Revenue Recognition

3 Months Ended

Feb. 29, 2020

Revenue from Contract with Customer [Abstract]

Contract Balances

Unbilled Receivables and Contract Assets

The timing of revenue recognition may differ from the timing of customer invoicing. When revenue is recognized prior to invoicing and the right to the amount due from customers is conditioned only on the passage of time, we record an unbilled receivable on our consolidated balance sheets. Our multi-year term license arrangements, which are typically billed annually, result in revenue recognition in advance of invoicing and the recognition of unbilled receivables.

As of February 29, 2020, invoicing of our long-term unbilled receivables is expected to occur as follows (in thousands):



2021	$	10,882
2022	1,729
2023	181
Total	$	12,792

Contract assets, which arise when revenue is recognized prior to invoicing and the right to the amount due from customers is conditioned on something other than the passage of time, such as the completion of a related performance obligation, were $0.4 million and $4.0 million as of February 29, 2020 and November 30, 2019, respectively. These amounts are included in unbilled receivables or long-term unbilled receivables on our condensed consolidated balance sheets.

Deferred Revenue

Deferred revenue is recorded when revenue is recognized subsequent to customer invoicing. Our deferred revenue balance is primarily made up of deferred maintenance from our OpenEdge and Application Development and Deployment segments.

As of February 29, 2020, the changes in deferred revenue were as follows (in thousands):



Balance, December 1, 2019	$	177,246
Billings and other	113,235
Revenue recognized	(109,683		)
Balance, February 29, 2020	$	180,798

Transaction price allocated to remaining performance obligations represents contracted revenue that has not yet been recognized, which includes deferred revenue and amounts that will be invoiced and recognized as revenue in future periods. As of February 29, 2020, transaction price allocated to remaining performance obligations was $190 million. We expect to recognize approximately 88% of the revenue within the next year and the remainder thereafter.

Deferred Contract Costs

Deferred contract costs, which include certain sales incentive programs, are incremental and recoverable costs of obtaining a contract with a customer. Incremental costs of obtaining a contract with a customer are recognized as an asset if the expected benefit of those costs is longer than one year. We have applied the practical expedient to expense costs as incurred for costs to obtain a contract with a customer when the amortization period would have been one year or less. These costs include a large majority of our sales incentive programs as we have determined that annual compensation is commensurate with annual sales activities.

Certain of our sales incentive programs do meet the requirements to be capitalized. Depending upon the sales incentive program and the related revenue arrangement, such capitalized costs are amortized over the longer of (i) the product life, which is generally three to five years; or (ii) the term of the related revenue contract. We determined that a three to five year product life represents the period of benefit that we receive from these incremental costs based on both qualitative and quantitative factors, which include customer contracts, industry norms, and product upgrades. Total deferred contract costs were $1.3 million and $1.7 million as of February 29, 2020 and November 30, 2019, respectively, and are included in other current assets and other assets on our condensed consolidated balance sheets. Amortization of deferred contract costs is included in sales and marketing expense on our condensed consolidated statement of operations and was minimal in all periods presented.