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You can still view topics in the Xero Business Community to see all the useful knowledge that’s been shared there; and you can restart conversations you feel have been of huge value to you on Xero Central.
If you have brilliant ideas for innovations, you can keep on adding feature requests in the Xero Business Community, and voting on existing requests. There’s more in store, as we come up with the best way to take on your thoughts and share developments
Community > Feature Requests >
463
Vote
Future revenue / revenue recognition
Started by THOMAS WEIGELT in Feature Requests | Idea
Hi, we are a travel agency and base our PL etc. on the date of travel. But sometimes we send invoices out way before the travel date.
Now I want the amount to turn up in the month of travel, not in the month I issued the invoice (same for costs). Means if I issue in July an invoice for travel in September I want it to be shown in the revenue in September - not July.
I know there are ways to work around this manually - but this would put just too much workload on our accounting. I suggested once (as there is no special revenue module in Xero) to add another date field to payable and receivable invoices called something like "posting date". It should default to the invoice date but one should be able to change that date. And the revenue (or costs) would turn up in that month.
Not sure if I am the only one who would need this, if yes let me know. The solution seems to me quite easy to implement (though I am not a programmer)
Now I want the amount to turn up in the month of travel, not in the month I issued the invoice (same for costs). Means if I issue in July an invoice for travel in September I want it to be shown in the revenue in September - not July.
I know there are ways to work around this manually - but this would put just too much workload on our accounting. I suggested once (as there is no special revenue module in Xero) to add another date field to payable and receivable invoices called something like "posting date". It should default to the invoice date but one should be able to change that date. And the revenue (or costs) would turn up in that month.
Not sure if I am the only one who would need this, if yes let me know. The solution seems to me quite easy to implement (though I am not a programmer)
78
Replies
Only show the Best and Official
Replies
Official Xero Reply
Hi everyone, not ignoring the idea here there are lots of ways in which our team are looking to refactor our purchase and sales experiences to create a more seamless experience when working in Xero and with reports.
If you haven’t already seen - we’ve recently extended pilots for two new features our team are developing to provide insights to your business cash flows and performance over a period. Both Short-term cash flows and Business snapshot are visual tools to help get visibility over upcoming invoices and bills so you can make the right choices for your business. If not already you’ll soon find access to these features from the Business menu of any Business edition org - The team are keen to hear your feedback too so make sure to try it out once available, and feedback through the messaging in the features themselves.
While we're very much aware of the theme for multiple due dates we'd like to be straight that setting multiple dates in a single invoice or bill is a fundamental change and not something we're looking to tackle in the near term. As there’s more news to come from this I’ll be sure to share with you all here.
If you haven’t already seen - we’ve recently extended pilots for two new features our team are developing to provide insights to your business cash flows and performance over a period. Both Short-term cash flows and Business snapshot are visual tools to help get visibility over upcoming invoices and bills so you can make the right choices for your business. If not already you’ll soon find access to these features from the Business menu of any Business edition org - The team are keen to hear your feedback too so make sure to try it out once available, and feedback through the messaging in the features themselves.
While we're very much aware of the theme for multiple due dates we'd like to be straight that setting multiple dates in a single invoice or bill is a fundamental change and not something we're looking to tackle in the near term. As there’s more news to come from this I’ll be sure to share with you all here.
Best Reply as chosen by Xero API (Community Manager)
Hi again,
I'm thrilled to report that Flowrev is now a Xero certified and marketplace listed add-on!
Flowrev helps you automate and streamline your revenue recognition with Xero. You can learn more at:
flowrev.com/Xero
Flowrev is currently free to use. Sign up and evaluate the system easily at:
flowrev.com/register
So if you've been using spreadsheets for revenue recognition, find yourself spending too much time and possibly dreading handling each new period or the changes that invariably arise, now's the time to check it out. If you simply have not been able to do revenue recognition, for sure check it out. Beyond compliance, the financial and strategic benefits gained are well worth it.
Xero's add-on certification process is thorough, and their requirements (e.g. security) are rigorous. If you need to do so, Flowrev's certification should help you allay concerns and make the case to your management, your firm's partners or to your clients.
Please let me know if you have any concerns or questions (e.g. pricing post beta). We'll be happy to address/answer them, and help you on-board.
Best regards,
Kamal
--
Kamal Varma
Founder
Flowrev
PS: a shout out for the Xero API team - they are wonderful to work with, and add a lot of value during the certification process.
I'm thrilled to report that Flowrev is now a Xero certified and marketplace listed add-on!
Flowrev helps you automate and streamline your revenue recognition with Xero. You can learn more at:
flowrev.com/Xero
Flowrev is currently free to use. Sign up and evaluate the system easily at:
flowrev.com/register
So if you've been using spreadsheets for revenue recognition, find yourself spending too much time and possibly dreading handling each new period or the changes that invariably arise, now's the time to check it out. If you simply have not been able to do revenue recognition, for sure check it out. Beyond compliance, the financial and strategic benefits gained are well worth it.
Xero's add-on certification process is thorough, and their requirements (e.g. security) are rigorous. If you need to do so, Flowrev's certification should help you allay concerns and make the case to your management, your firm's partners or to your clients.
Please let me know if you have any concerns or questions (e.g. pricing post beta). We'll be happy to address/answer them, and help you on-board.
Best regards,
Kamal
--
Kamal Varma
Founder
Flowrev
PS: a shout out for the Xero API team - they are wonderful to work with, and add a lot of value during the certification process.
I am currently evaluating Xero, and want to go forwards with it, but its infelxible revenue recognition is an issue. We are an ad agency, and often perform work long before we are able to invoice it (waiting for client POs etc). We don't want to raise our invoice until the client is actually ready for us to invoice, because then we end up submitting an invoice with an old date which our client can't cope with, and also we have to pay VAT months before we get paid. The suggestion of Thomas would solve the problem for us (although I think 'posting date' might suggest it's the date the transaction was entered, so maybe another name required?).
