Revenue recognition
August 12th, 2010
Copyright © 2010 Integrated Profitability TM
Revenue recognition is an accounting discipline. The observations below are not from an accountant and should not be relied upon as such. Rather, they are higher-level thoughts on how one can think about revenue and its drivers and challenges.
Monetary-based
How are prices paid by customers?
● Cash
● Credit Card
● Check
● Terms (account receivables)
Obligation-based
Revenue is recognized when an obligation to pay is created. Actual payments may be based on different event-triggers:
● Signing of contract
● Work in Progress
● Delivery of goods/completion of service
Cash basis vs. Accrual basis
Businesses need to consistently use one or the other basis for their financial books:
● Cash: revenue is recognized when you have the cash: without any possibility of it being reversed.
● Accrual: revenue is recognized the moment someone has a legally-enforceable obligation to pay you
Business conditions
The following are related to pricing and/or revenue:
● Discounts: a lowering of price prior to a sale. As such, the discounted portion cannot be revenue since the customer never had an obligation to pay that amount.
● Rebates: a return of part of the price collected. As such, rebates are negative revenue. To be accurate, the concept of “realized price” must be the amount after the rebate.
● Refunds: a return of an item purchased that results in a partial or full refund of the amount collected. In this case, price is unaffected; the refund is negative revenue.
● Non-payment: when the customer does not pay the price. On an accrual basis, the original sale price is booked as revenue, and the ultimate realization that the price will not be collected will cause an entry of negative revenue. On a cash basis, you never had anything to book.
Bill
William A. Stong
Email: william.a.stong@gmail.com
SBF&P # 75
Telephone: 925-202-6244
Copyright © 2010 Integrated Profitability TM
Equity-capital: Financial Definitions
November 2nd, 2009
Copyright © 2009 Integrated Profitability TM
The second in a series based on a request to cover “capital”:
“Good! Finally all of this is coming together for me. How about more on capital? What is it? where does it come from, is it actual & stored somewhere physically and separately or virtual like the net or sum of two or more numbers?”
The last article, Capital: An Introduction, painted a high-level picture of the arena in which one finds capital. To put some meat on those bare-bones, here are definitions for the main concepts—in a kind of reverse order:
● Revenue: money that comes into a business. This represents the value of what customers are paying for products and services provided by your business; a.k.a.: income.
● Expense: money that goes out of a business, particularly funds spent to make, deliver and support products and services purchased by customers; a.k.a.: cost.
● Net-Profit: what is leftover from revenue after all expenses are paid. “Net-profit” is merely a mathematical equation and depending on the two inputs, it can be positive (a good thing) or negative (not such a good thing).
● Income Statement: the summary statement that contains revenue and expense, and ends with the difference between the two (revenue minus expense). Net-Profit is either positive or negative. There may not be consensus on what the former is called, but the latter is universally known as “a loss.” Which is why the Income Statement is also known as The Profit and Loss Statement.
● Assets: what you own.
● Liabilities: what you owe.
● Capital: the difference between what you own and what you owe. Like with Net-Profit, this is a mathematical calculation. If Assets are greater than Liabilities, the company has positive capital. If, however, a company’s effort and investment haven’t worked out, Assets may be lower than Liabilities which leaves the company with negative capital.
● Balance Sheet: a summary statement that contains all of a company’s assets, liabilities and capital. In the wonderful world of T-accounts, double-entry bookkeeping, journals and ledgers, Assets are shown on the left half of a page (Note: as you are looking at it; not from the page’s perspective) while the Liabilities and Capital are on the right half of the page. The convention is that Liabilities are always on top—possibly in homage to the fact that if a company goes into a death spiral and splats into bankruptcy, the people holding Liabilities get paid before those holding Capital.
With perfect timing, The Contra Costa Times this morning (November 2, 2009), had an article covering the bankruptcy filing for the CIT Group (Morning Report; “Key Lender files for Chapter 11”; page AA1). Two pertinent points related to capital:
“…, CIT’s bankruptcy filing shows $71 billion in finance and leasing assets against total debt of $64.9 billion.”
“Treasury Department spokesman Andrew Williams said the government will be closely monitoring the bankruptcy proceedings, but acknowledged that “recovery to preferred and common equity holders will be minimal.””
Apparently, good and bad news are twins.
Please let me know if there are other terms for which definitions would be beneficial, or helpful, or add clarity.
