Revenue recognition reports
The revenue recognition tooling built into Stripe Billing automatically generates reports that you can view in the Stripe Dashboard and export as CSV files. These reports include key information like revenue and deferred revenue in both aggregate views for high-level analysis and detailed views so you can validate data.
Integration requirements
Our tooling assumes you have properly modeled your business on Stripe Billing. This includes:
- Subscriptions must be modeled using products and prices, and customers.
- Taxes are set using the default_tax_rates attribute, not as line items.
- Discounts are set using the discount object, not as invoice items.
Revenue recognition requirements vary based on a number of factors, including the location of your business and the goods and services that you sell. You need to ensure that you understand and comply with the requirements applicable to your business, and that you model your business accordingly.
Dashboard
The revenue recognition section of your Dashboard displays high-level information that is relevant to the operations and financial condition of your business. This includes graphs for recognized revenue and deferred revenue, a monthly summary, and a revenue waterfall. You can download all of this information by clicking the Download… button in each section. If you’re unfamiliar with debit and credit related terms, review our report terminology.
The Stripe revenue recognition tooling generates reports from transactions that are processed by Stripe. There is a 72 hour delay between data being generated and displayed in the Dashboard.
If you process transactions outside of Stripe, those transactions are not reflected in the Dashboard nor the generated reports.
Graphs
The graphs in the Dashboard illustrate revenue activity over the last 12 months and provide a high-level view of your business. The recognized revenue graph shows your net recognized revenue. The deferred revenue graph shows your ending balance per month.
Monthly summary
The monthly summary provides a detailed breakdown of activity for the last complete month. Use this information to understand how your activity affected revenue and to book journal entries. You can also see activity that contributed to your net revenue. For example, you can see the portions of new billings that were recognized and contra revenue items. This section also lists changes to deferred revenue based on your activity, like portions of new billings that haven’t been recognized and contra revenue items.
The monthly summary only shows details if there was activity. For example, if you don’t have any contra revenue, contra revenue information isn’t included.
Revenue waterfall
The revenue waterfall, sometimes called a revenue schedule chart, displays expected recognizable revenue over time. Use this to understand how activity from each period affects revenue in future periods.
This report shows expected revenue amounts based on historical billings. It does not model future billings and it doesn’t predict future revenue from those potential billings. The expected future revenue amounts will change as future billings are added.
CSV-only reports
The CSV reports aren’t displayed in the Dashboard but you can download them at any time. To do this:
- Click the Download… button next to the report.
- If applicable, select the report format.
- Choose the columns you want to include in the report.
- Click the Download button.
The reports you can download include:
| Report | Description |
|---|---|
| Income statement | Detailed revenue and contra revenue breakdown by month |
| Balance sheet | Detailed balance sheet account breakdown by month |
| Debits and credits | Monthly debit and credit journal entries shown at four levels: summary, price, invoice, and invoice line item |
| Corrections | Monthly correction entries shown at four levels: summary, price, invoice, and invoice line item |
The income statement report shows revenue, contra revenue, expenses, gains, and losses. Contra revenue adjustments are deductions from gross revenue. Applying the contra revenue to your gross revenue results in your net income. Use this report to better understand your net revenue and determine how you want to track contra revenue items.
The balance sheet report shows the beginning and ending balances for accounts like deferred revenue, accounts receivable, cash, etc. You can use this report to understand overall inflows and outflows to these accounts, as well as how revenue activity ties to cash.
Next steps
Read on to better understand our revenue recognition methodology or review some examples.