Revenue Management: #5 Revenue Recognition in SaaS
If you're building or running a SaaS business, you've probably encountered this. You get paid upfront for a subscription and a one-time onboarding fee, but you end up with confusion about when to consider it revenue. Can I book all of it now? Should I spread it out? What if the customer upgrades or downgrades midway?
How do SaaS companies manage revenue recognition and stay compliant?
Revenue Recognition Scenarios in SaaS
In the world of SaaS, a business's billing of its customers has a direct impact on how and when it recognizes revenue. While the five-step model stays the same, the application varies significantly depending on the contract structure, billing frequency, and delivery pattern. Below are the common real-world scenarios that define these differences.
Annual Contract Paid Upfront
Most SaaS companies bill customers annually or quarterly in advance. However, accounting standards do not permit revenue to be recognized when cash is received. Instead, the revenue must be recognized over time, as the service is delivered.
For example, a $12,000 annual contract with $1000 onboarding. $1000 will be recognized immediately during billing, and $11,000 is spread across 12 months.
Monthly Billing
Customers pay monthly for access. There is typically no deferred revenue, and revenue is recognized in the same month the service is delivered.
Example: $500 per month subscription recognized monthly as it is earned.
Bundled Pricing
A typical SaaS contract might include platform access, onboarding, training and support as a part of the contract that gets billing as a bundle. According to ASC 606 and IFRS 15, these are separate performance obligations. The business must allocate revenue to each and recognize it based on how and when each is fulfilled.
Example: A $10,000 contract includes $2000 for setup, $6000 for software access, and $2000 for support. Revenue is recognized based on the timeline of each deliverable.
Amendments & Discounts
Customers often switch plans mid-cycle, receive promotional pricing, or get billed based on the actual usage. These changes introduce variable consideration and require contract modification, revenue reallocation, and recalculations for the remaining service term.
Example: A new allocation and recognition schedule must be set up if a customer moves from a $1000/month plan to a $1500/month plan mid-year.
Usage Based or Tiered Pricing
Some businesses charge based on consumption. For instance, API usage, user access, data storage, etc., they charge the customer again as and when the upper cap is met. This means revenue cannot be recognized until the service is used. Businesses must track usage data and apply the prorated or usage-based revenue rule to stay compliant.
Example: $0.10 per API call. If a customer makes 10,000 calls in March, $1000 is recognized in that month.
These scenarios illustrate the diverse billing models in SaaS and their direct impact on revenue recognition timing. Businesses that manage multiple pricing plans, onboarding services, or usage billing must ensure their recognition strategy aligns with the service delivery. This is where automation becomes critical.
Scenario:You sign an annual contract worth $1,20,000 with a client. The client pays the full amount upfront. The contract includes $20,000 onboarding and $1,00,000 for uninterrupted access to the software for 12 months.
Zoho Billing for SaaS Revenue Recognition
Zoho Billing simplifies SaaS revenue recognition by allowing the finance team to define a recognition rule based on the product or service offered.
For this kind of business, the Revenue recognition rule should be set in the following way:
There are two deliverables here: one is Onboarding, and the other is software access.
| For onboarding | For Software Access |
Recognition Frequency | Once | Monthly |
Recognition Method | One-Time (Daily) | Evenly Distributed |
Recognition Time | Period Start | Period End |
Although the full payment is collected in advance, you cannot recognize the entire $1,20,000 as revenue immediately. Only the onboarding revenue of $20,000 is recognized in the first month. The remaining $1,00,000 must be recognized evenly over 12 months at $8,333 monthly.
Reports in Zoho Billing
If you look at the reports in Zoho Billing after three months of service rendering, you will see,
i) Recognized Revenue Report
Onboarding is complete three months into the contract, and three out of 12 months of application access have been delivered.
