Revenue Management [Early Access]

 
 
Project Permission: View Financials, Edit Financials, Project Administrator

Overview

The Revenue Management feature allows users with the right permissions to complete monthly revenue recognition and financial period close processes—both at the account level and project level.

When you have the appropriate access, this feature allows you to:

• Monitor revenue changes at the project and account levels
• Verify and recognize revenue amounts
• Override revenue amounts if needed—and if allowed at your organization
• Determine at the account level which revenue recognition methods are available for use
• Assign appropriate revenue recognition methods to projects
• Submit projects for revenue verification and recognition
• Close financial periods for the entire account
• Reopen financial periods for a project if needed—and if allowed at your organization

Account Administrators can complete all of the above actions. Other members can be given access based on Financial Management Access Group set permissions. To view the Revenue tab within a project, account members must have View Financials (or higher) Project Permissions.

Revenue Management is available at the account and project level. For more information on these pages and the processes you can complete, see each section below:

• Account Financials Page
• Revenue Tab in Project Workspace

Upcoming Functionality

During the early access period, we will continue to add more features to the Revenue Management feature. For information on the enhancements that are currently planned and projected timelines, see the Product Roadmap.

Getting Started

We recommend adopting this feature early if:

• You are not using a financial integration.
• You recognize revenue at the project level.
• You use a single currency or are comfortable only recognizing revenue for project that use the default account currency on a temporary basis
• You use the following methods to recognize revenue:
  • Time & Materials
  • % Complete (Hours)
  • % Complete (Cost)

After this feature has been activated on the Early Access page and you’ve consulted with Customer Success or Professional Services, there are a few steps that an Account Administrator will want to take. See each section below for information on these actions.

Choose Revenue Recognition Methods

To the right of the Account Financials page name, Account Administrators can select the Settings (“   ”) icon to open the Account Financial Settings modal. Within this modal, you can choose each Revenue Recognition Method that you would like to be available to apply to projects.

Apply Revenue Recognition Methods to Projects

The Revenue Recognition Methods available for projects are dependent on the Account Financial Settings. Account Administrators and anyone with permission to select revenue recognition methods for a project can apply the desired method during project creation.

The revenue recognition method can also be updated at any time during the life of a project from the project settings or from the Summary Bar on the Project Revenue page.

Assign Access Group Permissions

By default Account Administrators have access to complete all financial management processes in Kantata. The new Access Group set Financial Management is available under Settings > Access Groups, allowing you to give additional access to other account members.

Close the Financial Period

Once the steps above have been completed and the current financial period has an In Closing status, you can start completing all month-end review actions.

1. (Optional) In the project’s Revenue tab under the Financials tab, complete the Submission Checklist in the Project Revenue panel for each project, which includes verifying the current period and future forecasted revenue amounts.

   Note: If it fits within your organization’s processes, you can override the system-calculated revenue amount and manually enter the actual revenue amount for the period. If you complete this action, you will need to leave a valid, auditable reason for overriding the revenue amount.
2. From the top of the Project Revenue panel, submit the project to your finance team for revenue verification.

3. On the Account Financials page, approve each project’s submitted numbers for the financial period, rejecting submissions when further action is needed to correct the financial information before it can be approved.

   Note: If a period is closed without the project being submitted for approval or approved, all projects will be automatically approved and updated to an Auto-Approved status to indicate that the projects did not go through the manual review and approval process prior to closing the period.
4. (Optional) On the Account Financials page, review the Closing Checklist in the Account Revenue panel to ensure that all period close actions have been completed across your projects before you close the period.
5. From the top of the Account Revenue panel, click the Close Period button to close the financial period. This will confirm that all data is accurate and final, preventing you from making any further changes to the financial period. Any hours or expenses that are retroactively added will be applied to the next financial period that has not been closed.

6. If all projects have not been submitted prior to clicking the Close Period button, click Close Period in the confirmation modal that appears to confirm that you would like to automatically approve all projects that have not been approved or submitted for approval. Otherwise, click Cancel to manually complete the approval process before closing the period.

