Your example is a good one. Another example would be if you have 99.99% up-time guarantee, but don't provide it and have to provide refunds or discounts.
Groupon had troubles with revenue recognition. When it sold the coupons, it would count the full coupon as revenue even though 50% belonged to the merchant.
Oil producers have to pipe the oil to a refinery. The oil producer actually sells the barrel of oil to the pipeline and buys it back on the other end. Then the oil producers takes that barrel and sells it to the refiner. The oil producer has sold that 1 barrel twice.
However, as patio11 mentions, this isn't basic bookkeeping.
Groupon had troubles with revenue recognition. When it sold the coupons, it would count the full coupon as revenue even though 50% belonged to the merchant.
Oil producers have to pipe the oil to a refinery. The oil producer actually sells the barrel of oil to the pipeline and buys it back on the other end. Then the oil producers takes that barrel and sells it to the refiner. The oil producer has sold that 1 barrel twice.
However, as patio11 mentions, this isn't basic bookkeeping.