Project revenue recognition templates

Template ID

A short identifier for the revenue recognition template. This ID will appear in any applicable selections lists in Intacct.

Template description

Use this field to describe the purpose of the template. For example, 12-month even distribution or Exact days billing.

Recognition method

Select the method that determines how revenue is calculated during the recognition term.

Learn more about revenue recognition allocation methods.

This field is only applicable if your company is configured to use custom accounting periods.

When this field is selected, Intacct follows the standard calendar to allocate revenue for each period. For example, if your company is configured to use 4+4+5 week accounting periods, Intacct schedules the revenue as follows:

• Straight line: divides the revenue into the same amount for each period, including the 5-week period and schedules the revenue to post at the end of each calendar month.

• Exact days per period: Follows the number of days in the monthly calendar and ignores the 4+4+5 period and schedules the revenue to post at the end of each calendar month.

When this field is not selected, Intacct schedules the revenue as follows:

• Straight line: divides the revenue into the same amount for each period, including the 5-week period, and schedules the revenue to post on the end of the 4+4+5 period.

• Exact days per period: divides the revenue so that there’s less revenue in the 4-week periods and more revenue in the 5-week periods, and schedules the revenue to post at the end of the 4+4+5 period.

Recognition schedule period

Select the interval at which Intacct should schedule the journal entries to post.

Options are: Daily, Monthly, Quarterly, Semi-annually, Annually

Percent or milestone source

Options are:

• User-specified: you can specify threshold settings in the Percent recognized column in the Milestones section. This lets you set up the revenue recognition schedule any way you want by mapping the percentage to recognize to the recognition period (Offset).
• Project accounting: Intacct can calculate completion percentages per the option selected in the Based on field.

This field only displays if:

• Projects is configured with Track time by = "Project and task" or "Customer, project, and task" AND
• Recognition method = Percent completed or Milestone

Posting day

Options are:

• 1 through 31: the revenue will be scheduled to post each period on the selected day of the month. For example, if you select 15 and the Recognition schedule period is monthly, revenue is scheduled to post on the 15th of each month in the recognition term.
• End of period: the revenue will be scheduled to post on the last day of the recognition period. For example, if Revenue schedule period is monthly, revenue will post on 31-Jan, 28-Feb, 31-Mar, and so on. If the Revenue schedule period is quarterly, revenue will be scheduled to post on the last day of the quarter. For example, 31-Mar, 30-Jun, and so on.
• Daily: the behavior of this option depends on whether or not the revenue recognition is project-based (specifically, if the Percent or milestone source = Project Accounting):
  • For non-Project-based revenue: the revenue will be scheduled to post every day of the recognition term. The daily revenue amount depends on the selected recognition method. For example, with straight-line recognition, Intacct divides each periodic amount by the number of days in the period to establish the daily revenue amount. With Exact days per period, prorate days, Intacct divides the schedule amount by the number of days in the recognition term to establish the daily revenue amount.

    Due to the number of scheduled entries required for Daily recognition, the recognition term cannot exceed 5 years. If you choose Fixed period as the Recognition term, the Recognition start date must be User -specified in order to use the Daily Posting day option.

  • For Project-based revenue: the revenue is scheduled to post as of the date you open the revenue schedule (today's date). The best practice is to only use the Daily option if you’re using the Manual posting method.

If you set Recognition schedule period = Daily, Posting day is automatically set to Daily.

This field is only applicable if your company is configured to use custom accounting periods.

When Use standard calendar amortization = false:

• The number of days from the period's start date that the revenue should be scheduled. For example, if the line item start date is 04-Jan and the Elapsing day = 15, the first scheduled posting date = 18-Jan.

• If you choose End of period, the revenue is scheduled on the last day of each applicable custom period.

When Use standard calendar amortization = true:

• The day of the month the revenue should post. For example, if the line item start date is 04-Jan and the Elapsing day = 15, the first scheduled posting day is 15-Jan.
• If you choose End of period, the revenue is scheduled on the last day of each calendar month.

Recognition term

Options are:

• Fixed period: Intacct will use the set number of periods as specified in the No of periods field to generate the schedule.
• Contract term: Intacct calculates the number of periods based on the transaction start and end dates.

This field does not display when Recognition Method = Milestone or Percent Completed and Percent or Milestone Source = Project Accounting.

System resume option

Determines how Intacct will deal with revenue scheduled prior to the item's Delivery date. This field is only applicable if you’re using event-based recognition.