I know this can be handled with acrual accounts, but it's a hassle, and you ultimately end up having to do extra data entry into a spreadsheet to track the movements, and you also lose the realtime view in Xero of how your business is doing.
I know this can be handled with acrual accounts, but it's a hassle, and you ultimately end up having to do extra data entry into a spreadsheet to track the movements, and you also lose the realtime view in Xero of how your business is doing.
+1 from my side. I´m also working in travel business and have the very same problem.
What I´m doing now:
1. Issue an invoice, post to accrued / prepaid income
2. Go to detailed account reports
3. Look up the value (invoice currency is different from base currency)
4. Do a manual journal to move the income from invoice date to transaction date.
5. Update excel sheet with accruals / prepayments.
And it´s a hassle...
I totally agree that Xero should provide a feature to add a transaction date to every line item in an invoice payable and receivable (it´s possible to send one invoice with two items which have two different transaction dates).
Would save a lot of work!
What I´m doing now:
1. Issue an invoice, post to accrued / prepaid income
2. Go to detailed account reports
3. Look up the value (invoice currency is different from base currency)
4. Do a manual journal to move the income from invoice date to transaction date.
5. Update excel sheet with accruals / prepayments.
And it´s a hassle...
I totally agree that Xero should provide a feature to add a transaction date to every line item in an invoice payable and receivable (it´s possible to send one invoice with two items which have two different transaction dates).
Would save a lot of work!
Hi Tom
Do also have an issued in looking at aged recieveable dy due date in that the report will not go further enough in advance i a booking is many months in advance?
Do also have an issued in looking at aged recieveable dy due date in that the report will not go further enough in advance i a booking is many months in advance?
Just wanted to reference another post on the Community - until such time that we build something specific for this or introduce recurring journals (vote here for this), Peter's suggestion for how to account for deferred revenue using repeating invoices is the way to achieve this for now: Deferred revenue accounting
I would definitely be very interested in this feature as well. For any transaction there are really 3 dates I care about: recognition date, the actual date on the invoice and the date it is (fully) paid. I'd note that this is for costs as well. For example, we have some consultants that perform work in January, but may not invoice until February or even March, and I'd really like to see the cost in January for my monthly P&L.
Ben Leslie
@Catherine, can you offer an update on this?
I have another business, service based, that bills annually in advance. We want to recognise that revenue across the 12 months, instead of all at once.
I have another business, service based, that bills annually in advance. We want to recognise that revenue across the 12 months, instead of all at once.
+1 this is now the highest voted request still in "Submitted" state. it would be really great to see this scheduled. If you combine this and the "Recurring journals" request then this would be the third most voted feature request of all time
Right now I'm using recurring invoices to imitate this feature. It's really ugly though. It's a lot of extra work to setup and it creates tons of invoices that overwhelm my ability to use invoices effectively. When I look at my Customer Invoice Report the vast majority of invoices are just workaround transfers from Deferred Revenue into Sales and so only a fraction are legitimate invoices.
+1 after reading the many responses and the bother of the work around I wonder why it hasnt been added yet. ., , , ,
Seems like if the plan is just to provide the zero balance recurring invoice workaround, it would also make sense to add a small feature to hide zero balance invoices from the invoice reports? Just a suggestion from a noob Xero user, maybe I am missing something.
Moses Hohman
+1 from me.
This creates work every month to manually add journal entries. We issue a single invoice in advance (into an income in advance liability account) and recognise revenue monthly, it would be great to have a proper way of doing this...
This creates work every month to manually add journal entries. We issue a single invoice in advance (into an income in advance liability account) and recognise revenue monthly, it would be great to have a proper way of doing this...
I already use Xero for 2 businesses but would like to use it for a 3rd one which has mostly annual subscription income so can't do it without this feature.
Our business involves invoicing for a 12 month license payable in advance. So we want to raise one invoice and reconcile it upon payment, but recognise the revenue per month. This helps flatten out our revenue across the whole year. I'm not sure the GST implications, but we are hoping Xero can support this business model.
+1 from me.. it would have been great to have this automated.. we billing for support fee and always in advance (12 months and 36 months) , is huge effort to keep the track of all of it and reconcile.
+1 for me as well, would be great to have a simple way to recognize revenue and costs in the correct period
For those of us who use WFM as well as Xero it would be great to be able to post to income in advance and then opt to release an amount based on actual costs incurred for the month on WFM per job. I've worked for an agency who set this up themselves with a bespoke CRM system and Sage 200 and it was very powerful yet not that difficult with API's
We are in the business of ICT consulting & our clients are invoiced in stages as the job progresses. As such, we faced a similar issue when it comes to billing & revenue recognition.
Peter's suggestion of putting through the invoices via deferred revenue, seems to work to some degree but creates heaps lot of extra work & tons of invoices that defects the efficiency of the system.
Whilst the response from Xero customer care was that, Xero doesn't currently support work in progress functionality & we can only bill the client on a periodic basis, at the different stages of the billing cycle on the project. We're also advised to get in touch with one of their add-on partners who may be able to offer such functionality to suit the requirements of our business.
Not sure anyone of you feel the same but I reckon Xero should look into providing a solution within the system itself to cater for such situation.
Peter's suggestion of putting through the invoices via deferred revenue, seems to work to some degree but creates heaps lot of extra work & tons of invoices that defects the efficiency of the system.
Whilst the response from Xero customer care was that, Xero doesn't currently support work in progress functionality & we can only bill the client on a periodic basis, at the different stages of the billing cycle on the project. We're also advised to get in touch with one of their add-on partners who may be able to offer such functionality to suit the requirements of our business.
Not sure anyone of you feel the same but I reckon Xero should look into providing a solution within the system itself to cater for such situation.
