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A comment on Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud accounting. Parent comment

Re:Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud acc... by runarb on Wednesday June 08, 2016 @07:14AM (#11861426)
As I understands it, some companies may also recognize the contract signing as the revenue and capitalize $13,000 for the year the contract was signed ($1000 setup and $1200 subscription pr year * 10 years).

If the customers cancel the contract they may then book the lost revenue as a loss, so an annual statement with high losses may be an indicator that they booked revenue before the revenue was truly secured.

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Re:Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud acc... by spIrr on Wednesday June 08, 2016 @11:01AM (#11862669)
It's actually wrong to book revenues until one has satisfied the performance obligations to the customers, i.e., until the services have been provided. It means that I can't book revenues for 10 years ahead under no circumstances.

It is possible though to have something called "deferred revenues" in case the customer has pre-paid for those years (i.e., transferred the cash for the 10 years), but those are not revenues (not on the P&L), but a liability to the customer to satisfy the performance obligations (on the balance sheet), and this will be gradually released (apportioned) to actual revenues over the course of the remaining years.

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