Episode 9: Webinar Recap Part Deux

Episode9We promised it and today we deliver with Episode 9 of “Ask the RevRec Experts” in which Matt and Jim continue their recap of the webinar, “Five Best Practices for a Successful Revenue Automation Implementation,” with more questions posed and answers delivered.

As a reminder, this recent event included representatives from one of our customers, Tintri, and an industry partner, Connor Group, providing their successful revenue automation implementation strategies for your benefit.

If you were unable to join the live session, you’ll find it on demand here.

Here’s a snippet of the Q&A on today’s episode:

“How does RevPro enable users to fully process transactions and generate detailed reporting based on dual guidance?”

RevPro3 can be configured to process the same transactions under current GAAP and future GAAP rules. With that, it will create all subledger accounting entries for each set of books, allowing customers to determine what and where they want to post entries.  Within the Revenue Workbench, users can view the Revenue comparison tab that shows key metrics such as billings, revenue, deferred Revenue/Contract Liabilities, Contract Assets and costs by period for a given revenue contract/arrangement. Users can also view the details of a contract under each guidance in the workbench.  Standard Operational reports are guidance specific and can be run and compared across guidances. Limited side by side revenue comparison reporting within the Standard Operational reports is on the 2016 roadmap.  More detailed comparisons will be available as part of RevPro’s add-on Revenue Intelligence module over the next year. The framework and tables used to generate the standard operational reports from each guidance can be pulled into a customer’s corporate data warehouse for more robust reporting.

“Is there a best practice for managing the multi-element arrangements? Are these structures typically defined in RevPro or the ERP?”
RevPro is designed to consider best practices as interpreted by the Big 4 and other accounting firms, as well as our internal expertise. Managing multi-element arrangements is one of the core capabilities of RevPro – from linking multiple orders/invoices into arrangements to determining the correct allocation adjustments and managing the timing of when to recognize revenue. It is best practice to turn off revenue recognition rules in your ERP (set all to deferred revenue) and let RevPro become your subledger and house all revenue rules. These rules are based on using fields/attributes on the transaction data from your ERP for rule application. That is the structure which needs to be in the ERP.
“What are some features of RevPro (or customizations) that you’ve seen to be helpful for the business change scenarios that have needed to be dealt with in a revrec tool?”
While asking this question to several different RevPro users might garner  a variety of answers as this no doubt varies from company to company, items mentioned included several reports considered critical to a number of existing clients, many of which are included as part of standard RevPro reporting. Credit and debit memos are also a key aspect to consider in implementing RevPro, as this process is often found to be very fragmented and inaccurate and, ultimately, requiring a virtual reinvention in order to have the proper elements flow into RevPro for complete accounting for transactions. Our Professional Services team typically respond with configuration changes in the tool itself in support of future business changes in scenarios.
“If you are implementing RevPro under current revenue recognition guidance, what should we do or take into account now that will help the implementation of RevPro when we adopt ASC606 in the future?”
The most important items are to have a strong understanding of all the potentially new data elements you will need to account for correctly under ASC606, make sure they’re captured in your upstream systems and to have them flow properly into RevPro now, even if you do not do anything with them for current guidance. By doing this now, the data will be there for you as you finalize your policies and replay your data through RevPro for future guidance.

The “Ask the RevRec Experts” podcast presented by Leeyo Software reviews questions asked through the website, email, out in the field, webinars or at industry events to find answers for each, often directly from our expert guest contributors.

Please submit questions and feedback to podcast@leeyo.com or via the “Ask the Experts” box in the right-hand sidebar.

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