Before R12, EBS use to expense the value of the goods to COGS account as soon as Sales Order is ship confirmed in Oracle Order Management and revenue was recognized as soon as the order is imported in oracle AR. There was hardly any time gap between Ship confirm and Invoice generation in oracle systems but in real world there could be many reasons why revenue couldn't be recognized until customer actually accepts the goods in its warehouse. In order to stick with the matching principle stipulated by GAAP which states that expense has to be recorded in same period when revenue is recognized Oracle introduced the concept of Deferred COGS where Cogs recognization is deferred until Revenue is actually realized. In 11.5.10 COGS used to be debited as soon as an order was ship confirmed in oracle but now in R12 Deferred COGS is debited and when revenue is realized then actual COGS is debited and Deferred COGS is credit to offset the earlier entry, thus synchronizing the recognition of
These are some notes from my learnings in EBS for past 13 years.