Unearned funding

Definition

The part of a supplier's advance the shop has not yet bought its way through.

Why It Matters

The roaster agreement tells a buyer to ask who owns the machine, and this is the number that answers it. The money is an advance, not a gift and not a loan: it is earned down at a stated rate per unit against a purchase target and reconciled at the end. What a change of hands crystallizes is the unearned balance, the part the shop took and has not yet bought its way out of, and a filed agreement in this shape adds compound interest on it. The equipment is a second and separate election. The supplier may take the machines back or be paid their fair market value, on plain expiry as well as on breach. Neither number is on the seller's balance sheet, because the equipment sits on the supplier's books. Compute it from the purchase history: units bought times the rate, against the advance received.