Revenue recognition: spreading a lump sum over months

Finance > Revenue Recognition is for money that arrives in one lump but belongs to several months. A customer pays twelve months up front; the cash is yours today but the revenue is not earned until each month passes. The same works in reverse for money you paid up front, such as a year of insurance. You create a schedule, WorkBOS divides the amount evenly across the months you chose, and each month it writes the entry into your general ledger for you. It is part of Financial Data, so your plan has to include that.

• Create a schedule with New schedule. Choose the type ("Deferred revenue: prepaid by customer" or "Prepaid expense. We paid upfront"), give it a title, pick the customer or supplier, enter the total amount, the start date and how many months to spread it over.
• "Record the upfront cash now" is ticked by default on a new schedule. It writes the opening entry for the whole amount: money in and a liability for revenue you have not earned yet, or a prepaid asset and money out. Untick it if that cash was already entered somewhere else, or you will count it twice.
• Each month is posted for you. There is a nightly job, so entries appear without anybody pressing anything. "Recognize due" posts everything that is due right now, and the number beside it counts schedules waiting, not entries: a schedule six months behind posts six entries from one press.
• The Recognized column shows how much of the total has been taken to date, with a bar. A schedule completes itself when it reaches the total.
• Deleting a schedule is permanent, and the entries it already posted stay in the ledger. That is deliberate: those months really did happen, and removing them would change accounts you have already reported on.

Who can use it: owners, admins and members can create and change schedules. Viewers can read the list but every change is refused by the server, not just hidden. One thing to know before you rely on it: if the accounting period a monthly entry belongs to is closed, or the schedule points at an account that no longer exists, that month is skipped rather than posted, and the remaining amount moves to the end of the schedule. Check the Recognized figure against what you expect at the end of a year rather than assuming every month landed.