How to Insert a New Recurring Charge

Modified on Sun, 12 Apr at 10:31 PM

Overview

This article explains how to add a new Recurring Charge to a customer account in Cornerstone Billing Solutions. Recurring charges are the regular monthly (or other cycle) fees billed to your customers for monitoring, service, or other ongoing services. Follow the steps below to correctly enter, configure, and save a recurring charge record.

Step 1 — Open Recurring Charges for the Customer

Navigate to the customer account in Customer Maintenance, then open their Recurring Charges list.

Open Customer Maintenance and locate the customer account you wish to update.
Click "Recurring Charges" from the left-hand navigation menu within the customer record.

The Recurring Charges list screen will open, displaying all existing recurring charge records for this customer along with their monthly total.

Step 2 — Insert a New Recurring Charge

From the Recurring Charges list screen, click Insert to create a new recurring charge record for this customer.

⚠️ IMPORTANT

Any charge shown with the Pending Recurring indicator (a clock/pending icon) has not yet been fully activated. Ensure all required fields are completed before saving to avoid charges being left in a pending state.

Step 3 — Complete the Recurring Charge Fields (General Tab)

The Recurring Charge detail screen will open. Complete the fields on the General tab as described below.

Field	Description
Code	The service/charge code (e.g., MON for monitoring, BURG for burglary). Use the lookup icon to search available codes.
Bill Cycle	The billing frequency (e.g., M = Monthly).
Cycle Amount	The amount charged per billing cycle.
Monthly Amount	The calculated monthly equivalent of the charge.
Taxable	Set to Y (Yes) or N (No) to indicate whether this charge is taxable.
Description Override	Optional. Overrides the default description on the invoice. Limited to 33 characters. Usually left blank. Example: PENDING: QUOTE: Q000221.
Next Date	The date this charge will next be billed.
Stop Date	The date (if any) when this recurring charge should stop. Leave blank for ongoing charges.
Monthly Cycle Cost	Your internal cost for this service per month (used for margin tracking).
Pro Rate First Time	Set to Y or N to indicate whether the first billing period should be prorated.
Svc Starting	The date the service begins.
First Used	The date the service was first used/activated.
Seq	Sequence number — assigned automatically to order recurring charge records.
Identifier	An optional reference identifier (e.g., a quote number such as Q000221).
Pending Recurring?	A checkbox indicator that marks the charge as pending (not yet active). Visible when the charge has not been fully set up.

The example above shows a BURG charge for account PX1024 (McDonos #60) in a Pending Recurring state, with a Cycle Amount of $25.00, Monthly Amount of $25.00, and a Monthly Cycle Cost of $12.00 — illustrating how a charge appears before it is fully activated.

Step 4 — Configure Billing Options

Scroll down to the Billing Options section of the General tab to set how and when the charge will be billed.

Field	Description
Billing Method	Select the current billing method for this charge (e.g., Visa, Printer). This controls how the customer is billed.
Billing Method (Prev)	Displays the previous billing method used for reference.
Master Account	If this charge should roll up to a master account, enter or look up the master account here.
Post to Master	Set to YES or NO to indicate whether this charge posts to the master account.
Post On	Defines when in the billing cycle the charge is posted (e.g., Post on 1st, Post on 15th).
Identity On Invoice	Controls what identifier appears on the customer's invoice for this charge.
Post Payment To Invoice	Set to YES or NO to control whether payments are posted directly to the invoice.
Email Copy	Controls email copy settings for invoice delivery (e.g., Email Copy: Primary, Email Copy: None).
Primary Email	The primary email address to which invoice copies are sent.

Billing Method — Printer Example

The example below shows a recurring charge where the Billing Method is set to Printer (paper invoice), with Post On set to Post on 1st and Email Copy set to Email Copy: None.

Post On — Billing Date Configuration

The Post On field determines which day of the cycle the charge is posted. In the example below, the Billing Method is Visa and Post On is set to Post on 15th, meaning the charge will be processed on the 15th of each billing cycle.

Email Copy Configuration

The Email Copy field controls whether a copy of the invoice is emailed to the customer. The example below shows it set to Email Copy: Primary, which sends a copy to the primary email address on the account.

Step 5 — Save the Recurring Charge

Once all fields have been completed on the General tab (and the Other tab, if applicable), click OK to save the recurring charge record. The charge will now appear in the customer's Recurring Charges list and will be included in the next applicable billing run.

⚠️ IMPORTANT

If you need to review what the invoice will look like before saving, click Estimate Invoice from the left-hand panel of the Recurring Charge screen. This allows you to preview the charge before it is committed. Click Cancel at any time to discard changes without saving.

Need Additional Help?

Our Customer Success team is here to assist you.

Phone: 847-405-9517 x1
Email: customer.success@alarmbills.com