Bookings vs Revenue: The Essential Guide to Maximizing Your Business's Bottom Line

Increasing income should be the top priority for every rapidly expanding business. Seeing sales orders come through is a natural source of excitement. However, the amount of money that enters your books is another matter. Read our guide about bookings vs revenue.

The accounting challenges of revenue recognition stem from the nature of its recurring revenue model. Bookings, billings, and revenue are all essential top-level indicators to grasp.

The term "revenue recognition" refers to the accounting process. Investors will be watching these metrics closely since they indicate future success. To avoid misleading stakeholders and avoid unwelcome tax compliance concerns, it's essential to have a firm grasp of the finer points of revenue recognition.

What are Bookings and Revenue?

The entires and revenues must be distinguished from each other. Let us first clarify the meaning and calculation of these terms.

When a consumer says "hell yes," they are making a booking for your goods. It represents the potential profit from a long-term agreement with a new client. All the contracts you finalised within a given month are your "bookings" for that period.  A paying customer can be tracked only by looking at total bookings.

A skewed view of a company's health might result from focusing just on revenue recognition. Therefore, each month, you should only record income from services rendered. This follows the United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), which indicate that money should only be counted as "earned" if it has been earned.

A Remark on the Value of Accounting Principles

Accounting standards are a collection of norms and best practices for financial accounting and reporting. The Financial Accounting Standards Board governs GAAP US, which includes a revenue recognition concept (FASB). Most nations outside the United States use an alternate set of rules called International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), overseen by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).

Auditing criteria are in place so that. Bring consistency and transparency to financial reporting across firms and industries to eliminate the inconsistencies that arise when organisations in different sectors account for the same types of transactions in their books.

Facilitate the reading and comparison of financial statements from different firms and sectors so that investors and other interested parties may make informed decisions.

Variety of Bookings

Typical forms of bookings companies use include new subscriptions, upgrades/expansions, and renewals. However, many companies also employ various shapes to make preliminary value predictions.

New bookings: What we mean by "new reservations" is new customers or subscriptions and renewals or upgrades for current customers.

Renewal postings: Existing renewable contracts are considered renewal postings.

Upgraded/expansion bookings:  Upsells of expanding services or price increases might result in extra reservations counted as "sold." For example, if a user wishes to go from the Pro plan (at $500 per year) to the Enterprise plan (at $2,000 per year), they must sign a new contract at $24,000 per year.

ACV/TCV postings:  We consider entries with at least one year of committed revenue. In this case, the entries are at the annual contract value. Conversely, Total Contract Value Bookings consider the whole scope of the agreement.

Non-recurring Bookings: While most subscriptions are ongoing and cover predetermined services, some companies also take into account one-time payments for things like training, set-up, and discounts, among other things.

Revenue

Following generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), revenue is the amount of money a company brings in after deducting all expenses. The heart of a business is providing contracted cloud-based services following the Service Level Agreement. At the same time, bookings represent the total value of contracts signed during a specific period. The money that is earned from these contracts that are represented by revenue.

Services rendered result in revenue. Do you see the value in the money customers is willing to pay for your goods or services?

Revenue from subscriptions is recognised throughout the subscription period. Thus, if the subscription is an annual one, 1/12 of the total amount is recognised as revenue each month if it's billed monthly.

The service provider typically recognises a percentage of the total value of the contract each month, quarter, or year.

A company's deferred income decreases as time goes on due to the accrual of interest and principal payments. Multi-year contracts may turn deferred revenue into a significant long-term burden.

Using the information we've provided as an example, your monthly income would equal the total share of sales made by each of your customers. Remember that neither expansion nor contraction is considered.

Conclusion

Statements are similar to entries when they are made in advance, but more like receipts when they are made on a recurring monthly basis. This, though, is dependent on the details of your situation, the nature of your product or service, and your price structure. The steady increase in recurring revenue as new contracts are signed is critical.

These measurements have other fascinating connections among them, too. The book-to-bill ratio is one such metric. It's like leaving money on the table in businesses like advertising, where not all scheduled business can be fulfilled and converted into income. We hope you now understand bookings vs revenue.

All of these measures need close monitoring. Your company's monthly sales booked and billed revenues are all critical metrics to track. That is much more important when deciding how to pay commissions and variable compensation to your sales representatives, but that's a discussion for another time.