When revenue policy and commercial practice diverge
· Eleanor Marsh
Policies age. Commercial teams invent new packaging, partners introduce rebate structures, and delivery models shift to usage-based without a matching update to the recognition manual. The ledger then follows informal rules that exist only in someone's head.
Watch for these signals: sales decks describe bundles the policy never defines; credit notes spike in the first month after go-live; deferred revenue grows faster than backlog; and new joiners ask different people the same timing question and get different answers.
A policy alignment workshop is not bureaucracy for its own sake. It forces the organisation to choose one set of rules and assign ownership. Until that happens, every close inherits last period's ambiguity.
Schedule a review whenever you launch a new pricing model, enter a new channel, or change the system that generates invoices. Waiting for the audit letter is the expensive option.