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Deferred revenue is value that has been invoiced but not yet recognized as of a given date. It is not a separate row you always create — it is the gap between an invoice line item’s total and the revenue recognized against it up to the as-of date.

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How amounts become deferred

  • By rule — a line item whose recognition rule spreads revenue into future periods (e.g. proportionate across a year) is deferred for the not-yet-earned portion. See Revenue rules.
  • Explicitly — create a revenue row of type deferred_without_date (no start/end date) to hold an amount as deferred with no recognition period yet. See Creating manual revenue.

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The Deferred report

The Deferred report is rooted on invoice line items (so lines with no recognized revenue still appear) and shows, for a chosen as-of date: 
deferred = invoice line total − revenue recognized on or before the as-of date
A line qualifies when that value is strictly positive. This lets you see the deferred balance as of any period end. See Revenue reports.
Recognizing deferred revenue later is done by creating the appropriate billed revenue rows (manually, or by the line item’s rule as time/milestones progress).