Understanding the Revenue Accrual Report.

The Revenue Accrual report can be found under Reporting / Standard Reports in the Administration category. It can be used to determine the proportion of revenue that should be recognised on your General Ledger for a particular period and to determine your current liabilities.

Every line item on every invoice raised has a service start and a service end date - for a subscription invoice, this is the period of the subscription. The Revenue Accruals report takes the total value of each item and spreads it evenly over the associated period of service, it then apportions the revenue into "before", "during" and "after" periods where the "during" period is defined by the From date and To Date criteria entered. The "during" amount is the amount of revenue that should be recognised for the reported period. 

This is different to the amount that you will report to your general ledger for the same time period which would represent the amount you have invoiced during that period. The amount invoiced and collected (when using cash accounting principles) could include services that do not begin until sometime in the future, eg. Subscription fees paid before the previous period of subscription has expired or for services that begun in a previous period, eg. late payments. 

If the Include Invoices on or before date of the Revenue Accruals report is left blank, all invoices for services during or after the period reported are included in the report, the full value of any future invoices will appear in the "after" column as this represents future liabilities (services purchased but not yet supplied). Setting this date ignores invoices dated after the date entered, allowing you to determine the "during" amount as it would have been at the date entered, ie. ignoring any invoices raised after the date entered.

Selecting a Document Type and/or an Account Code lets you limit the report to a particular transaction type and/or a particular revenue account code. The final option allows you to choose to show details of all the transactions, or just to show summary totals at the various account code and transaction type levels.