nonpatronage earnings

This Subtopic governs how entities in the agricultural industry — principally agricultural cooperatives — classify and present equity. Its core rule is that cooperative earnings are split between patronage source earnings (from transactions with or for patrons) and nonpatronage earnings, and that allocated equities such as retained patronage allocations and per-unit retains are presented as equity when they have no fixed maturity date and are subordinated to all debt. Unallocated nonpatronage earnings are classified as retained earnings, and allocated equities become current liabilities only when the board formally acts to revolve them.

ASC 605-905 provides industry-specific revenue recognition guidance for agricultural entities, with separate General and Cooperatives Subsections. It requires government income replacement and subsidy payments (deficiency, disaster, and other program payments) to be recorded as additional income when the amount of and right to receive the payment can be reasonably determined (605-905-25-1). For agricultural cooperatives it describes accepted methods of allocating overall, departmental, and functional losses among patrons, equities, and unallocated retained earnings, and distinguishes patronage from nonpatronage earnings (605-905-45-1). Most of the customer-revenue paragraphs were superseded by ASU 2014-09.