Hey Xero - is there likely to be any movement here, or is it down the priority list? The request is two years old already, would be good to know if it's likely to happen.
I'd love to dump my ugly, mistake-prone deferred revenue accrual spreadsheet I'm using with Xero! :)
I'd love to dump my ugly, mistake-prone deferred revenue accrual spreadsheet I'm using with Xero! :)
I think the issue is that Xero targets small, cash-basis companies and larger accrual-based companies will come later.
Also an issue for us, when we're running a large project we need to future-date multiple invoices both for cash flow and so that the client has the invoices in their systems, which can sometimes take 3+ months to be processed.
There is the option when an invoice is raised to add a 'expected payment date' in the notes, can't this be used in some way?
There is the option when an invoice is raised to add a 'expected payment date' in the notes, can't this be used in some way?
Hi Xero,
Would you please be able to look at when this suggestion from Thomas Weigelt started on 20 Sep 2012 will be implemented?
For our company, it is a massive workload creating a journal each month to record the revenue when it can simply be an option to add a "revenue recognition date" on the invoice creation screen and save time entering journals at all. Similar to the travel agency scenario, for our company the majority of invoices are created in advance of the revenue recognition and cannot be set as recurring journals.
Thanks
Would you please be able to look at when this suggestion from Thomas Weigelt started on 20 Sep 2012 will be implemented?
For our company, it is a massive workload creating a journal each month to record the revenue when it can simply be an option to add a "revenue recognition date" on the invoice creation screen and save time entering journals at all. Similar to the travel agency scenario, for our company the majority of invoices are created in advance of the revenue recognition and cannot be set as recurring journals.
Thanks
At the risk of joining a choir, this would be extremely useful for us! :-) We are an organisation of around 20 people, who hire out teams of consultants for a couple of months at a time to work on software and consultancy projects. Planning our future cashflow for the next few months is very important, so being able to easily add future invoices with different "earned" dates would be great.
For a bonus, if it were possible to have different categories of likelihood of future invoices e.g. "speculative" "almost certain" etc. and optionally plot these out into future cashflow predictions too, that would be great too. Not exactly within the remit of an accounting tool - AND having to track the same thing in two different systems is dull, and if you are supporting future invoices anyway (which are obviously a bit speculative, in that anything could happen between now and the actual work date...) , then I think this would be a relatively small and very useful extra step.
Being able to easily track when income was actually being earned would also be very useful to us, to plot our annual cycles around staff holidays etc. and look at our profitability.
We are just moving over to Xero and I was hoping to ditch our old future cashflow predictions / invoice tracking spreadsheet entirely, because it means re-entering info about invoices in two places, and mistakes creep in, etc. It looks like it will be with us for a bit longer!
It seems like I'm not alone, which is always nice in this world. Please make this happen! We would pay extra for this functionality.
cheers,
Tom.
For a bonus, if it were possible to have different categories of likelihood of future invoices e.g. "speculative" "almost certain" etc. and optionally plot these out into future cashflow predictions too, that would be great too. Not exactly within the remit of an accounting tool - AND having to track the same thing in two different systems is dull, and if you are supporting future invoices anyway (which are obviously a bit speculative, in that anything could happen between now and the actual work date...) , then I think this would be a relatively small and very useful extra step.
Being able to easily track when income was actually being earned would also be very useful to us, to plot our annual cycles around staff holidays etc. and look at our profitability.
We are just moving over to Xero and I was hoping to ditch our old future cashflow predictions / invoice tracking spreadsheet entirely, because it means re-entering info about invoices in two places, and mistakes creep in, etc. It looks like it will be with us for a bit longer!
It seems like I'm not alone, which is always nice in this world. Please make this happen! We would pay extra for this functionality.
cheers,
Tom.
Future revenues is kind of the base standard for most B2B SaaS companies.
Future revenues should ideally be planned against invoiced lines (some lines being not recurring). Revenues should only include ACV (based on the monthly subscription until end-of-year).
Thank you.
Future revenues should ideally be planned against invoiced lines (some lines being not recurring). Revenues should only include ACV (based on the monthly subscription until end-of-year).
Thank you.
We would love this to be implemented as we seriously struggle with deferred revenue as our work is project based and we want to recognise the recurrence and costs when the project happens.
I was shocked to find this was not an option in Xero. Almost makes me miss Sage!
Please implement as soon as you can.
I was shocked to find this was not an option in Xero. Almost makes me miss Sage!
Please implement as soon as you can.
The sooner that this is implemented the better. We are just moving a large client to Xero and wanted to get away from complicated excel spreadsheets because of their different income streams and also the possibility of human error. Another client uses recurring journals, but this is too much duplication of work, when there is a high volume of transactions, as in both these cases.
We are a compliance services company that invoice in advance however want to recognise revenue and costs in the month the work is done. Would have thought this was a standard accounting function which takes a lot of manual work and makes for an unhappy accountant with the amount of work currently involved! Please get onto this asap...
We've been using Xero for a couple of months now, and generally have found the tool great - however this seems a large omission from the feature set!
We are a marketing company and often either charge up from for projects and recognise the revenue at later times as the project runs, or invoices in arrears after performing the service. Not being able to locate the revenue in a month, irrespective of invoice or payment date is a real inconvenience.
We are a marketing company and often either charge up from for projects and recognise the revenue at later times as the project runs, or invoices in arrears after performing the service. Not being able to locate the revenue in a month, irrespective of invoice or payment date is a real inconvenience.
Invitation to the Flowrev Revenue Manager with Xero Beta
Hello!
I have followed this thread with interest for a while now. Today I would like to invite you to participate in the Flowrev with Xero beta program, which we are initiating now.
You can get a quick overview at:
flowrev.com/xero
To have your free account set up email:
contact@flowrev.com
or write directly to me.
We have first hand experience using a manual spreadsheet based process for revenue recognition. As it has been for folks on this thread, and to say the least, that process was tedious and time consuming. We created Flowrev to better enable and ease the task. I am confident that you will benefit from using it.