   Note: If a period was closed prematurely or a closed period needs to be reopened for any reason, financial periods can be reopened on a project-by-project basis. For information on reopening financial periods in a project, see How to Reopen a Closed Period.

Recognizing Revenue for Previous Financial Period

We have paths available to help you migrate or link revenue for past financial periods to your account. For information on next steps, please reach out to Customer Success.

Account Financials Page

The Account Financials page gives finance managers a holistic view of revenue data across projects. Account Administrators—and anyone else who has access—can:

• See and finalize revenue in Kantata for financial periods
• Look at historical revenue recognition data to identify trends
• Drill into details for each project or period
• Confirm and recognize revenue amounts—with the option to override calculated revenue amounts
• Close financial periods

You can view revenue in multiple currencies on the Account Financials page. By default, the page filters to the account currency. When you select a different currency at the top of the page, both the Account Revenue chart and the Revenue by Period table update to reflect values in the selected currency.

Account Revenue Chart

The Revenue chart on the Account Financials page shows month-over-month trends in recognized, calculated, and forecasted revenue for your account.

On the chart, you can see the following data:

• Recognized—Represented with a green bar, this is the amount that has been recognized each month. In the chart, revenue amounts display as recognized for closed periods only.

• Calculated—Represented with a blue bar, this is the revenue amount that the system has calculated for each Open, Upcoming, and In Closing period based on data in Kantata OX—time entries, expenses, and other items included in invoices

  Note: Calculated values for Open periods are based on forecasts and actuals—similar to EAC calculations. Once projects are submitted, the submitted values for the period are locked and any changes made during the period are ignored.
• Forecast—Represented with an orange bar, this is the revenue amount that has been forecasted for all periods based on scheduled and/or allocated hours and expense budgets. Past periods that have been closed retain the amount of forecasted hours at the time the period was closed.
  Note: Forecast data updates every 30 minutes on this page. Historical forecasts will not be captured prior to January 2025, when forecast data was added to this chart.

The Account Revenue chart defaults to the account currency, but you can select the currency drop-down in the top-left corner to view summarized information for projects based on the project currency.

You can view months of data at a time on the chart, with the view defaulting to the latest data and the current period selected. Hovering over any given month on the chart shows you the recognized, calculated, and forecasted amounts for that period.

Hovering over the bottom of the chart reveals calendar controls that allow you to do the following:

• Zoom out to view more months
• Zoom in to view fewer months
• Navigate left to view previous months
• Navigate right to view later months
• Reset to the default chart view

Right-clicking on the chart gives you the following options:

• Download—Automatically downloads the chart as a PNG image.
• Zoom to here—Zooms in to display only the period you have right-clicked on.
• Pan to here—Scrolls the chart over to the period you have right-clicked on.

Account Revenue Panel

With the Account Revenue panel on the right side of the page, you can see information about the selected period, including the status of the period, what actions should be completed before closing the period, and how many projects are still pending review. You can look at previous and future periods by using the arrows in the top-right corner.

The following information appears for the selected financial period:

• Status—The status of the account financial period. The following statuses are available:
  • Upcoming—A period is Upcoming until the current date is the first day of the month.
  • Open—A period is Open until the current date is the first day of the following month.
  • In Closing—A period is In Closing on the first day of the following month and remains in that status until the period is closed.
  • Closed—A period is Closed only after the Close Period button is selected.
• Revenue—This is the revenue amount, which is automatically calculated based on data in Kantata OX.
• Approved—This is the number of projects that have been reviewed and have had recognized revenue calculations confirmed.

Below this information, you’ll see a Closing Checklist, which automatically tracks whether all data for the period is complete and accurate. This helps you feel confident that all data is complete and accurate and allows members to take action to correct the items that affect the calculated revenue amounts before closing the period. The following items are available:

• Approve all timesheets—This checklist item automatically detects if any time during this period still needs to be approved or submitted. If there are unapproved or unsubmitted timesheets that contain time entries, a Details button appears that opens a list of unsubmitted and/or unapproved timesheets. You can click the Link (“   ”) icon next to a date range to open the Time Approvals page on that date.
• Approve all expense reports—This checklist item automatically detects if expenses during this period still need to be approved. If there are unapproved expenses, click the Link (“   ”) icon to be directed to the Expense Approvals page.
• Approve all submitted revenue—This checklist item automatically detects if you have confirmed all submitted revenue amounts for all projects and that the numbers are accurate.
• Verify all forecasted revenue—This checklist item automatically detects if you have confirmed and updated future planned hours for all projects and that the forecasted revenue amounts for the period are accurate.

