Deferral Definition + Journal Entry Examples

The remaining $10,000 is deferred by reporting it as a current asset such as prepaid insurance, on its December 31 balance sheet. In accrual-based accounting you record the revenue only after it’s earned or recognized. Accountants use revenue recognition principle to identify and report how much of the deferred revenue is recognized, especially in SaaS Accounting. For these purposes, accountants use the term deferral to refer to the act of delaying recognizing certain revenues (or even expenses) on your income statement over a specified period.

This is because it has an obligation to the customer in the form of the products or services owed. The payment is considered a liability to the company because there is still the possibility that the good or service may not be delivered, or the buyer might cancel the order. In either case, the company would need to repay the customer, unless other payment terms were explicitly stated in a signed contract. Deferred revenue is a liability because it reflects revenue that has not been earned and represents products or services that are owed to a customer.

Deferred revenue examples

Because of the similarity between deferrals and their corresponding accruals, they are commonly conflated. In accrual accounting, you only recognize revenue when you earn it, unlike in cash accounting, where you only earn revenue when you receive a payment period. Therefore, under accrual accounting, if customers pay for products or services in advance, you cannot record any revenue on your income statement. Deferred revenue, also known as unearned revenue, refers to advance payments a company receives for products or services that are to be delivered or performed in the future.

Additionally, some industries have strict rules governing how to treat deferred revenue. For example, the legal profession requires lawyers to deposit unearned fees into an IOLTA trust account to satisfy their fiduciary and ethical duty. The penalties for non-compliance can be harsh—sometimes leading to disbarment. As per basic accounting principles, a business should not recognize income until it has earned it, and it should not recognize expenses until employment law 101 it has spent them. For example, if your business spends $5,000 on branded merchandise, and then earns $10,000 reselling it on your website, both the revenue and expense will need to be reflected on your income statement within one accounting period. Just like the delicate balance of a see-saw, understanding and applying accounting principles like ‘deferral’ can mean the difference between smooth financial operations and a chaotic financial see-saw.

Financial Accounting

The amount of the asset is typically adjusted monthly by the amount of the expense. The not-yet-recognized portion of such costs remains as prepayments (assets) to prevent such cost from turning into a fictitious loss in the monthly period it is billed, and into a fictitious profit in any other monthly period. Technically, you cannot consider deferred revenues as revenue until you earn them—you deliver the products or services prepaid. As the fiscal year progresses, the company sends the newspaper to its customer each month and recognizes revenue.

• In accrual accounting, you only recognize revenue when you earn it, unlike in cash accounting, where you only earn revenue when you receive a payment period.
• Deferrals are adjusting entries that delay the recognition of financial transactions and push them back to a future period.
• For example, if a company provides a service in June but doesn’t receive payment until July, the revenue would still be recorded in June under accrual accounting.
• If a department does not see an accrual within 5 business days for an item that they know they have received in FY23 on their FOAPAL/fund, please contact and ask to have a member of the General Accounting staff review the transactions.

This amount will be a prepaid expense recognized as an asset on the balance sheet and appear in the expense deferrals account. A revenue deferral is an adjusting entry intended to delay a company’s revenue recognition to a future accounting period once the criteria for recorded revenue have been met. Some businesses offer multiple services along with their subscription model, like annual maintenance for two years. In this case, one part of the service you’re providing is fulfilled at purchase, whereas the other will be deferred.

Payments

The Accounting Department will also book a receivable and recognize revenue for cash receipts that follow the delivery of goods/services and exchange of cash as explained above. A common example of accounts receivable are Contribution Receivables for pledges made by donors. When customers pay in advance for products or services they won’t receive until later, this payment is recorded as deferred revenue on the balance sheet. The payment is not immediately recognized as sales or revenue on the income statement. This ensures that revenues and expenses are matched to the period when they occur, providing a more accurate picture of a company’s financial performance. Accounting principles require the revenues and expenses are recorded when they are incurred.

After the payment has been made, the entry would be modified to reflect a complete, “debited” transaction to the provider. The cash basis of accounting only applies to that kind of business where sales are not exceeding more than $5 million annually. The cash basis is very easy to use, and generally, there is not much complexity involved in it as simply a record of the transaction only when the cash is received in the business. Due to the simple nature of accounting, small businesses often use cash basis to prepare their books of accounts. Accrual and deferral are two sides of the same coin, each addressing a different aspect of revenue and expense recognition. They are foundational concepts in accounting that ensure financial statements accurately reflect a company’s financial position.

Example 1 – Liability / revenue adjusting entry for future services rendered

Let’s say a customer makes an advance payment in January of $10,000 for products you’re manufacturing to be delivered in April. You would record it as a debit to cash of $10,000 and a deferred revenue credit of $10,000. When you note accrued revenue, you’re recognizing the amount of income that’s due to be paid but has not yet been paid to you.

Monthly, the accountant records a debit entry to the deferred revenue account, and a credit entry to the sales revenue account for $100. By the end of the fiscal year, the entire deferred revenue balance of $1,200 has been gradually booked as revenue on the income statement at the rate of $100 per month. The balance is now $0 in the deferred revenue account until next year's prepayment is made. Consider a media company that receives $1,200 in advance payment at the beginning of its fiscal year from a customer for an annual newspaper subscription. Upon receipt of the payment, the company's accountant records a debit entry to the cash and cash equivalent account and a credit entry to the deferred revenue account for $1,200.

Similarly, accrued revenue accounts for an asset because the product or service has been provided, and the cash flow is yet to happen. On the other hand, revenue deferrals account for a product or service contract that has been paid in advance. Deferrals reconcile and explain the time difference between cash flow and the recognition of the transaction in the income statement. This helps align a company’s books and financial statements more accurately, matching the service or goods with their related revenue. That is why deferrals are important for the company’s compliance with the IFRS and the GAAP. A deferral often refers to an amount that was paid or received, but the amount cannot be reported on the current income statement since it will be an expense or revenue of a future accounting period.