Options are:

• Catch up: Intacct will post Open revenue recognition that was scheduled prior to the item's Delivery date to catch up to the period of the resume date. These postings are automatic, regardless of the selected Posting method.
• Walk forward: Intacct will regenerate the revenue schedule as of the resume date and push the end date out the same number of days as the new start date was pushed forward. This keeps the overall revenue schedule the same length.

Number of periods

Enter the number of periods in the term. This field is only applicable if you select Fixed period as the Recognition term.

Recognition start date

Options are:

• Transaction date: the revenue recognition schedule will start on the sales transaction date.
• User-specified: the revenue recognition schedule will start on the date the user defines as the Start date for the sales transaction line item.

Calculate on

For Recognition method = Percent completed and Percent or Milestone source = Project accounting, you can choose whether to calculate the percent complete on a Task or Project.

For Recognition method = Milestone and Percent or Milestone source = Project accounting, this field is set to Task.

Based on

For Recognition method = Percent completed and Percent or Milestone source = Project accounting, options are:

• Observed %complete (the survey method): Revenue Recognition will use the appropriate percent complete value entered by the user at the project or task level.
• Budgeted cost from summary: Revenue recognition uses the budgeted cost from the project summary and the actual cost at the project level to compute the percent complete for revenue recognition. To view these numbers, go to the Project Information page and select the Project Summary tab. Actual cost is based on an account group set up in Project Configuration. Budgeted cost is entered in the project summary page and should be based on the same accounts in the Cost account group.
• Budgeted cost from GL: Revenue recognition will use the budgeted cost calculated from the GL budget and actual cost at the project level to compute the percent complete for revenue recognition. To view these numbers, go to the Project Information page and select the Project Summary tab. Actual cost is based on an account group set up in Project Configuration. Budgeted cost is based on the same accounts in the Cost account group, and the Budget ID entered in the project summary page.
• Estimated hours, or Planned hours, or Budgeted hours: Revenue recognition will use the budgeted/estimated/planned hours and actual hours approved to compute the percent complete for revenue recognition.

For Recognition method = Milestone and Percent or Milestone source = Project accounting, options are:

• Observed %complete (the survey method): Revenue Recognition will use the appropriate percent complete value entered by the user at the task level.
• Estimated hours or Planned hours: Revenue recognition will use the estimated or planned hours and actual hours approved to compute the percent complete for revenue recognition.

Learn more about how project revenue recognition is calculated.

Posting method

Options are:

• Automatic: Intacct will automatically create revenue recognition journal entries on each scheduled posting date. The Company must be configured with Scheduled jobs = On in order for automatic posting to occur.
• Manual: the user will manually post the scheduled revenue recognition to create the journal entries when desired.

Status

Options are:

• Active: the template will appear in the applicable dropdown lists and is available for use.
• Inactive: the template will not be available for use.

You can change the template's status as desired.

Percent completed

The percentage of completeness at which to recognize revenue.

If you want to recognize revenue at certain threshold levels, add the values in order from least to greatest. The last row must be defined as 100. For example, if you want to recognize revenue by 25% increments, enter 25, 50, 75, and 100 in this column.

If Percent or Milestone source = Project accounting and you want to recognize revenue at whatever percentage of completion exists when you run Manage Revenue Schedules, leave this column blank.

Percent recognized

If Percent or Milestone Source = Project accounting, this field is not editable and displays the percent of revenue that will be recognized when the associated Percent completed milestone is reached.

If Recognition Method = Milestone and Percent or Milestone source = User-specified, enter the percent of revenue to be recognized at each threshold level.

Description

If Percent or Milestone source = User-specified, enter a description for the associated recognition period.

Account

If Recognition method = Custom, select the account in which to recognize the revenue.

When you associate a custom revenue recognition template with a sales transaction line item, Intacct ignores the sales revenue account defined on the transaction definition and uses the sales revenue account defined here for revenue recognition.

See a custom revenue schedule example.

Period offset

Determines how many periods in the future to create the potential revenue recognition journal entries in the schedule.

For example, say you have a four-month schedule and you want the schedule to use the current period. The Period offset would be 0, 1, 2, 3. 0 = the current period. If you wanted the scheduled entries to be every two months starting two months from the transaction date, the Period offset would be 2, 4, 6, and so on.

Percent amount

Indicates the percentage of the revenue recognition that should be applied to the corresponding account for the corresponding Offset period. For example, if you enter Percent amount = 100% for Period offset = 0, the revenue recognition schedule will contain one potential revenue recognition journal entry for the entire amount of revenue recognition and schedule it to post in the current period.

Rows

To specify the number of rows in this section, enter the desired number of rows in the Rows field and press Enter or select Refresh.

For example, if you want to define 10 percentage milestones, type 10 in the Row field and select Refresh. 10 rows appear in the section.