Deferred revenue

Some sales bring cash in today but the revenue belongs to a future period — an annual maintenance plan, a return-window guarantee, a six-month service warranty. Recording all of that as revenue at the till would inflate this month’s P&L and hollow out the next twelve. Deferred revenue is how Fexl Lite parks the cash on the balance sheet and recognises it month-by-month over the deferral period.

Updated 5 May 2026·For v2.2.0·5 min read

Turning it on

Deferred revenue is off by default at the tenant level. Two switches:

1

Enable the feature

Go to Settings → Sales and toggle Deferred revenue. Pick a default deferral period in days — 30 for a return window, 365 for an annual plan, anything in between.

2

Mark the product

Open the product in Products, scroll to the Deferred Revenue section, toggle Defer revenue. Optionally override the deferral period for this specific product (a 90-day extended warranty on a flagship phone, for example).

product editor · defer revenue toggle · period override field

!

If you forget the toggle, the JE goes to 4010 immediately

The flag is on the product, not the invoice line. If you ring a maintenance plan whose product doesn’t have deferRevenue set, the sale posts directly to 4010 Sales Revenue at the till — exactly like any other sale — and the recognition runner has nothing to drain later. There is no after-the-fact fix that the UI exposes; the only correction is to manually post a journal entry that reverses the early recognition. Set the flag on the product before you ring the first sale.

What posts at the till

A 1,200 maintenance plan with a 365-day deferral, paid in full at the register:

• DR 1010-xxx (cash sub-account) 1,200
• CR 2040 (Deferred Revenue) 1,200

Notice 4010 Revenue is not touched at sale time. The cash is on the books, but as a liability — the store owes the customer twelve months of service. The invoice item carries deferRevenue=true and a deferralExpiresAt timestamp computed from paidAt + deferralPeriodDays.

If the sale mixes deferred and non-deferred lines (a phone + a maintenance plan), the JE splits revenue cleanly:

• CR 4010 for the phone’s value (recognised today).
• CR 2040 for the plan’s value (deferred).

VAT, COGS, and discount lines are not affected — VAT is recognised against the cash side as usual, COGS only fires for tangible items.

The recognition runner

A scheduled runner walks the deferred items every day and recognises any whose deferral has elapsed (in monthly slices for plans longer than 30 days, in one shot for shorter return-window deferrals). Each recognition writes:

• DR 2040 (Deferred Revenue) — drains the liability
• CR 4010 (Sales Revenue) — recognises the period’s slice

The schedule lives in prepaid_expense_schedules (same table that powers prepaid-expense amortisation, just keyed differently). The deferred / recognised revenue rows on the P&L summarise both sides — recognised this period vs still-owed.

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Returning a deferred sale before recognition

If the customer returns the deferred product before the period ends, the return wizard handles the reversal correctly: the unrecognised slice is written off the 2040 liability rather than against 4020 Sales Returns, because there’s no recognised revenue to contra. The accounting stays clean — you owed them service, they got their money back, the liability goes to zero.

How it shows up in reports

• P&L — splits into Recognised revenue this period and Deferred (still on books). Only the recognised slice contributes to net profit.
• Balance sheet — 2040 Deferred Revenue appears as a current liability. Drains down each period as the runner fires.
• Trial balance — 2040 carries a credit balance until fully recognised; 4010 rises in step.
• Invoice list — items with deferRevenue=true show a small Deferred chip with <days>d remaining underneath, derived from deferralExpiresAt - now.

Quick worked example

A 1,200 annual maintenance plan, sold 1 January, 365-day deferral:

Date	DR	CR	Note
1 Jan	1010 1,200	2040 1,200	Sale posts; nothing to 4010
31 Jan	2040 100	4010 100	Runner recognises Jan slice (1/12)
28 Feb	2040 100	4010 100	Feb slice
…	…	…	One slice per month
31 Dec	2040 100	4010 100	Final slice; 2040 returns to 0

Sum of recognised revenue across the year: 1,200. Sum on the 4010 ledger: 1,200. Cash drawer effect on 1 Jan: +1,200 (correct). Net P&L impact in January: +100 (correct — only the January slice belongs to January).

Related

PRODUCTS

Mark a product as deferred

The per-product toggle and the deferral-period override.

SETTINGS

Sales settings

Tenant-wide enable, default period in days, related toggles.

P&L

Profit & loss

Where recognised vs deferred revenue lines render on the report.