When a period has an In Closing status, a Close Period button appears in the top-right corner of the panel, allowing you to close the period after all period-end activities are completed.

Revenue Tables

In the tables at the bottom of the Account Financials page, you can see detailed information about revenue for each period or each project in a specific period. The table you see depends on the subtab you select—Periods or Projects.

To hide any columns you don’t want to see, click the Configure Columns icon on the right side of the table and deselect the respective checkbox.

You can also:

• Resize columns
  
• Sort by columns
  
• Filter by columns
  

For information on which columns this functionality is available for, see the Revenue by Period Table, Revenue by Project Table, and Project Revenue Table sections below.

Revenue by Period Table

The Revenue by Period table summarizes data based on the selected currency at the top of the page. By default, values are shown in the account currency.

The following columns appear in the Revenue by Period table:

Revenue by Project Table

The Revenue by Project table allows you to view information across all project currencies, grouping projects based on project currency.

The following columns appear in the Revenue by Project table:

Project Revenue Panel

With the Project Revenue panel, you can see information about the selected project within a financial period, including the period status, the project approval status, and the actions that have been completed for period close. You can look at previous and future periods by using the arrows in the top-right corner.

You can access the Project Revenue panel for a project by selecting the Projects tab and clicking the Side Panel (“   ”) icon in the table next to the project you want to view revenue information for.

The following information appears for the selected financial period:

• Status—The period status of the project. The following statuses are available:
  • Upcoming—A period within the project is Upcoming until the current date is the first day of the month.
  • Open—A period within the project is Upcoming until the current date is the first day of the month.
  • Unsubmitted—A period within the project is Unsubmitted on the first day of the following month.

  • Pending—A period within the project is Pending after the project has been submitted for approval.

    Note: Within the project’s Revenue tab, the Pending status is reflected as Submitted.
  • Approved—A period within the project is Approved after the project has been approved.
  • Auto-Approved—A period within the project is automatically approved at period close without being manually set to the Approved status. This status is also applied if the project has not been set to Submitted prior to the period closing.
• Calc. Revenue—This is the revenue amount for the project within the selected period, which is automatically calculated based on data in Kantata OX.

• Revenue—This is the revenue amount for the project within the selected period, which is automatically calculated based on data in Kantata OX. For a period that has closed, this is the recognized revenue amount. For Open and Upcoming periods, this amount includes forecasted revenue or is based on forecasted data.

  Note: Until the Revenue amount has been approved for the project, the Revenue amount displays in green.
• % Complete—Visible only if a project has a % Complete revenue recognition method, this is the percentage of the project that has been completed to date. You can also see how this percentage has increased—or decreased due to project changes such as increased scope—since the previous period.

Below this information is the Override Revenue button, which allows those with the proper Access Groups permission to manually edit the revenue amount if it does not reflect the actual amount that should be recognized. For example, you may have data in another system that is not available in Kantata. For more information on overriding revenue, see the How to Override the Revenue Amount section below.

When the Calc. Revenue and Revenue fields do not match, a warning icon appears next to the revenue field. This is usually because hours or expenses for that financial period were added retroactively after the project was submitted for approval. If these fields do not match due to a revenue override, an OVR tag appears instead of the warning icon.

At the bottom of the Project Revenue panel, you’ll see a Submission Checklist, which allows members to complete outstanding actions affecting the calculated revenue amounts:

• Approve all timesheets—If approval is required for a project, this checklist item automatically detects if any time entered on the project during this period still needs to be approved or submitted for approval. Otherwise, this is a checkbox you can manually check to verify that all tracked hours for the project are accurate for the period.
• Approve all expense reports—If approval is required for a project, this checklist item automatically detects if expenses for the project during this period still need to be approved. Otherwise, this is a checkbox you can manually check to verify that the tracked expenses are accurate for the period.