Component | Recognized Revenue | Description |
Onboarding | $20,000 | Fully recognized in Month 1 |
Software Access | $25,000 | $8333/month for 3 months out of ($1,00,000) |
Total Recognized | $45,000 | Recognized at the end of 3 months |
ii) Deferred Revenue Report
After three months, the company will have nine months of software access remaining.
Component | Deferred Amount |
Software Access | $75,000 (9 months x $8333) |
Total Deferred | $75000 |
iii) Revenue Waterfall Report
Months | Onboarding | Software Access | Total |
Month 1 | $20,000 | $8,333 | $28,333 |
Month 2 | ----- | $8,333 | $8,333 |
Month 3 | ----- | $8,333 | $8,333 |
Month 4 (upcoming) | ----- | $8,333 | $8,333 |
Month 5 (upcoming) | ----- | $8,333 | $8,333 |
Month 6 (upcoming) | ----- | $8,333 | $8,333 |
Month 7 (upcoming) | ----- | $8,333 | $8,333 |
Month 8 (upcoming) | ----- | $8,333 | $8,333 |
Month 9 (upcoming) | ----- | $8,333 | $8,333 |
Month 10 (upcoming) | ----- | $8,333 | $8,333 |
Month 11 (upcoming) | ----- | $8,333 | $8,333 |
Month 12 (upcoming) | ----- | $8,333 | $8,333 |
Best Practices for SaaS Revenue Recognition
- Disaggregate Contract Elements: Break down your subscriptions, onboarding, support, and other one-off deliverables as separate individual obligations.
- Use Automated Rules: Configure a Recognition Rule based on the billing method and avoid tracking them manually.
- Handle Modifications: Plan changes and upgrades should trigger reallocation of revenue.
- Monitor Revenue Waterfall: Visual schedules ensure predictable reporting and forecasting.
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'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
Call transcrition working for ringcentral?
I don't see anything about what telephony providers can be used. The Zoho support person A said that RingCentral isn't supported. Zoho support person B said that it works, just make sure the call recording link works. Excellent instructions here: CallZoho Analytics - Feature Request For Time Based Data Source Fetch
Hi Analytics Team, I have a client using Zoho CRM and they want a weekly report at 4:30pm every Friday, emailed to the sales team showing a pie chart of Closed Won Deals for that week. This is easy to achieve in Analytics but not so easy to ensure theUsers Name & Email in Reports
Hi, I would like to show the Users Name from their Zoho Acount in All Entries/Reports as well as the current Account Email. Thanks DanAI generated meeting notes associated to Account or Deal
As our organization works to improve efficiency we are looking for a solution to leverage AI to generate meeting notes and then add those notes to a CRM record such as an Account or Deal. I see Zoho has a Notebook AI offering that talks about the abilityZero Personalization of the File Sharing Experience
By now (2025) this is the maximum level of personalization available for a Zoho sharing link. We gently asked Zoho if we could modify at least the background, and they replied that it cannot be customized. We're truly disappointed – and surprised everyLead to Contact Conversion with multiple email address fields
We are a B2C business with a strong repeat cycle, and as such it's not uncommon for customers to use multiple email addresses with us. We have both our Contacts & Leads modules set up with 3 email fields. (Primary Email / Secondary Email / Historic Email)Introducing Dark Mode / Light Mode : A New Look For Your CRM
Hello Users, We are excited to announce a highly anticipated feature - the launch of Day, Night and Auto Mode implementation in Zoho CRM's NextGen user interface! This feature is designed to provide a visually appealing and comfortable experience forDoes Thrive work with Zoho Billing (Subscriptions)?
I would like to use Thrive with Zoho Billing Subscriptions but don't see a way to do so. Can someone point me in the right direction? Thank youAudio/video quality issues with Zoho Meeting – Any roadmap for improvement?
