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Re:Palantir S-1 by amathyst on Tuesday August 25, 2020 @06:03PM (#24276729)
Thanks. For my understanding, what’s the standard definition of “when it is earned”? If it’s a 5 year contract must all revenue associated with that contract be spread across all 5 years?
Re:Palantir S-1 by carlineng on Tuesday August 25, 2020 @06:26PM (#24276967)
There are rules around revenue recognition [1]. These rules provide guiding principles, and there's some human judgment involved in ironing out the details. Its almost certain that the revenue would be spread over the life of the contract, but it's possible that the contract has some growth baked in, so the latter years may be more heavily weighted than the early years.

You can see how much prepaid money is "waiting" to be recognized by looking at Deferred Revenue on the balance sheet. $263 million at the end of 2019.

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/revenuerecognition.asp