Amortisation & Revenue Recognition

How do we automate revenue recognition and amortisation?

Wafeq users were manually calculating and posting recurring accounting entries every month. We wanted to automate that work without taking away the visibility and control accountants need over their books. I owned the work end-to-end, from research and problem framing through product strategy, PRD, design and iteration with Engineering. We started with Amortisation as the foundation, then extended the same thinking to Revenue Recognition, which became a paid feature.

Here are the key features we shipped

The workflow was fragmented leading to missed entries.

Accountants were using Wafeq's Bill module + Excel + Wafeq's manual journals to calculate and recognise prepaid expenses and deferred revenue every month. A 12-month prepaid expense meant remembering to post the correct entry every month. Miss one, and the books could remain inaccurate until close.

The cost wasn't only time. A missed entry meant a P&L that overstated one month and understated another, and the error usually surfaced at close, when it was most expensive to fix.

I conducted 6 in-depth user interviews to uncover current workarounds and pitfalls.

Speaking with 6 accountants and financial analysts to understand how they were handling prepaid expenses and deferred revenue today. The research showed 3 main issues which were:

Missing entries at month end

A 12-month prepaid expense required someone to remember to post an entry every month. Missing one could mean inaccurate financial statements until close.

There was no single source of truth

Calculations lived in Excel or other tools, while the resulting entries lived in Wafeq. Users had limited visibility into what had been recognised, when it would be posted, and what remained.

The source and journal were disconnected

Users entered the original bill or expense, then created a separate manual journal. There was no clear relationship between the two, making the auditing process tedious.

My first assumption was that automation needed its own space.

I explored a dedicated Amortisation and Revenue Recognition module in the side menu. Users could create a schedule, configure the accounts and dates, and let Wafeq generate the recurring entries automatically. It solved the automation problem on paper. But before committing to the structure, I wanted to see whether accountants understood how it fit into their existing workflow.

Designing with workflow, traceability and control in mind

Instead of creating another destination, I brought the experience into the existing accounting workflow.

The bill became the starting point. From there, users could create the schedule, understand what would be recognised over time and see the journal entries it would generate. The goal wasn't to remove accountants from the process. It was to remove the repetitive work while keeping them in control.

My key takeaways and learnings