Next in the series: The Market & Other Names for Capital
Bill
William A. Stong
Email: william.a.stong@gmail.com
SBF&P # 44
Telephone: 925-202-6244
Copyright © 2009 Integrated Profitability TM
Equity-capital: An Introduction
October 26th, 2009
Copyright © 2009 Integrated Profitability TM
The “Small Business Finance & Profitability” (SBF&P) blog has received a request to cover “capital”:
“Good! Finally all of this is coming together for me. How about more on capital? What is it? where does it come from, is it actual & stored somewhere physically and separately or virtual like the net or sum of two or more numbers?”
“Capital” is a great topic and one the SBF&P blog hasn’t touched upon. Not even gotten close, although passing reference has been made to it from time to time. Capital is a critically important part of a company’s financial books. However, it can be somewhat esoteric; which means, it will take a few blogs to define, explain and clarify what capital is, why it is important and how it can be used.
This first article will be an introduction, providing a definitional foundation for more detailed articles in the future.
The prospect of a series of articles on financial capital will no doubt send some people screaming for any button on your keyboard that will return you to where you came from, close the browser or shut-down your computer. A pity.
To begin the discussion of capital, an introduction is in order. Of all the financial statements created to report on companies, two stand head-and-shoulders above the rest:
● The Income Statement
● The Balance Sheet
These may trigger big yawns for many, but do your best to stifle them. If these two reports don’t raise your heart rate, hang in there. Things get better. Trust me: I’m in finance.
Numbers People in Action: Finance Analysis
August 18th, 2009
Copyright © 2009 Integrated Profitability TM
A further continuation of the suggestion that came in to “…include a simple but meaningful scenario which you’d have the three Numbers People work through to posting, reporting and interpretation and planning…” The first article set up the simple scenario, the second dealt with Accountants & Bookkeepers, the third with basic Finance reporting. This article focuses on the analysis that Finance does.
The third step for Finance is to provide analysis and interpretation of the numbers. To the extent possible from the general ledger accounts, Finance will dig into changes in the numbers and provide explanations as to what is causing those changes, as well as identifying interconnected events. They use the information they have reported: what the number are and how they have turned out. The analytical stage focuses on explaining the numbers, and their movement, in terms of what is happening with the business creating the numbers.
For example,
● if the expense figure for the snacks has increased, it would be good if sales revenue has also increased. Even better if it has increased at a faster pace.
● if the amount in inventory is increasing, a fall off in sales would help explain what is going on
● if net profit is increasing, a decrease in expense or an increase in revenue would help explain the beneficial outcome
But what if things aren’t moving in expected, or at least hoped for, ways?
Numbers People in Action: Accountants & Bookkeepers
August 10th, 2009
Copyright © 2009 Integrated Profitability TM
A continuation of the suggestion that came in to “…include a simple but meaningful scenario which you’d have the three Numbers People work through to posting, reporting and interpretation and planning…” The first article set up the simple scenario.
With the business model articulated, Accountants step in. Their job is to determine what all the different transactions mentioned or extrapolated from the Business Plan are–from a financial, general ledger perspective. This determination automatically dictates, in the accounting world, how these transactions need to be booked. The accountant will lay out treatment for both the Income Statement (revenue and expense) and the Balance Sheet (assets, liabilities and capital).
For example,
● buying the snacks is an expense
● selling the snacks to harried hungry people is revenue
● if you pay for the snacks with cash, the warehouse trip will decrease cash (an asset) and increase inventory (also an asset)
● if you pay with a credit card, the warehouse trip will increase your credit card debt (a liability) and increase inventory (an asset)
Isn’t double-entry accounting awe-inspiring?
Got Revenue?
August 3rd, 2009
Copyright © 2009 Integrated Profitability TM
If you’re in business, and the business is profitable, then you most certainly have revenue. How well do you know your revenue?
- How much revenue does your business generate?
- Is the revenue steady, like an annuity; or does it come in bits and pieces? Perhaps it comes according to clearly identifiable cycles, or at specific periods? It’s said that the year-end shopping season (say from Thanksgiving through New Year’s) is the make-or-break time for major retail stores. Their annual profitability is decided in those few short months.
- What kind of revenue streams does your business have? How many are there? Are they related? Does the business have any leader-follower revenue streams?
- What kinds of relationships exist between your sources of revenue? If your main revenue stream is increasing, do others follow it up, at the same (or slower, or faster) pace? Do any of your revenue streams have an inverse relationship: as one goes up, the other goes down or vice versa?
- Where is your revenue coming from in terms of your products and services?
Who is providing your revenue? What kinds of clients provide the best kind of revenue? (How do you define “best kind” of revenue?)
Cash Flow: Revenue (Actual, Part 4)-Differentiate Services
July 30th, 2009
Copyright © 2009 Integrated Profitability TM
This is the fourth article on increasing actual revenue to improve your company’s Cash Flow. The last article focused on differentiating products to create opportunities to increase prices or to naturally influence customers toward certain products. This one looks at the same type of opportunities for services.