• Verify forecasted revenue—This is a checklist item you can manually check to confirm that you have updated future planned hours for this project and that the forecasted revenue amounts for future periods are accurate.

  Note: Once selected, the forecasted revenue amount for the next period is locked and any changes to allocated or scheduled hours in that timeframe will be included in the financial period after the locked period.

Depending on your Access Group permissions, the following actions may be available at the top of the Project Revenue panel:

• See Previous or Next Period—Use the Left Arrow (“   ”) and Right Arrow (“   ”) icons to view information in other financial periods for this project.
• Close Project Revenue Panel—Use the Close (“   ”) icon to hide the Project Revenue panel, making the Account Revenue panel visible again.
• Download Worksheet—After a project is submitted, click the Export (“   ”) icon below the arrow icons to download a JSON file that shows you a breakdown of all of the amounts contributing to the revenue for the current financial period. This breakdown helps you confirm the accuracy of these numbers before submitting the project to your finance team for revenue recognition.
• Submit Project—After a period has an Unsubmitted status, click the Submit button to submit a project for revenue recognition approval after confirming the revenue numbers are accurate and everything for this period has been submitted for this project.
• Approve Project—After a period has a Pending status, click the Approve button to approve the revenue recognition amount for the project within that financial period.
• Undo Action—Click the Undo (“   ”) icon to return a project to the previous status for the financial period:
  • Performing an undo action on an Approved project returns it to a Pending status.
  • Performing an undo action on a Pending project returns it to an Unsubmitted status.

Revenue Tab in Project Workspace

The Revenue tab—located under a project's Financials tab—shows calculated, recognized, and forecasted revenue per period based on the project's revenue recognition method. Team members with the relevant Financial Management Access Group permissions can:

• Review the project’s revenue data
• Confirm during period close that the revenue amount is accurate and complete
• Submit a project for approval before the current financial period is closed

Project Revenue Summary Bar

The Summary Bar shows to-date amounts:

• % Comp.—This is the completion percent of the project based on the amount of revenue that has been recognized compared to the project's budget. The date to the right of the percentage indicates when the value was last updated, which happens when revenue is submitted for a financial period or—if submission is not completed manually—when it is auto-approved.
  Note: If the Time & Materials Revenue Recognition Method is selected for the project, this field is irrelevant and N/A appears in place of a percentage.
• Recognized—This is the amount of revenue that has been recognized for the project. The date to the right of the recognized revenue amount indicates when the value was last updated, which happens when revenue is submitted for a financial period or—if submission is not completed manually—when it is auto-approved.
• Budget—This is the current project budget. This value updates in real-time and is not dependent on revenue submission.

You can also see the Revenue Recognition Method that is applied to the project. If you have Access Group permission to select revenue recognition methods and have Edit Financials (or higher) Project Permissions, you can also change the Revenue Recognition Method from the Summary Bar.

Project Revenue Chart

The Revenue chart in the Project Revenue subtab shows recognized, calculated, and forecasted revenue over the life of a project, as well as the project budget. You can see data trends in month-over-month differences, as well as the cumulative amounts across periods.

On the chart, you can see the following lines across periods:

• Budget—Represented with the yellow line, this is the project’s budget amount, based on the amount entered in the project settings. You can also see when the project’s budget has changed based on change orders.
• Recognized (To Date)—Represented with the green line across periods, this is the cumulative amount that has been recognized for this project.

• Calculated (To Date)—Represented with the blue line across periods, this is the revenue amount that the system has calculated for this project based on entered data—such as time entries, expenses, and other items included in invoices—that has been submitted for an open period.

  Note: Calculated values for Open periods are based on forecasts and actuals—similar to EAC calculations. Once projects are submitted, the submitted values for the period are locked and any changes made during the period are ignored.

• Forecast (To Date)—Represented with the orange line across periods, this is the revenue amount that has been forecasted for this project for future and open periods based on scheduled hours and/or allocated hours and expense budgets.

