Field note
Recognised income and the store’s idea of a week
8 April 2026
Apple and Google do not close the week when your ledger does. Treating their payout date as your recognition date quietly moves money between months.
A store payout file is a settlement document. Recognised subscription income is an accounting judgement about when access was earned. Mixing the two produces month-end surprises that look like “churn” and are actually calendar.
We ask clients to keep three dates visible: the charge date, the access period the charge covers, and the date cash landed. Boards can live with all three. They cannot live with a single line that pretends they are the same day.
When VAT and commission sit in separate columns, label them. A netted number makes a pretty slide and a useless reconciliation.