How To Record Accrued Income For An Unknown Amount - YouTube Example

The Question

If I wanted to create a YouTube channel for instructional videos, and I wanted to record the income under the accrual method of accounting, what is the GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) way to record the income? I’m assuming the following:

• The accounting period is monthly. It starts on the first of each month.
• Content creators are paid on the 14th of the following month. For example, a creator would be paid on May 14th for videos that were running from Apr. 1st until Apr. 30th.
• It’s impossible to estimate with 100% accuracy the revenue for an accounting period by the end of the period.

Because I have yet to upload any videos to YouTube, it’s possible that not all of these assumptions are entirely accurate. However, as a hypothetical problem, the question should still have value:)

Here is what I have tried to do

On Apr. 30th, 2020, it seems necessary to estimate the amount of revenue for the previous accounting cycle under the accrual method. To do so, the following journal entries could be made:

Date               Amount              Account
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apr. 30th          $300                Accrued Revenue (An Asset Account)
                     ($300)              Advertising Revenue (A Revenue Account)

Suppose it’s now May 14th. I’ve just received a check for $200 from YouTube. I overestimated my revenue for the period of Apr. 2020. I’m not sure if that’s okay, but I don’t see any alternatives.

Also, when I try to record the actual payment and zero out the Accrued Revenue account, I run into difficulties. I know that an asset account, for example Checking, needs to be debited for the amount of the check, i.e. $200. I can make a credit to Accrued Revenue, but it will still have a balance of $100 due to the imperfect estimate from the end of the previous cycle.

Is it legitimate under GAAP to make journal entries for Apr. 30th after receiving the check on May 14th? It seems like backdating a transaction would be problematic, since it would affect income statements that have already been printed…

This is as far as I’ve been able to get.

Other sources of information

• I watched Accounting Stuff’s video on accrued revenue, but unfortunately, it doesn’t cover estimating the revenue.
• I also found a related stackexchange question How To Record Income As An Affiliate ( UK ), but it also doesn’t cover the issue of estimating revenue.

Thanks in advance!