I look forward to hearing from you, and to helping you get started right away.
Best regards,
Kamal Varma
Founder
Flowrev
kamal@flowrev.com
Hello!
I have followed this thread with interest for a while now. Today I would like to invite you to participate in the Flowrev with Xero beta program, which we are initiating now.
You can get a quick overview at:
flowrev.com/xero
To have your free account set up email:
contact@flowrev.com
or write directly to me.
We have first hand experience using a manual spreadsheet based process for revenue recognition. As it has been for folks on this thread, and to say the least, that process was tedious and time consuming. We created Flowrev to better enable and ease the task. I am confident that you will benefit from using it.
I look forward to hearing from you, and to helping you get started right away.
Best regards,
Kamal Varma
Founder
Flowrev
kamal@flowrev.com
Merged: Split annual sales invoice over 12 months
We invoice customers for annual license fees. So sales invoice is raised, posted to debtors and then the customer pays.
As under UK GAAP (and IFRS) the income must be split annually evenly over 12 months, can the sales invoice be released evenly to the P&L over 12 months?
I have been in touch your with your support people and they say this is not possible without entering lots of manual journals each month.
What I require is in month 1, 1/12 of the income hits the P&L and 11/12 goes to deferred income on the balance sheet.
Then each month 1/12 of the income is released to the P&L, until in month 12 all the invoiced income is in the P&L in the correct months.
This should be reasonably easy to do by just entering one sales invoice with a range of dates over which the income needs to hit the P&L.
Many people invoice quarterly or annually for services or licences, so I would have thought this was a very common problem.
We invoice customers for annual license fees. So sales invoice is raised, posted to debtors and then the customer pays.
As under UK GAAP (and IFRS) the income must be split annually evenly over 12 months, can the sales invoice be released evenly to the P&L over 12 months?
I have been in touch your with your support people and they say this is not possible without entering lots of manual journals each month.
What I require is in month 1, 1/12 of the income hits the P&L and 11/12 goes to deferred income on the balance sheet.
Then each month 1/12 of the income is released to the P&L, until in month 12 all the invoiced income is in the P&L in the correct months.
This should be reasonably easy to do by just entering one sales invoice with a range of dates over which the income needs to hit the P&L.
Many people invoice quarterly or annually for services or licences, so I would have thought this was a very common problem.
Hi Andrew,
You could post repeating journals to sort this out. Every invoice would be entered, then you would enter a repeating journal to spread the income (repeat - monthly, end date the end of the 12 months).
Also consider repeating invoice, which only works if you are ok with many invoices instead of one.
Regards
Tracy
You could post repeating journals to sort this out. Every invoice would be entered, then you would enter a repeating journal to spread the income (repeat - monthly, end date the end of the 12 months).
Also consider repeating invoice, which only works if you are ok with many invoices instead of one.
Regards
Tracy
We're looking at doing this by API using;
Recurring Journals "Repeating Manual Journals"
- https://help.xero.com/us/ManualJournalsRepeating
- invoice the full amount to deferred revenue liability account
-- 835 "Revenue Received in Advance" in "Liabilities"
- add recurring manual journal to debit the deferred revenue account 835, credit revenue account 400 for 1/12 of the total each month
I assume this will work for us, we'll see.
Recurring Journals "Repeating Manual Journals"
- https://help.xero.com/us/ManualJournalsRepeating
- invoice the full amount to deferred revenue liability account
-- 835 "Revenue Received in Advance" in "Liabilities"
- add recurring manual journal to debit the deferred revenue account 835, credit revenue account 400 for 1/12 of the total each month
I assume this will work for us, we'll see.
Best Reply as chosen by Xero API (Community Manager)
Hi again,
I'm thrilled to report that Flowrev is now a Xero certified and marketplace listed add-on!
Flowrev helps you automate and streamline your revenue recognition with Xero. You can learn more at:
flowrev.com/Xero
Flowrev is currently free to use. Sign up and evaluate the system easily at:
flowrev.com/register
So if you've been using spreadsheets for revenue recognition, find yourself spending too much time and possibly dreading handling each new period or the changes that invariably arise, now's the time to check it out. If you simply have not been able to do revenue recognition, for sure check it out. Beyond compliance, the financial and strategic benefits gained are well worth it.
Xero's add-on certification process is thorough, and their requirements (e.g. security) are rigorous. If you need to do so, Flowrev's certification should help you allay concerns and make the case to your management, your firm's partners or to your clients.
Please let me know if you have any concerns or questions (e.g. pricing post beta). We'll be happy to address/answer them, and help you on-board.
Best regards,
Kamal
--
Kamal Varma
Founder
Flowrev
PS: a shout out for the Xero API team - they are wonderful to work with, and add a lot of value during the certification process.
I'm thrilled to report that Flowrev is now a Xero certified and marketplace listed add-on!
Flowrev helps you automate and streamline your revenue recognition with Xero. You can learn more at:
flowrev.com/Xero
Flowrev is currently free to use. Sign up and evaluate the system easily at:
flowrev.com/register
So if you've been using spreadsheets for revenue recognition, find yourself spending too much time and possibly dreading handling each new period or the changes that invariably arise, now's the time to check it out. If you simply have not been able to do revenue recognition, for sure check it out. Beyond compliance, the financial and strategic benefits gained are well worth it.
Xero's add-on certification process is thorough, and their requirements (e.g. security) are rigorous. If you need to do so, Flowrev's certification should help you allay concerns and make the case to your management, your firm's partners or to your clients.
Please let me know if you have any concerns or questions (e.g. pricing post beta). We'll be happy to address/answer them, and help you on-board.
Best regards,
Kamal
--
Kamal Varma
Founder
Flowrev
PS: a shout out for the Xero API team - they are wonderful to work with, and add a lot of value during the certification process.
