Apex revenue recognition
Revenue schedules computed from your policy, signed off by your accountant.
Revenue recognition is an accounting judgment, and it stays yours. Apex does the arithmetic: it takes the obligations from the signed quote, applies the policy your accountant sets, builds the deferred revenue schedule, and drafts the journals. Your accountant reviews each close before anything is posted to the ERP.
From quote to journal
The obligations are captured when the deal is.
- 01
Capture
Performance obligations are taken from the signed quote's lines: the license, the implementation, the support, the usage.
- 02
Allocate
The contract price is allocated across obligations on the standalone selling prices your policy sets.
- 03
Schedule
Each obligation gets a schedule under its method, and the deferred revenue waterfall is built from all of them.
- 04
Review and post
At period close your accountant reviews the schedules and journals. Approved journals are posted to the ERP and the period is locked.
Methods
Four recognition methods now, one more later.
Methods are set per item in your policy and can be overridden on a line where the contract says so.
- Ratable
- Spread evenly over the service period, for subscriptions, licenses and support.
- Usage
- Recognized as usage is delivered, from the same metered quantities billing used.
- Point in time
- Recognized when control passes, for goods and one-off services.
- Milestone
- Recognized as defined milestones are reached and accepted.
- Percentage of completion
- For long projects. Modeled in Apex, but not available in the first release.
Who decides what
Apex calculates. Your accountant decides.
| Your accountant | Apex | |
|---|---|---|
| The policy | Sets methods, standalone selling prices and allocation rules | Applies them the same way to every contract |
| Each close | Reviews schedules and journals, and signs off | Computes them and shows every input |
| Journals | Approves posting | Posts approved journals to the ERP and reads them back |
| Changes | Decides when a policy changes | Versions the policy and recomputes forward |
At close
What your accountant sees before signing off.
The waterfall
Deferred revenue by month, by customer and by obligation, with opening and closing balances.
Every input
The quote line, the allocation and the method behind each scheduled amount.
Draft journals
Debits and credits mapped to your chart of accounts, ready to post to the ERP.
Period locking
Once a period is signed off it is locked, and later changes flow into the open period.
Agents propose, people approve
The agent drafts. A person decides.
A revenue review agent explains why an amount was deferred, in plain language with the inputs beside it, and flags anomalies before close. It never posts a journal. Schedules and journals are deterministic calculations with no model step.
Every agent stops at an approval gate until it has earned its way out of one. Nothing releases cash, commits spend or touches a customer without a person saying so.
Your dataModels that read your data run inside your environment, behind your firewall. No client data reaches a frontier lab.
Start here, keep the foundation
Start with revenue recognition. Add the rest without starting over.
Revenue recognition can come first for a company that already bills from its ERP. Apex reads the invoices and customers from the ERP into your Ferrata foundation and builds schedules from them. Add quoting or usage billing later and their obligations and quantities feed the same schedules directly.
FAQ
Questions, answered plainly.
What is revenue recognition software?
Revenue recognition software works out when revenue from a contract is earned, rather than when it is billed or paid. It splits a contract into obligations, schedules each one under the right method, keeps a deferred revenue balance, and produces the journal entries.
Is Apex ASC 606 compliant?
Compliance depends on your policy and your accountant's judgment, not on software alone. Apex builds schedules to support the ASC 606 or IFRS 15 policy your accountant sets: obligations, standalone selling price allocation and the recognition method per item. Your accountant owns the policy and signs off each close.
Which recognition methods are supported?
Ratable, usage-based, point in time and milestone in the first release. Percentage of completion, for long projects, is modeled but comes later.
Where do the journal entries go?
Apex drafts journals mapped to your chart of accounts. Once your accountant approves them at close, they are posted to SAP, NetSuite or Dynamics and read back to confirm, and the period is locked.
Does a model decide how revenue is recognized?
No. Schedules and journals are deterministic calculations from your policy. A review agent can explain a deferral or flag something unusual, but it never posts and never changes a schedule.
What happens if a contract is amended?
The amendment updates the obligations and the schedule recomputes from the amendment date forward. Locked periods are not changed; any catch-up lands in the open period for your accountant to review.
Do we have to bill in Apex to use revenue recognition?
No. Apex can build schedules from the invoices already in your ERP. Billing in Apex adds the quote's obligations and the metered usage directly, which removes a manual step.
Related in Apex
- Revenue metricsARR, MRR, NRR, churn and expansion, computed from the schedules you bill from.View
- Subscription billingBilling schedules with phases, amendments, proration and co-terming.View
- Usage-based billingBill what customers used, rated at the price they signed, posted to your ERP.View
- Progress billing and retainageSchedule of values, percent complete, retainage held and released.View
- NetSuitePrice levels in, sales orders, invoices and journals out, on Oracle NetSuite.View
From Ferrata Labs
Start with revenue recognition, or talk it through first.
Thirty minutes with Ferrata Labs on one workflow. You leave with a view of where Apex fits, and an honest answer if the sequencing is wrong and you should fix something else first.
Your pricing, approval and billing rules are your advantage, and they stay yours. Apex is configured to the way you sell and bill. You are not handing over a playbook or fitting into a template.