What does "revenue recognition" mean?

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Long a bone of contention between buyers and sellers, "revenue recognition" issues concern the accountants' determination of what constitutes a "sale" for the company that can be "booked" (or accounted for AS a completed transaction). These rules are complex, convoluted, open for interpretation and have the tendency to not even be universally applied by even two departments within the same organization. When a seller says that they can't recognize the revenue, a common response is, "How you book your revenue is not really my concern;" also known as a "not my problem" defense. If the seller wants to complete the transaction (and they usually do), they can find a way to recognize the revenue. Try also to not give up maintenance and support add-ons that are used as leverage to complete a transaction.