Agree.
Ridiculous the way Xero does it.
Future revenue should be:
-Current in Aged Receivables
-Show on full year P&L under the correct month
-The Balance Sheet run in a future month, shows all the trade debtors until then... the P&L does not !!! How can one run a business like that..
New reports... Current Asset does not include Bank balances !! WOW. I am not an accountant but isn't that basic?
Why old reports a new reports - Messy
Ridiculous the way Xero does it.
Future revenue should be:
-Current in Aged Receivables
-Show on full year P&L under the correct month
-The Balance Sheet run in a future month, shows all the trade debtors until then... the P&L does not !!! How can one run a business like that..
New reports... Current Asset does not include Bank balances !! WOW. I am not an accountant but isn't that basic?
Why old reports a new reports - Messy
Hello All,
Happy New Year!
A quick update: Flowrev successfully completed its beta with Xero in December 2015. We are now open for business.
The past few months have been extremely busy as we actively engaged with users to tune the product, enhanced some elements of our original feature set, released a number of new features from our road map, redesigned the website, and more. Our sincere thanks to all who engaged during the beta program and helped us rapidly drive the product forward.
You can read some user testimonials, and learn more about how Flowrev can help you automate your Xero revenue recognition at:
flowrev.com/Xero
Sign up for a free, no-risk 30-day trial at:
flowrev.com/register
We'll be happy to answer any questions and help you with your Xero revenue recognition / future revenue needs. Just contact us. I look forward to hearing from you.
Best regards,
Kamal
--
Kamal Varma
Founder
Flowrev
Happy New Year!
A quick update: Flowrev successfully completed its beta with Xero in December 2015. We are now open for business.
The past few months have been extremely busy as we actively engaged with users to tune the product, enhanced some elements of our original feature set, released a number of new features from our road map, redesigned the website, and more. Our sincere thanks to all who engaged during the beta program and helped us rapidly drive the product forward.
You can read some user testimonials, and learn more about how Flowrev can help you automate your Xero revenue recognition at:
flowrev.com/Xero
Sign up for a free, no-risk 30-day trial at:
flowrev.com/register
We'll be happy to answer any questions and help you with your Xero revenue recognition / future revenue needs. Just contact us. I look forward to hearing from you.
Best regards,
Kamal
--
Kamal Varma
Founder
Flowrev
A few months ago we found flowrev through this post (thanks for posting it!) We highly recommend their service. The software works great but their customer service is amazing. I'm not affiliated with flowrev in anyway besides being a customer (a satisfied one at that).
Just an example, we had an issue migrating our data from cratejoy to xero to flowrev. I didn't realize that we had an issue until I was contacted by Flowrev advising that we may have an issue. Actually I received the messages first from Flowrev but then later directly from Kamal the founder who wanted to make sure we were flagged. Kamal set up a google hangout and walked with me step by step to identify and resolve the issue - plus providing tips and tricks along the way. Flowrev has already saved us hours and hours of time - and the cherry on top is that their customer service is second to none.
If you are reading this post like I was many months ago, save yourself the time and headache and contact Flowrev...
Just an example, we had an issue migrating our data from cratejoy to xero to flowrev. I didn't realize that we had an issue until I was contacted by Flowrev advising that we may have an issue. Actually I received the messages first from Flowrev but then later directly from Kamal the founder who wanted to make sure we were flagged. Kamal set up a google hangout and walked with me step by step to identify and resolve the issue - plus providing tips and tricks along the way. Flowrev has already saved us hours and hours of time - and the cherry on top is that their customer service is second to none.
If you are reading this post like I was many months ago, save yourself the time and headache and contact Flowrev...
We use Flowrev for a client that has ratable revenue recognition issues, as well. It works great, although, will admit a pretty steep learning curve. Kamal and his team are super helpful, though, in getting it implemented.
Thank you David - it's been a pleasure working with you and your team, and helping you on-board your client.
New systems take time to learn and master. I think a steep learning curve is desirable. From Wikipedia: Steep Learning Curve
"The familiar expression "a steep learning curve" is intended to mean that the activity is difficult to learn, although a learning curve with a steep start actually represents rapid progress."
We're excited to help people make rapid progress with their Xero revenue and cost recognition, and achieve things that are not practical otherwise:
https://community.xero.com/business/discussion/11408476/
New systems take time to learn and master. I think a steep learning curve is desirable. From Wikipedia: Steep Learning Curve
"The familiar expression "a steep learning curve" is intended to mean that the activity is difficult to learn, although a learning curve with a steep start actually represents rapid progress."
We're excited to help people make rapid progress with their Xero revenue and cost recognition, and achieve things that are not practical otherwise:
https://community.xero.com/business/discussion/11408476/
FlowRev has been recommended above...and having used it it solves an enormous problem for some clients...... my blog posting on it is here....
http://www.ion.icaew.com/itcounts/post/Management-accounting---a-time-consuming-task--or-a-piece-of-cake--
http://www.ion.icaew.com/itcounts/post/Management-accounting---a-time-consuming-task--or-a-piece-of-cake--
Yes, please!!! Not just revenue recognition, but EXPENSE RECOGNITION also!
If I get a bill on Feb 2, for example, for some work performed in December, and some in January, it all gets entered as an expense in Feb. yes, I know I can add a manual journal, but that's a huge pain to do for almost every bill!
I'd love to see (as someone else mentioned) a "posting date" OR something to automaticaly allocate the expense to the correct month. And if you add this, please don't forget that we may need to allocate one bill to more than one month.
Thank you
If I get a bill on Feb 2, for example, for some work performed in December, and some in January, it all gets entered as an expense in Feb. yes, I know I can add a manual journal, but that's a huge pain to do for almost every bill!
I'd love to see (as someone else mentioned) a "posting date" OR something to automaticaly allocate the expense to the correct month. And if you add this, please don't forget that we may need to allocate one bill to more than one month.