Hi Zoho Team, We’ve been using Zoho Meeting for both internal and external meetings, and unfortunately, the experience has been consistently poor. The video and audio quality are so unreliable that it often renders meetings ineffective—especially withZoho Desk - Community - Customer Portal - Description Field UX Improvement
Hi Zoho Desk Team, As a prolific user of Zoho Cares Community, I find it very frustrating that I cannot increase the size of the Description box (this one which I am typing this message). Many apps with multi line text fields have a small handle in theResizing a Record Template Background Inage
Hi everyone, I have an issue which I can't seem to resolve: Basically, I'm designing a record template in certificate form. I've specified A5 landscape. I've set my background image the same dimensions with total pixels at 443,520. Whatever I try, whenExporting Charts from ZohoCRM
Hi...I'm relatively new to ZohoCRM, but very happy with it so far. I have all my leads and potentials accurately entered, and like the reports that I can view, with charts at the top of the data. But when I export the data, I'm receiving only the data, whether I export as excel, csv or pdf. How can I export both the chart and the data? In case it makes a difference, I'm using the free version right now. I tried researching the other editions to see if a paid version of the software offered the abilityZoho CRM - Scheduled Reports Which Contain Chart
Hi Zoho CRM Team, I'm requesting that the Report Export and Scheduling feature be enhanced to include a chart, if one has been created on a report. At the moment I have a report which shows Sales This Week by Deal Owner and a pie chart at the top of theShow price book list price
When using price books, once you add products to the price book in the Products related list you can display the Unit price which is the default list price; however, there is no option to show the price book list price. To see the price book list priceZoho FSM API Delete Record
Hi FSM Team, It would be great if you could delete a record via API. Thank you,"Authorize to Access Your Account"
Hi, I'm trying to log into cliq on my phone but I can't. It says "Authorize to access your account - Verify your identity to access your account using oneAuth credentials", and asks for a password. I tried maybe 100 different passwords and nothing works.Automatically Update Ticket Status in Zoho Desk Based on Actions in Zoho Projects
Hi Zoho Desk Team, Hope you’re doing well. We’re using the Zoho Desk–Zoho Projects integration to manage tasks related to customer tickets, and it works well for linking and tracking progress. However, there are a few important automation capabilitiesAll new Address Field in Zoho CRM: maintain structured and accurate address inputs
The address field will be available exclusively for IN DC users. We'll keep you updated on the DC-specific rollout soon. It's currently available for all new sign-ups and for existing Zoho CRM orgs which are in the Professional edition. Managing addressesAdd the same FROM email to multiple department
Hi, We have several agents who work with multiple departments and we'd like to be able to select their names on the FROM field (sender), but apparently it's not possible to add a FROM address to multiple departments. Is there any way around this? Thanks.sms long credits
I’m trying to purchase Long Code credits so I can send SMS campaigns to my contacts. However, when I click the “Buy Now” button, the page appears blank and doesn’t load any purchase options. Could you please assist me in purchasing the Long Code creditsWhatsapp Limitation Questions
Good day, I would like to find out about the functionality or possibility of all the below points within the Zoho/WhatsApp integration. Will WhatsApp buttons ever be possible in the future? Will WhatsApp Re-directs to different users be possible basedTip #48- Power Your AI Workflows with Zoho Assist on Zapier’s MCP- 'Insider Insights'
We’re thrilled to announce that Zoho Assist is now part of Zapier’s Model Context Protocol (MCP), bringing remote support automation right into your AI ecosystem. What is MCP? The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is Zapier’s new framework designed to connectInsert Cookie Policy in Zoho Sites
Hello, i need to insert a banner on my site because i'm in Italy so i have to respect EU laws for Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy. I see that i need to insert a code in <head> section of my site to show a banner/popup with cookie info. How i can do this? Thank you LucaNimble enhancements to WhatsApp for Business integration in Zoho CRM: Enjoy context and clarity in business messaging