  Note: Historical forecasts will not be captured prior to January 2025, when forecast data was added to this chart.

You can see the following bars within each period:

• Recognized (Period)—Represented with the green bar, this is the revenue amount that has been recognized within the period.

• Calculated (Period)—Represented with the blue bar, this is the revenue amount that has been calculated for the project within the period.

  Note: Calculated values for Open periods are based on forecasts and actuals—similar to EAC calculations. Once projects are submitted, the submitted values for the period are locked and any changes made during the period are ignored.

• Forecast (Period)—Represented with the orange bar, this is the revenue amount that has been forecasted for this project within the period.

  Note: Historical forecasts will not be captured prior to January 2025, when forecast data was added to this chart.

You can view months of data at a time on the chart, with the view defaulting to the latest data and the current period selected. If there is no time or expense data for any financial periods, only the month that the project was created will appear. Hovering over any given month on the chart shows you the recognized, calculated, and forecasted amounts for that period, as well as the project’s budget.

Hovering over the bottom of the chart reveals calendar controls that allow you to do the following:

• Zoom out to view more months
• Zoom in to view fewer months
• Navigate left to view previous months
• Navigate right to view later months
• Reset to the default chart view

Right-clicking on the chart gives you the following options:

• Download—Automatically downloads the chart as a PNG image.
• Zoom to here—Zooms in to display only the period you have right-clicked on.
• Pan to here—Scrolls the chart over to the period you have right-clicked on.

Project Revenue Panel

With the Project Revenue panel, you can see information about the selected project within a financial period, including the period status, the project approval status, and the actions that have been completed for period close. You can look at previous and future periods by using the arrows in the top-right corner.

The following information appears for the selected financial period:

• Status—The period status of the project. The following statuses are available:
  • Upcoming—A period within the project is Upcoming until the current date is the first day of the month.
  • Open—A period within the project is Upcoming until the current date is the first day of the month.
  • Unsubmitted—A period within the project is Unsubmitted on the first day of the following month.

  • Pending—A period within the project is Pending after the project has been submitted for approval.

    Note: Within the project’s Revenue tab, the Pending status is reflected as Submitted.
  • Approved—A period within the project is Approved after the project has been approved.
• Calc. Revenue—This is the revenue amount for the project within the selected period, which is automatically calculated based on data in Kantata OX.

• Revenue—This is the revenue amount for the project within the selected period, which is automatically calculated based on data in Kantata OX. For a period that has closed, this is the recognized revenue amount. For Open and Upcoming periods, this amount includes forecasted revenue or is based on forecasted data.

  Note: Until the Revenue amount has been approved for the project, the Revenue amount displays in green.
• % Complete—Visible only if a project has a % Complete revenue recognition method, this is the percentage of the project that has been completed to date.

Below this information is the Override Revenue button, which allows those with the proper Access Groups permission to manually edit the revenue amount if it does not reflect the actual amount that should be recognized. For example, you may have data in another system that is not available in Kantata. For more information on overriding revenue, see the How to Override the Revenue Amount section below.

When the Calc. Revenue and Revenue fields do not match, a warning icon appears next to the revenue field. This is usually because hours or expenses for that financial period were added retroactively after the project was submitted for approval. If these fields do not match due to a revenue override, an OVR tag appears instead of the warning icon.

At the bottom of the Project Revenue panel, you’ll see a Submission Checklist, which allows members to complete outstanding actions affecting the calculated revenue amounts:

• Approve all timesheets—If approval is required for a project, this checklist item automatically detects if any time entered on the project during this period still needs to be approved or submitted for approval. Otherwise, this is a checkbox you can manually check to verify that all tracked hours for the project are accurate for the period.
• Approve all expense reports—If approval is required for a project, this checklist item automatically detects if expenses for the project during this period still need to be approved. Otherwise, this is a checkbox you can manually check to verify that the tracked expenses are accurate for the period.
• Verify forecasted revenue—This is a checklist item you can manually check to confirm that you have updated future planned hours for this project and that the forecasted revenue amounts for future periods are accurate.

