How to

How to release deferred revenue at month-end

You have annual subscriptions recognized over twelve months, a prepaid insurance policy spread over the year, a truck being depreciated. Each one has a schedule, and at the end of every month one more slice of each is earned or used up. Nothing in BasicBMS posts those slices on a timer. A person releases them, so the books only move when someone has looked. Release due does it for every schedule at once.

Before you start

  • You have the deferral administrator permission. Without it the button doesn't show.
  • The month you are releasing into is open. A month dated into a closed period is skipped and reported, never forced.

Steps

  1. Open Accounting → Deferrals. The default Open filter shows everything still running or waiting to start.

    Deferrals register on the Open filter: an Awaiting start row, an Active service agreement with $555.00 released, and a customer prepayment, each with its source invoice.
    Running, waiting and prepayment deferrals together, each with the invoice it came from.

  2. In Release through, enter the last day you want released, usually the month-end you are closing.

  3. Click Release due and confirm.

    Confirmation: Release everything due through Oct 31, 2026? Every scheduled month dated on or before this date posts its own journal entry.
    One click releases every schedule that has come due. Waiting deferrals aren't touched.

  4. Every scheduled month dated on or before that day posts as its own journal entry on its own month-end date. The message says how many were released. If anything was skipped, each one is listed with the reason.

  5. Click any row to see its schedule: Posted months and the Scheduled ones still to come.

    A twelve-month schedule for a $2,220 service agreement: July through September Posted at $185.00 each, October onward Scheduled.
    Each month posts on its own month-end date, even when released late.

Click it again and you get "No periods due through …". Nothing was left to release, and nothing was posted twice.

Behind on a few months? Set Release through to today. Each overdue month still posts on its own month-end date, so the books land where they would have if you had released on time.

Deferrals that are Awaiting start are never touched. They have no schedule until someone presses Start.

What posts behind it

One entry per month, per schedule. For a $185-a-month service agreement:

 AccountDebitCredit
DRDeferred Revenue185.00—
CRService Contract Revenue—185.00
Balanced185.00185.00

A prepaid expense releases the other way round: debit the expense account, credit the prepaid asset. Depreciation debits depreciation expense and credits accumulated depreciation.

When it won’t let you

No periods due through 10/31/2026. Shown as information, not an error: every month up to that date is already released.

A month dated into a closed accounting period is skipped and listed with its reason. Reopen the period, or leave that month for a correcting entry.

What this doesn't do

It doesn't run by itself. There is no nightly job; the bookkeeper decides when. It doesn't send customers anything: releases are internal entries. And it doesn't release a schedule that is waiting for its start date.

Related

Stuck on this one? Call (509) 955-0770 and we'll walk through it with you.

BasicBMS

Business software as unique as your business.