Revenue recognition (ASC 606 / IFRS 15)

The question behind every contract

Under IFRS 15, the question is always the same regardless of industry: which obligation to the customer has actually been satisfied this month, and how much of the contract price belongs to it. A UAE agency collecting a retainer, a SaaS business invoicing annually, and a trading company delivering against a multi-year supply contract are all answering that same question, just with different-looking contracts.

Working through it contract by contract

Each agreement gets separated into its distinct performance obligations, the transaction price allocated across them, and a month-by-month recognition schedule built from that allocation. Deferred and unbilled revenue reconcile back to that schedule every month, and anywhere the judgement call is not obvious, a short memo records what was decided and why.

Not a SaaS-only exercise

Multi-year contracts, bundled products and services, and upfront fees tied to delivery over time show up across trading, agency and holding structures just as often as in software, so this is not a service reserved for one industry type.

A different clock from VAT

Money collected upfront under a tax invoice can trigger a VAT tax point under Federal Tax Authority rules well before the related revenue is actually released from the recognition schedule for management reporting. The two run on separate timelines, and we track both rather than assuming one governs the other.

Kept current, not rebuilt annually

The schedule lives inside the accounting file the business already runs and gets updated every month alongside the close, checked by a senior reviewer, so revenue recognition is not a once-a-year scramble reconstructed from memory.