Revenue

Revenue is the total money a business makes from sales in a period; the most basic commercial metric, before costs are deducted.

Revenue looks simple but the convention behind it moves the number noticeably, and this is where two systems disagree most. The first question is gross or net: are discounts, refunds, tax and shipping inside the figure or not? Net revenue (after discounts and refunds) and gross are two different numbers and it must be stated which is reported. The second question is the recognition moment: is revenue recorded when the order is placed, when payment is confirmed, or when the item is delivered? For a store with a high refund rate this difference is serious. The third point is deduplication: a reload of the payment-success page can count one order several times and inflate revenue. For an analytics tool, revenue is reportable only when the site sends order value with the purchase event; the tool does not create this number, it aggregates it.