Thank you
Hi Cindy,
Consider using Flowrev - we can help with both your revenue and expense recognition needs. You can easily allocate each invoice or bill line amount to the correct month. Or create schedules to recognize amounts over time using different recognition methods. Journaling many revrec/costrec schedules (hundreds, even thousands) each month to Xero takes just one click.
Learn more at: flowrev.com/Xero and watch the demo video there to get an overview. By automating steps of the process shown, you can complete each month's work within a few minutes. Or take care of things each day/week to generate more accurate financials regularly.
And sign up for a free trial anytime.
Best regards,
Kamal
Consider using Flowrev - we can help with both your revenue and expense recognition needs. You can easily allocate each invoice or bill line amount to the correct month. Or create schedules to recognize amounts over time using different recognition methods. Journaling many revrec/costrec schedules (hundreds, even thousands) each month to Xero takes just one click.
Learn more at: flowrev.com/Xero and watch the demo video there to get an overview. By automating steps of the process shown, you can complete each month's work within a few minutes. Or take care of things each day/week to generate more accurate financials regularly.
And sign up for a free trial anytime.
Best regards,
Kamal
I want this, and I want it simply as a posting date for invoice line items (for both invoices in and out). Any other interface would be over-designed for my needs.
Merged: A Automated Deferral/Deferred Revenue Module for Subscriptions
Module that will allow for revenue to be deferred, this may be subscriptions or other revenue that occurs over a period of time.
This would be useful for membership organisation etc., whereby you could add an invoice and put a start and end date.
Module that will allow for revenue to be deferred, this may be subscriptions or other revenue that occurs over a period of time.
This would be useful for membership organisation etc., whereby you could add an invoice and put a start and end date.
Merged: How to manage cash flow for delayed payments?
I help a friend with a Wordpress/Woocommence online shop in the Philippines that receives a significant proportion of orders using COD. In the Philippines, this means a delay of anywhere between 1 and 3 weeks until the shipping company decides to transfer the payment to the seller (that's us). That transfer of COD payments is in cash - a rider turns up and hands over the money. It can be manually reconciled against the paper receipts issued by the shipping company at the time the delivery was first sent. This way, we can keep track of what payments being held by the shipping company are still pending and be able to remind them regularly about it! I know, sounds quite backward but that's the way it is!
The problem for the business is cash flow. Like any business that has to wait for payment after delivery, we need to know future cash inflows and account for these as they occur. So, for example, we should be able to see from day to day what cash reserve/float is required to cover deferred payments.
The question is, how could this best be handled using Zero and WooCommerce? Is it built in functionality or is any tailoring/customisation required?
Thanks in advance!
I help a friend with a Wordpress/Woocommence online shop in the Philippines that receives a significant proportion of orders using COD. In the Philippines, this means a delay of anywhere between 1 and 3 weeks until the shipping company decides to transfer the payment to the seller (that's us). That transfer of COD payments is in cash - a rider turns up and hands over the money. It can be manually reconciled against the paper receipts issued by the shipping company at the time the delivery was first sent. This way, we can keep track of what payments being held by the shipping company are still pending and be able to remind them regularly about it! I know, sounds quite backward but that's the way it is!
The problem for the business is cash flow. Like any business that has to wait for payment after delivery, we need to know future cash inflows and account for these as they occur. So, for example, we should be able to see from day to day what cash reserve/float is required to cover deferred payments.
The question is, how could this best be handled using Zero and WooCommerce? Is it built in functionality or is any tailoring/customisation required?
Thanks in advance!
I believe this tool will help you recognise revenue on contracts where invoicing might be some time in arrears. They’ve just started taking on new customers registering on the site and fully integrate into Xero. Check out www.reforecast.io
Hi Tracy
We will run with the repeating journals for the moment but it would be ideal if you could allocate the range of dates the invoice is applicable to when creating the invoice.
Is this something you would look at doing at all?
Thanks
Michael
We will run with the repeating journals for the moment but it would be ideal if you could allocate the range of dates the invoice is applicable to when creating the invoice.
Is this something you would look at doing at all?
Thanks
Michael
+1
Would love to be able to raise a single invoice on any date for any period and have the revenue recognised for the correct month.
Would love to be able to raise a single invoice on any date for any period and have the revenue recognised for the correct month.
Merged: Prepayments
A really helpful system when producing management accounts to show actual monthly costs by splitting an invoice over a period of months without having to do manual or recurring journals.
Process:
The invoice comes in for eg business rates billed at the beginning of the year for the following 12 months - although the invoice comes at the beginning of the year payments are paid monthly.
The system needed will allocate the invoice amount equally over a specified number of months thus making the real time reporting data accurate when producing monthly reports.
Used this system on many accounts packages and it will push cero more in line with competitors- the manual entry of journals or recurring journals is long winded and time consuming.
A really helpful system when producing management accounts to show actual monthly costs by splitting an invoice over a period of months without having to do manual or recurring journals.
Process:
The invoice comes in for eg business rates billed at the beginning of the year for the following 12 months - although the invoice comes at the beginning of the year payments are paid monthly.
The system needed will allocate the invoice amount equally over a specified number of months thus making the real time reporting data accurate when producing monthly reports.
Used this system on many accounts packages and it will push cero more in line with competitors- the manual entry of journals or recurring journals is long winded and time consuming.
Hi Alex, appreciate the detail in your post here. Prepayments are a transaction that already exists in Xero, however from the sounds, it appears you're after more along the lines of what's being requested over here, and I'll merge your post in with the discussion there to keep the conversation all together. Please do remember to come back and add your own vote.
Just curious and I am sorry if my question sounds dumb or what. Say we post the revenue in future, how this will affect the numbering of the invoice? would it skip (since it is posted in future)?
Revenue recognition dates don't affect invoice numbers or invoice dates.
