TLD Revenue Recognition Schedule

TLD Revenue Recognition Schedule for Microsoft Excel

One of the operational aspects of running a Top Level Domain is revenue recognition.  Cash is received upfront (prepaid) and the registration period (service to be delivered) is spread over months.  So unless you are one of the few using a cash basis of accounting you will need to accrue the cash received and future ‘services to be provided’ and revenue you earn each month.  Of course, most business owners immediately get bored and wonder what type of complicated accounting system they now need to invest in.  You don’t AND in less than 5 minutes a month you can record all of your monthly transactions and do the journal entry.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) concept of TLD Revenue Recognition but if not, here it is.

Ideally, you would use this from the first month registrations begin.  If not, it will take you a few more minutes for each additional month.

1.  Open the TLD Deferred Revenue Schedule and save it.
2. Go to the ‘how to’ tab and enter in your TLD, account numbers, currency and registration price per year – it’s highlighted in blue.  This is the big set-up.
3. Move to the ‘1 yr’ tab  and enter in the month, number of registrations received each month, amortization start and end date.  Every back-end registry provider usually emails this to you or is available for download on your registry console.  They should match-up with your ICANN monthly reports.
4. Continue to enter the month and number of domain registrations received each month for the other registration period tabs ‘2 yr’, ‘3 yr’, ‘5 yr’ and ’10 yr’.
5. Once complete, go to the ‘Summary JE’ tab and select the month in cell D5.
6. Enter the Journal Entry into your accounting software.

Congratulations, your TLD revenue recognition is done.  Save the schedule and add new monthly registrations for the proceeding months.

Of course, if you want a super complex, daily revenue recognition system that plugs into a full system, I’d be happy to use my Oracle training on purchasing and setting up a million dollar system.  Although, spending your time and resources promoting your I may recommend focusing on the growth of your TLD might be a better use of your time over a TLD revenue recognition system.