Dover Books Case

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Pages: 4

Memorandum
To: Dover Books Inc. Accounting and Finance Department
From: Jared Richter, Associate
Date: September 12, 2016
Re: Recognizing Revenue from a Membership with Nonrefundable Initial Fees

Facts
Dover Books Inc. is a publicly held company specializing in children’s books. With about 40 stores currently open in the states of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, Dover Books has been growing at the rate of five new stores per year. Now, they are planning on opening 12 stores in the upcoming year.

Worrying about the ability to afford the opening of future stores, Dover Books has sought a secondary public offering with their retail banker. This banker has informed Dover Books that they need greater earnings before obtaining a beneficial
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to use for revenue recognition on nonrefundable membership fees would be to defer the revenue. As mentioned earlier, ASC 605-10 tells us that if initial fees “…are earned as the products and/or services are delivered and/or performed over the term of the arrangement or the expected period of performance…” (605-10-S99 FN39). This guidance then goes on to say that the recognition of revenue from the initial fees “…should be deferred and recognized systematically over the periods that the fees are earned” (605-10-S99 FN40). Further, FN40 says a method to utilize for recognizing the membership fee revenue over time would be the straight-line basis method over the course of the membership (605-10-S99 FN40). For example, if a membership entailed a year, then the revenue from the membership fee would be evenly recognized throughout the duration of that …show more content…
could use would be to defer recognizing revenue until the end of the year when the membership ends (assuming the Dover Books Inc.’s membership is an annual membership). Dover Books Inc. may deem it appropriate to classify the membership as being a big package of beneficial services such as the 10% discount and discounts on certain books. It may be hard for Dover Books Inc. to separate the package of beneficial membership services into distinct events, deliverables, or elements. If this is true and if Dover Books Inc. is offering products or services throughout the membership or even significantly at the end of the membership, then they may find it appropriate to recognize the revenue from the initial fees at the time of the membership’s expiration.

The last possible alternative for Dover Books Inc. to recognize revenue of the nonrefundable initial fee would be on a usage-based approach. This may be a tough method to structure without historical data, but Dover Books Inc. could possibly set-up the recognition in such a way as to recognize the revenue after the membership card has been used a certain number of times. Otherwise, Dover Books Inc. could systematically recognize revenue each time the card gets