Dear Customers, We hope you're well! WhatsApp for business is a renowned business messaging platform that takes your business closer to your customers; it gives your business the power of personalized outreach. Using the WhatsApp for Business integrationMarketing Tip #1: Optimize item titles for SEO
Your item title is the first thing both Google and shoppers notice. Instead of a generic “Leather Bag,” go for something detailed like “Handcrafted Leather Laptop Bag – Durable & Stylish.” This helps your items rank better in search results and instantlyIntroducing parent-child ticketing in Zoho Desk [Early access]
Hello Zoho Desk users! We have introduced the parent-child ticketing system to help customer service teams ensure efficient resolution of issues involving multiple, related tickets. You can now combine repetitive and interconnected tickets into parent-childCustomer Parent Account or Sub-Customer Account
Some of clients as they have 50 to 300 branches, they required separate account statement with outlet name and number; which means we have to open new account for each branch individually. However, the main issue is that, when they make a payment, theyForced Logouts - Daily and More Frequent
In the last month or so, I've been getting "power logged out" of all of my Zoho apps at least daily, sometimes more frequently. This happens in the same browser session on the same computer, and I need to re-login to each app separately after this happens.Paste issues in ZOHO crm notes
Hi, since a week or so I have issues with the paste function in ZOHO CRM. I use "notes" to copy paste texts from Outlook emails and since a week or so, the pasting doesnt function as it should: some text just disappears and it gives a lot of empty lines/enters.....ENTER key triggering Submit
Is it possible to stopped the ENTER key from the mandatory triggering of the Submit button on Creator form? I want forms submitted "ONLY" when the Submit button is pressed.Books API Receiving an Error that Doesn't Make Sense when Creating Credit Note - trying to use 'ignore_auto_number_generation' argument
Hello, I'm working on a newly created routine and I'm getting an error that doesn't make sense when trying to create a new Credit Note. Here is my POST request. Endpoint: https://www.zohoapis.com/books/v3/creditnotes?organization_id=########## Body: {Is it possible to assign Client user to external task ON PROJECTS' TEMPLATES?
Is it possible to assign Client user to external task ON TEMPLATES PROJECTS?Draft & Schedule Emails Directly in Bigin
Greetings, I hope all of you are doing well. We're happy to announce a few recent enhancements we've made to email in Bigin. We'll go over each one in detail, but here's a quick overview: Previously, you couldn't draft or schedule emails in Bigin, butCannot Invert Axis for Rankings
Hi there I want to be able to create a ranking graph in Analytics/BI, with 1 at the top of the Y axis, but I am unable to invert the axis. Super simple example in Excel below. Higher rankings need to be higher up on the graph to give the correct visualZoho CRM Workflow and Function Backup Options
Hi everyone! I have been able to make several backups of my CRM data and noticed that the Workflows and Functions are not included in these backups. To my knowledge, there is no backup feature for workflows and functions, which is problematic in of itself.Cliq iOS can't see shared screen
Hello, I had this morning a video call with a colleague. She is using Cliq Desktop MacOS and wanted to share her screen with me. I'm on iPad. I noticed, while she shared her screen, I could only see her video, but not the shared screen... Does Cliq iOS is able to display shared screen, or is it somewhere else to be found ? RegardsCliq does not sync messages after Sleep on Mac
I'm using the mac app of Cliq. When I open my mac after it was in sleep mode, Cliq does not sync the messages that I received. I always have to reload using cmd + R, which is not what I want when using a chat application.Free Webinar : Unlock AI driven business insights with Zoho Inventory + Zoho Analytics
Are you tired of switching between apps and exporting data to build customized reports? Say hello to smarter & streamlined insights! Join us for this exclusive webinar where we explore the power of the Zoho Inventory–Zoho Analytics integration. LearnChange Currency symbol
I would like to change the way our currency displays when printed on quotes, invoices and purchase orders. Currently, we have Australian Dollars AUD as our Home Currency. The only two symbol choices available for this currency are "AU $" or "AUD". I wouldPO receive quantities
At last, Zoho has finally got around to allowing us to receive a larger qty than recorded in the PO :-) Saves us all from editing the PO's before receiving larger quantities ( usual for us ) ! It's still in "beta" but available upon request, I've testedNext Page