You'd still date the invoice today, but instead of the amount showing up in the P&L for that date, you can pick a future date (or dates) for it to appear in the P&L.
You'd still date the invoice today, but instead of the amount showing up in the P&L for that date, you can pick a future date (or dates) for it to appear in the P&L.
Hi Michael, sorry for not catching this sooner. Tracey's not Xero Staff, but one of our great Partners in community sharing their knowledge. :)
@All - We don't have development for future revenue recognition in our plans right now (Jan 19). Repeating journals like you've noted is an option for now, and I'll merge this request into this larger conversation where you may want to read some of he help in the previous posts there.
@All - We don't have development for future revenue recognition in our plans right now (Jan 19). Repeating journals like you've noted is an option for now, and I'll merge this request into this larger conversation where you may want to read some of he help in the previous posts there.
Mind boggling that this is not a standard part of all accounting software as most businesse models include some amount of deferred revenue recognition. Even in a tiny business, getting this right can make a massive difference in the tax bill. Doing this manually destroys the value proposition of Xero as software that saves you time and having to purchase 3rd party software to handle this effectively doubles or triples the price of Xero just to achieve basic functional requirements of accounting. Let’s hope they sort this out soon.
Yes we really need this facility too. We are a software company with 10s of subscribing customers and we already use recurring invoices feature for subscription renewals so we can't use it for another purpose. We invoice one year in advance and need this broken down into assignments to each month. We used to keep this in a spreadsheet and we now use deferred account codes as a bit of a fudge. Either way my bookkeeping bill is higher than I would like it to be to keep track of this. It really is a nightmare. Seeing as it is a standard accounting practice to defer income for payments received in advance I am surprised this is not already a standard feature in Xero.
It seems to me that Xero is not listening. There is still no module to manage this most basic of bookkeeping functions. Like Penny Bailey (and others) my company has 100s of clients with a mix of annual invoice for some clients and periodic subscription for others. Time to look for another online accountancy package?
I'm pretty sure this is legally required for most companies worldwide now.
Xero wouldn't even be able to do their accounting on their own platform without this.
Xero wouldn't even be able to do their accounting on their own platform without this.
Thanks for all your input over the years, and most recent here everyone. Regardless of progress, we do want to keep you all in the know on what's happening in this space.
Reporting have been dug in, working on improving the stability and maintenance of the reporting platform. This is going to be keeping them busy well into the end of year, and into 2020.
I know there are many here who are looking for something different, but I do want to reiterate you can currently report on future dated transactions within Xero, which may help some get a better picture over upcoming cashflows - As many are aware, Xero's reports are run in real-time, therefore any transactions entered for future dates will run when the report is set to include the period of a future dated transaction.
Reporting have been dug in, working on improving the stability and maintenance of the reporting platform. This is going to be keeping them busy well into the end of year, and into 2020.
I know there are many here who are looking for something different, but I do want to reiterate you can currently report on future dated transactions within Xero, which may help some get a better picture over upcoming cashflows - As many are aware, Xero's reports are run in real-time, therefore any transactions entered for future dates will run when the report is set to include the period of a future dated transaction.
Definitely agree this is needed. It would also be helpful for costs. For example auto prepayments etc so when a payment is made for multiple periods or payment is made through the bank for a future period.
I just wanted to see if there was any recent update on this?
I have a small subscription business, < 50 new 'annual' subscriptions sold a month, and the solutions proposed seem like they would be pretty time consuming to do for each transaction.
But some of the add-ons / other non-Xero products available are > $100/month, which seems like quite a hefty price to pay for something that I had assumed would just be a feature of Xero.
Is this thread still the most up to date place for this request Kelly M?
I have a small subscription business, < 50 new 'annual' subscriptions sold a month, and the solutions proposed seem like they would be pretty time consuming to do for each transaction.
But some of the add-ons / other non-Xero products available are > $100/month, which seems like quite a hefty price to pay for something that I had assumed would just be a feature of Xero.
Is this thread still the most up to date place for this request Kelly M?
Official Xero Reply
Hi everyone, not ignoring the idea here there are lots of ways in which our team are looking to refactor our purchase and sales experiences to create a more seamless experience when working in Xero and with reports.
If you haven’t already seen - we’ve recently extended pilots for two new features our team are developing to provide insights to your business cash flows and performance over a period. Both Short-term cash flows and Business snapshot are visual tools to help get visibility over upcoming invoices and bills so you can make the right choices for your business. If not already you’ll soon find access to these features from the Business menu of any Business edition org - The team are keen to hear your feedback too so make sure to try it out once available, and feedback through the messaging in the features themselves.
While we're very much aware of the theme for multiple due dates we'd like to be straight that setting multiple dates in a single invoice or bill is a fundamental change and not something we're looking to tackle in the near term. As there’s more news to come from this I’ll be sure to share with you all here.
If you haven’t already seen - we’ve recently extended pilots for two new features our team are developing to provide insights to your business cash flows and performance over a period. Both Short-term cash flows and Business snapshot are visual tools to help get visibility over upcoming invoices and bills so you can make the right choices for your business. If not already you’ll soon find access to these features from the Business menu of any Business edition org - The team are keen to hear your feedback too so make sure to try it out once available, and feedback through the messaging in the features themselves.
While we're very much aware of the theme for multiple due dates we'd like to be straight that setting multiple dates in a single invoice or bill is a fundamental change and not something we're looking to tackle in the near term. As there’s more news to come from this I’ll be sure to share with you all here.
Hi Kelly,
I think the original question is not about multiple due dates for a single invoice but about recognising standard accountancy practice in the UK to assign the income / expenditure to a different month or months than the invoice date. This is called deferred income. The concept is to account for when service was delivered regardless of the invoice date. Imagine if a tenant paid you rent annually on payment of one invoice. The rent would then be assigned to each month over the next twelve months.
