Question

How to do this question of long term construction contract?

Answer 1

For many businesses, revenue and costs are easily divisible into a 12-month accounting period. For example, a retailer will recognise revenue when realised throughout the year, and match costs in accordance with the accruals concept. For some businesses, however, traditional revenue recognition methods (ie ‘show revenue when realised’) are not applicable. Many such organisations are in the construction industry and their business dealings involve contracts that are usually long-term in nature or span at least one accounting year end.

For example, a contractor has just won the bid to build a stadium in the new Olympic village in London for the 2012 Olympic Games. Work will commence on 1 January 2009 and it is anticipated that the stadium will be completed on 31 December 2011. If this type of contract were treated as a normal sale of goods, then revenue and profit would not be recognised until the stadium was completed at the end of the third year. This is known as the completed contracts basis and is an application of prudence, where profits should not be anticipated.

It can be argued that recognising the revenue at the end of the project would not faithfully present the situation under the construction contract, as in reality the revenue has been earned over the three-year period and not just when the stadium is completed. In addition, the fundamental accruals concept would not have been adhered to.

The problem with this type of industry, therefore, is to determine at what point revenue and costs should be recognised. For these businesses, the difficulties of accounting for both revenue and cost is remedied by the use of IAS 11, Construction Contracts, which prescribes the accounting treatment that should be followed