● Differentiating Service offerings
Similar to differentiating your products, this approach adjusts the level of service that is provided, either as an adjunct to a product (such as extended warranties with differing coverage and differing lengths) or as differing levels of service (as when spas offer a series of more and more complete packages).
Differentiating your service levels usually also has an expense component. More service costs more to deliver–and we will cover that side of the equation in the articles on the expense side of improving Cash Flow. For the revenue side, the better the level of service, the higher the price. The higher the quality of the service, especially in comparison to competitors, the more a premium price may be charged.
Cash Flow: Revenue (Actual, Part 2)- Increase Prices
July 23rd, 2009
Copyright © 2009 Integrated Profitability TM
This is the second article devoted to improving Cash Flow by increasing actual revenue, as opposed to merely adjusting the timing of revenue. The last article of this series covered increasing sales.
Revenue consists of two pieces:
1) a unit of something (e.g., a product, a service, a period of time)
multiplied by
2) a price
The previous article concentrated on increasing the number of units; this article focuses on increasing prices to improve Cash Flow.
● Increase prices
Every business, market, product/service suite and customer base is different. The ability to increase prices is dependent upon many relative characteristics across all four areas, and how they, at the current moment, are interconnected. For example, who has relative market leverage: buyers or the seller? If you have leverage, there is a better chance you will be able to increase prices, without causing a more-than-offsetting decrease in sales. If not, you don’t.
More importantly, where is your product/service placed in the range of similar offering? How is it perceived by the market? If it is one of high quality, then prices may be able to be increased. If you know that your product and service is the best quality and value in the market, but your customers don’t know it, then you have some marketing homework to do. In order for someone to pay a higher price, he or she most perceive that the product/service is better and deserves the premium.
How does your product/service compare to the competition?
Got Cash Flow? (Part 2 of 2)
July 20th, 2009
Copyright © 2009 Integrated Profitability TM
In the article before our regular blogging got interrupted with “Breaking News” (“Got Cash Flow? (Part 1 of 2)”), revenue and expense information was gathered in order to figure your company’s cash flow. For revenues and expenses, the method of payment was highlighted because it provides insight into ways to improve cash flow. Here is what the table of information might look like:
|
Payment Method |
Revenue ($) |
Rev (%) |
Expense ($) |
Exp (%) |
| Cash | ||||
| Debit Card | ||||
| Pay Pal (or similar) | ||||
| Check | ||||
| Credit Card | ||||
| Government Programs | ||||
| Invoice | ||||
| I.O.U. / Promissory Note | ||||
| Other (describe) | ||||
| Other (describe) | ||||
|
Totals |
($) |
(%) |
($) |
(%) |
The order of the “payment method” is from immediate-cash to much-later-cash. For your business, fill the chart in, adding and taking away payment categories to fit the way your company operates. As you fill in the information, jot down estimates of how long each payment method takes to convert to cash. For revenues, that is how long you are financing (carrying) your customers. For expenses, that is how long your suppliers and creditors are financing you.
As you compile these numbers, do you notice any changes happening over time? Unfortunately, the time it takes revenue to convert to cash naturally increases, while the time it takes expenses to be paid in cash decreases. If both of these trends are happening in your business, your cash flow is getting doubly squeezed. If your cash flow is getting squeezed too hard, let’s talk.
In the meantime, here’s a generic approach to assessing the state of your company’s Cash Flow:
Got Cash Flow? (Part 1 of 2)
July 9th, 2009
Copyright © 2009 Integrated Profitability TM
Is your company generating Cash Flow or Cash Dribble? Does your Cash Flow look like the Amazon? Or a dry wash?
Excellent Flow
If your business is firing on all cylinders and you are drowning in a flood of positive Cash Flow, then STOP READING! Go straight to your favorite sweet shop and treat yourself to your favorite dessert. Do not stop at the gym, do collect your “2-for-1” coupons. You deserve a reward for your outstanding success.
On the other hand, if your Cash Flow isn’t as much as you would like, or you think it should be more, then read on. If your Cash Flow is negative, then definitely continue reading.
If your business’ Cash Flow is:
● overwhelmingly positive,… why are you reading this? You’re supposed to be enjoying your favorite dessert. Get out of here. Unless you’re reading this over a banana split at Fenton’s or another fine establishment—then you’re off the hook.
● trickling along, then now is the perfect time to take action
No Flow
● negative, then late action is better than no action
And finally, if you don’t know your business’ Cash Flow, then you are starting at Square One; which, if you have been in business for some time, is not a good place to be.
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