3000

 

Best Practices for Education Institution Revenue Recognition

• Separate Instructional & Non-Instructional Items: Classify course material, training, certification, and exam components distinctly
• Align Revenue with Course Delivery: Ensure the recognition rule is set based on course delivery and that the revenue is recognized when the student receives the instruction.
• Set Return/Refund Policy Clearly: Establish a clear policy and terms to account for students who drop out or cancel courses after signing up.
  

 

Up Next: Revenue Recognition in Media & Publishing

• 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

• Windows 11 app ver 2.2.8

  I have been trialing Zoho Notes syncing between my PC and iphone. No problems with iphone but the Windows 64 bit app ver 2.2.8 was very buggy and would lock up completely, needing a Control Alt Delete etc to close it down. It seemed to be connected to

• Deluge Script: Onboarding → Access Form

  Hello everyone, Edit: Sorry, I think I put this topic in the wrong section. I’ve recently run into an issue that’s been giving me a bit of a headache for the past few weeks. Context: This is my first time using Deluge to create a script, but it’s not

• ZOHO BOOKS - EXCESSIVELY SLOW TODAY

  Dear Zoho Books This is not the first time but it seems to be 3 times per week now that the system is extremely slow. I work on Zoho Books 95% of my day so this is very frustrating. Zoho you need to do something about this. I have had my IT guy check

• Windows Device Authentication

  We have recently started using ManageEngine, and my boss saw a device management feature in the Zoho One directory. We thought it would either help give us more intergration into Zoho one through bringing ManageEngine services through Zoho one. Or, it

• How can I change spell check language?

  I cannot find the way to change spell check language. My "display language" is English, and I want to have the same one for Spell Check, but it is Russian!!! How can I change it? In one of your explanations you mentioned that I have to choose it from

• Mail is so slow - doesn't even work!

  Mail has been getting slower and slower - and today it's not even pulling up emails in either Inbox or Unread. This is beyond frustrating since email is a big part of business. Sent a request through the useless help portal - no response. Called the useless

• User marked as SPAMMER. Mail Fetch has also been disabled for any active POP accounts.

  I am the administrator for joelles.com One of our accounts has been blocked saying this: User marked as SPAMMER. Mail Fetch has also been disabled for any active POP accounts. I cannot change the disabled account in the control panel as it says that it

• My domain did not activate

  Hi, my domain (apsaindustrial.com.ar) did not activate, and the phone verification message never arrived. Please would you solve this problem? Thanks.

• ME SALE ESTE ERROR: No fue posible enviar el mensaje;Motivo:554 5.1.8 Email Outgoing Blocked

  Ayuda!! Me sale este error al intentar enviar mensajes desde mi correo electronico de Zoho! Tampoco recibo correos pues cuando me envia rebotan. Ayuda, Me urge enviar unos correo importantes!! Quedo atenta MAGDA HERNANDEZ +5731120888408

• Search Records returning different values than actually present

  Hey! I have this following line in my deluge script: accountSearch = zoho.crm.searchRecords("Accounts","(RS_Enroll_ID:equals:" + rsid + ")",1,200,{"cvid":864868001088693817}); info "Account search size: " + accountSearch.size(); listOfAccounts = zoho.crm.searchRecords("Accounts","(RS_Enroll_ID:equals:"

• Is there a way to sync Tags between CRM and Campaigns/Marketing Hub?

  I wonder if there is a way to synch the tags between CRM and Marketing-Hub / Campaigns?

• how to see if a specific contact opened an email in zoho campaign?

  how to see if a specific contact opened an email in zoho campaign?

• Zoho CRM Plain Text Template: Line Breaks and Formatting Issue

  Hello, I'm following the instructions to create email templates in Zoho CRM, but I'm having a problem with the plain text version. https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/zoho-sign/integrations/zoho-apps/zoho-crm/articles/zoho-crm-email-templates#Steps_to_create_a_custom_email_template

• 404 error at checkout

  Our customers are getting a 404 error at checkout. Anyone else with the same problem?

• Rich Text For Notes in Zoho CRM

  Hello everyone, As you know, notes are essential for recording information and ensuring smooth communication across your records. With our latest update, you can now use Rich Text formatting to organize and structure your notes more efficiently. By using

• Revenue Management: #8 Revenue Recognition in Educational & Training Institutions

  Educational Institutions and training centres typically collect course fees at the time of enrolment, sometimes for a one-day workshop and sometimes for a year-long certification course. You might also charge separately for course materials or evaluation.

• Zoho Desk: Ticket Owner Agents vs Teams

  Hi Zoho, We would like to explore the possibility of hiding the ‘Agents’ section within the Ticket Owner dropdown, so that we can fully utilise the ‘Teams’ dropdown when assigning tickets. This request comes from the fact that only certain agents and

• Custom Fonts in Zoho CRM Template Builder

  Hi, I am currently creating a new template for our quotes using the Zoho CRM template builder. However, I noticed that there is no option to add custom fonts to the template builder. It would greatly enhance the flexibility and branding capabilities if

• Clone a Module??

  I am giong to repurpose the Vendors module but would like to have a separate but very similar module for another group of contacts called Buyers. I have already repurposed Contacts to Sellers. Is it possible to clone (make a duplicate) module of Vendors

• How to Customize Task Creation to Send a Custom Alert Using JavaScript in Zoho CRM?

  Hello Zoho CRM Community, I’m looking to customize Zoho CRM to send a custom alert whenever a task is created. I understand that Zoho CRM supports client scripts using JavaScript, and I would like to leverage this feature to implement the alert functionality.

