IndustriesRenewable energy
A generation project spends for years, capitalises what it built, then earns across twenty. Almost every accounting question turns on which of those three phases a cost belongs to.
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The accounting problem
01
Feasibility, land, permitting and financing costs are incurred long before a project is certain. Only from the point the project is probable does capitalisation begin, and costs before that are expensed. The judgement is significant and the amounts are large.
02
Retention, milestones, variations, cost-to-complete and advance recovery all apply — except the developer is the party holding retention rather than suffering it, and the asset being built is its own rather than a customer's.
03
A power purchase agreement fixes offtake and price for a period longer than most companies exist, frequently with escalation and availability mechanisms. Revenue recognition, the asset's depreciation profile and any deferred consideration all have to follow that agreement rather than an accounting default.
04
Operations and maintenance is a recurring service agreement with its own margin, its own cost base and frequently its own counterparty — sometimes the developer servicing an asset it no longer owns. Availability guarantees and liquidated damages make its revenue contingent on performance rather than merely on elapsed time, and folding it into the generation P&L hides whether the service line earns anything.
What NetSuite does about it
Development projects carry their phase, so pre-capitalisation cost expenses and post-threshold cost accumulates to the asset under construction, with the settlement to fixed assets at commissioning as a recorded event rather than a year-end journal.
EPC contracts carry milestones, retention held from contractors, variations and cost-to-complete, with committed cost visible before invoices arrive.
Offtake agreements drive recognition schedules and billing independently of each other, and the generating asset depreciates on a life set by the agreement and the technology rather than by a default class.
Maintenance agreements are held as recurring contracts with their own revenue schedule, cost base and margin, and planned work is distinguished from callouts against an availability guarantee. The service line reports separately from the asset it serves, which is the only way to know whether it is worth running.
Compliance · Saudi Arabia
Each project entity clears its own documents through ZATCA and carries its own registration. Construction-phase contractor headcount drives GOSI and the Saudization band for the employing entity.
ZATCA e-invoicing in NetSuite →A scoping call, not a sales qualifier. Bring the report you cannot produce today and we will tell you what it takes — and which of our builds is closest to it.