I appreciate that it may be a significant change to your system but clearly it is very frustrating for quite a few users to not have this feature to handle invoices and bills in the correct way in Xero. It costs me a lot of money in book keeping and accountancy wages to keep the deferred income correctly recorded with manual entries. Many of us with annual subscriptions (most software companies like us!) or annual memberships need to raise one invoice that is then split into income for 12 months regardless of the invoice date or the date the annual amount was paid.
Please address this shortfall. I have considered changing system because of this.
I think the original question is not about multiple due dates for a single invoice but about recognising standard accountancy practice in the UK to assign the income / expenditure to a different month or months than the invoice date. This is called deferred income. The concept is to account for when service was delivered regardless of the invoice date. Imagine if a tenant paid you rent annually on payment of one invoice. The rent would then be assigned to each month over the next twelve months.
I appreciate that it may be a significant change to your system but clearly it is very frustrating for quite a few users to not have this feature to handle invoices and bills in the correct way in Xero. It costs me a lot of money in book keeping and accountancy wages to keep the deferred income correctly recorded with manual entries. Many of us with annual subscriptions (most software companies like us!) or annual memberships need to raise one invoice that is then split into income for 12 months regardless of the invoice date or the date the annual amount was paid.
Please address this shortfall. I have considered changing system because of this.
Penny - I'm in exactly the same situation. How do you currently do this within Xero? It seems like it can quickly end up taking a huge amount of time to do, and I haven't realised that Xero didn't have this out of the box.
As it was pointed out by another comment above, surely Xero itself has this problem when accounting for its own revenue...
As it was pointed out by another comment above, surely Xero itself has this problem when accounting for its own revenue...
Penny Bailey......exactly. I agree with you completely. If I as an accountant had been involved in the decision to use this platform (I only joined the company shortly after it had been implemented), I would have looked at other options. We use a lot of journals to process income deferrals, which wouldn't be so bad if xero was set up in a way designed to cope well and report on a volume of journals but it seems to have been designed with only year end journals in mind.
Kelly is spot on, this is just a basic accounting requirement and we should not be spending money on a 3rd party solution to achieve this. We deliver courses and customers pay in advance but we can't recognize that revenue until the course has been delivered. Currently we have a horrid manual solution to make this happen using Current Liability accounts and manually moving funds around. I have been asking Xero for years to implement this basic function. Lets get on with this now.
Kelly, I dont think this issue is about cash flow reporting, it is about when you recognise the income in your accounts, the accruals concept.
We have been using for over 9 years (across 5 entities) and this has been a massive frustration for our accountant. I think this request is at least a few years old now and I think it's poor that such a basic standard accounting principle is not getting the traction it deserves in the development pipeline.
We are just about to embark on a Due Diligence process and I know this element of our accounting is going to attract scrutiny because of all the manual adjustments required. If I was aware of it when I originally made the purchasing decision, I would have gone elsewhere.
We are just about to embark on a Due Diligence process and I know this element of our accounting is going to attract scrutiny because of all the manual adjustments required. If I was aware of it when I originally made the purchasing decision, I would have gone elsewhere.
Hi Alastair,
We used to keep a very complicated spreadsheet but I got nervous about this because one year 6 months after the financial year ended my accountant revealed that we had in fact made a 30K loss which didn't show up because of an error in a formula in the spreadsheet. We still have a spreadsheet but we are phasing it out.
Basically I raise annual invoices and assign them to a income code for recurring subscription revenue. I have a reference for annual invoices. A corresponding code is set up for the deferred income. Our book keeper makes monthly journal entries in Xero to transfer the income to the monthly deferred income code.
It's a bit odd because at the moment the deferred income is showing in the P & L so this makes it difficult to compare to previous years when we didn't use this method. We've been doing this since April 2019.
I'm afraid I don't have the perfect answer.
I notice that someone has posted a suggestion to look at flowrev so I'm going to have a look at that. https://www.flowrev.com/demo
Good luck.
We used to keep a very complicated spreadsheet but I got nervous about this because one year 6 months after the financial year ended my accountant revealed that we had in fact made a 30K loss which didn't show up because of an error in a formula in the spreadsheet. We still have a spreadsheet but we are phasing it out.
Basically I raise annual invoices and assign them to a income code for recurring subscription revenue. I have a reference for annual invoices. A corresponding code is set up for the deferred income. Our book keeper makes monthly journal entries in Xero to transfer the income to the monthly deferred income code.
It's a bit odd because at the moment the deferred income is showing in the P & L so this makes it difficult to compare to previous years when we didn't use this method. We've been doing this since April 2019.
I'm afraid I don't have the perfect answer.
I notice that someone has posted a suggestion to look at flowrev so I'm going to have a look at that. https://www.flowrev.com/demo
Good luck.
Recognition timing has nothing to do cashflows, and is not "multiple due dates", whatever that is supposed to mean.
@Alastair Budge, Xero don't use their own product. They use the GL from Netsuite.
@Alastair Budge, Xero don't use their own product. They use the GL from Netsuite.
The latest UK advert for Xero best encapsulates their philosophy - it features a man in a garage talking to a robot. The product is clearly only fit for micro businesses that operate on a cash basis. The product fails to meet the requirements of medium and large business in the UK. As mentioned by many on this thread, the failure to manage deferred income incurs external accountancy fees, as well as internal bookkeeping costs and so the relatively low cost subscription price of Xero is, in fact, not competitive in the market place.
Hi Alan
I think you are right. Do you know of any other software options that might be worth trying which do manage this? Every business wants to have subscription revenue these days so the fact that Xero doesn't want to support this means that at some point they will become irrelevant, in which case we should plan for that.
Thanks
I think you are right. Do you know of any other software options that might be worth trying which do manage this? Every business wants to have subscription revenue these days so the fact that Xero doesn't want to support this means that at some point they will become irrelevant, in which case we should plan for that.
Thanks