• how to use validation rules in subform

  Is it possible to use validation rules for subforms? I tried the following code: entityMap = crmAPIRequest.toMap().get("record"); sum = 0; direct_billing = entityMap.get("direct_billing_details"); response = Map(); for each i in direct_billing { if(i.get("type")

• Using files from Zoho CRM in Gemini/ChatGPT/Claude

  Hi all, I’ve got subscriptions to Gemini and a few other AI tools which I use for tasks like data enrichment, email composition, etc. In our workflow, we often receive various documents from clients — such as process workflows, BRDs/requirement documents

• Enhancements to the formula field in Zoho CRM: Auto-refresh formulas with the "Now" function, stop formula executions based on criteria, and include formulas within formulas

  Dear Customers, We hope you're well! By their nature, modern businesses rely every day on computations, whether it's to calculate the price of a product, assess ROI, evaluate the lifetime value of a customer, or even determine the age of a record. With

• Maximum file limit in zoho people LMS

  Dear Team, I am having approximately 4.9 GB of material, including PPTs and videos for uploading in zoho people LMS course. May I know what is the maximum limit limit for the course files Thanking you, With regards, Logeswar V Executive _ Operations

• Shared inbox unable to see replies

  Hi we are a small company me and someone else, we have a shared inbox for our sale@ and contact@ however we have this issue where by if i reply to an email or the other person reply to the email, it does not show it to them and therefore we end up replying

• Displaying related quotes in sales order and back

  Hi, My colleague liked to see to which sales orders, the quote has been converted. Quote shows Invoices, but not SO. Same, they would like to see the quotes in the sales order, as they can see invoices, packages, shipment, How can we achieve this ? Thank

• automations: Can I execute a step on a specific date?

  I have created a form in Zoho forms, and created a contacts list. I have also begun setting up an automation with the intention of sending the form to the contact list on a specific date every month (via email) for the entire year (essentially sending

• Dynamically prefill ticket fields

  Hello, I am using Zoho Desk to collect tickets of our clients about orders they placed on our website. I would like to be able to prefill two tickets fields dynamically, in this case a readonly field for the order id, and a hidden field for the seller

• Optimize your Knowledge Base for better visibility by allowing search engine crawling and indexing

  All you need to know about no-follow and no-index in KB. What are article crawlability and indexability? Crawlability and indexability are vital for making an article visible and accessible to search engines. When a search engine crawls an article, it

• Has anyone created a public ASAP Guide that I can check out?

  I am thinking of adding an ASAP guide to my web application, but I have noticed that the ASAP widget itself can be really slow to load sometimes. Has anyone created a public ASAP Guide that I can check to see how performant it is? I don't want to spend

• Zoho Desk Partners with Microsoft's M365 Copilot for seamless customer service experiences

  Hello Zoho Desk users, We are happy to announce that Zoho Desk has partnered with Microsoft's M365 to empower customer service teams with enhanced capabilities and seamless experiences for agents. Microsoft announced their partnership during their keynote

• What’s New in Zoho Analytics – September 2025

  Hello Users!! In this month’s update, we’re raising the bar across multiple touchpoints, from how you bring in data, plan and track projects to how you design and brand your dashboards. We’ve added the all-new Gantt chart for project visualization, expanded

• Zoho MCP has no tools for Creator or 3rd Party Apps?

  I don't see a Zoho MCP community forum so putting this here. Two big problems I see: 1) Although Zoho advertises "over 950 3rd party apps" as available through their MCP, when I go to "Add Tools" there are ZERO 3rd party apps available to choose from.

• Systematic SPF alignment issues with Zoho subdomains

  Analysis Period: August 19 - September 1, 2025 PROBLEM SUMMARY Multiple Zoho services are causing systematic SPF authentication failures in DMARC reports from major email providers (Google, Microsoft, Zoho). While emails are successfully delivered due

• Zoho Forms - Zoho Drive connection - Shared Drives not supported

  Hello i am stuck with Google Drive Connection There is no supported shared drives Connection is not support shared drives boolean Query Parameters - supportsAllDrives=true&supportsTeamDrives=true to activate fetch files from the shared drives. Ahat need

• Apply Advance option not shown in report

  We are facing an issue in Zoho Expenses. While approving an Expense Report, the "Apply Advance" option is not appearing under the three dots (More Options). Details: Module: Expense Reports Issue: "Apply Advance" option not visible Status of Report: Awaiting

• Introducing Profile Summary: Faster Candidate Insights with Zia

  We’re excited to launch Profile Summary, a powerful new feature in Zoho Recruit that transforms how you review candidate profiles. What used to take minutes of resume scanning can now be assessed in seconds—thanks to Zia. A Quick Example Say you’re hiring

• Can't create package until Bill created?

  I can't understand why we cannot create a package until a Bill is created? We are having to created draft Bills to create a package when the item is received, but we may not have received a Bill from the supplier. Also, Bill # is required, but we normally

• Whats the Time out Limit for API Calls from Deluge?

  Hi Creator Devs, We are making API calls to third party server via Deluge. Getting this error message: Error at line : 24, The task has been terminated since the API call is taking too long to respond. Please try again after sometime. Whats the default

• Community Digest Agosto 2025 - Todas las novedades en Español Zoho Community

  ¡Hola, Zoho Community! Agosto llega a su fin y septiembre nos trae aire fresco a la comunidad: más inteligencia con IA, actualizaciones que elevan la productividad y la recta final hacia Zoholics España 2025. Aquí tienes lo más destacado del mes para

• Next Page