Depending on your Access Group permissions, the following actions may be available at the top of the Project Revenue panel:

• See Previous or Next Period—Use the Left Arrow (“   ”) and Right Arrow (“   ”) icons to view information in other financial periods for this project.
• Download Worksheet—After a project is open, click the Export (“   ”) icon below the arrow icons to download a JSON file that shows you a breakdown of all of the amounts contributing to the revenue for the current financial period. This breakdown helps you confirm the accuracy of these numbers before submitting the project to your finance team for revenue recognition.
• Submit Project—After a period has an Unsubmitted status, click the Submit button to submit a project for revenue recognition approval after confirming the revenue numbers are accurate and everything for this period has been submitted for this project.
• Approve Project—After a period has a Submitted status, click the Approve button to approve the revenue recognition amount for the project within that financial period.
• Undo Action—Click the Undo (“   ”) icon to return a project to the previous status for the financial period:
  • Performing an undo action on an Approved project returns it to a Submitted status.
  • Performing an undo action on a Submitted project returns it to an Unsubmitted status.

Project Revenue Table

In the table at the bottom of the Project Revenue page, you can see detailed information about the project’s revenue for each period.

The following columns appear in the Project Revenue table:

How to Override the Revenue Amount

Account Members with the proper Access Groups permission can manually edit the revenue amount for a project if it does not reflect the actual amount that should be recognized. For example, you may be holding off on recognizing revenue while you are negotiating a set of billable hours with a client or you may have data in another system that is not available in Kantata.

1. Go to the project that you need to override the revenue amount for and select the Financials tab.

   Note: You can also override revenue from the Account Financials page by accessing the Project Revenue panel from the Revenue by Project table.
2. Select the Revenue tab.
   
3. In the Project Revenue panel on the right side of the screen, locate the Calc. Revenue and Revenue fields and verify if the number needs to be corrected with a manual override.
   
4. Below the Revenue field, click Override Revenue to open the Override Revenue modal.
   
5. Enter the actual amount of recognized revenue in the New Revenue Amount field, then enter the valid, auditable reason for overriding the system-calculated revenue amount in the Note field.
6. When finished, click Save Override. The Revenue field updates and an OVR tag displays next to the field to indicate that the value has been overridden.
   
7. If a clerical error is resolved or someone overrode the revenue amount by accident, you can select Remove Revenue Override in the Project Revenue panel before revenue for the financial period is approved for this project. If it has been approved already, the approval and submission can be rejected to allow the override amount to be removed.
   

How to Reopen a Closed Period

Reopening a financial period allows those with the proper Access Group permissions to make necessary adjustments to recognized revenue on a project-by-project basis. This action should be performed only when absolutely necessary, such as when directed by an auditor.

1. Go to the project that you need to reopen a financial period for and select the Financials tab.
   Note: You can also reopen a financial period for a project from the Account Financials page by accessing the Project Revenue side panel from the Revenue by Project table.
2. Select the Revenue tab.
   
3. In the Project Revenue panel on the right side of the screen, use the arrows in the top-right corner to find the financial period you need to reopen, then select the Reopen button below the project name in the panel header.
   
4. In the Reopen Period? modal that appears, click Reopen to confirm that you want to reopen all periods for this project between the selected period and that last period that has closed. The period status for the project updates to Reopened.
   
5. If you need to override the revenue amount, click Override Revenue in the Project Revenue panel and follow the steps in How to Override the Revenue Amount. Once the override is complete, the reopened period automatically closes and you can skip to step 7.

6. When you are ready to close the period again, choose the relevant button:

   • Close—Select this option if you want to close the period in the same state it was in before you reopened it. The period status will return to the previous status assigned before the project’s financial period was reopened.
   • Close with Changes—Select this option if you want to apply any changes to time or expenses for the financial period that were entered after the period was originally closed, if you have removed a revenue override, or for any other change that affects the revenue recognition amount. The period status will update to Adjusted.
   Note: If you select Close with Changes, this can have an effect on the revenue amounts for following periods.

   

7. If other financial periods are still in the Reopened state for the project, use the arrows in the top-right corner to navigate to each period and manually close them.