How to Identify a Customer's Billing Cycle

Overview

This article explains how the Cycle field works on a customer's Recurring Charges screen in Cornerstone. Understanding how billing cycles are assigned — and how they interact with your billing run settings — helps ensure charges are processed correctly and on schedule.

What Is the Cycle Field?

Each recurring charge line on a customer record includes a Cycle field. This field contains a single letter that identifies which billing cycle group the charge belongs to. When you run a billing cycle in Cornerstone, only the charges that match that cycle letter will be processed — all other charges are skipped.

Cycles:

A - Annual 

B - Bi-Monthly

M - Monthly

S - Semi-Annually

Q - Quarterly

For example, if a customer has two recurring charges both set to cycle M, both will be included whenever the M billing cycle is run. A charge set to a different letter would not be affected by that run.

Accessing Recurring Charges on a Customer Record

To view or edit the Cycle field for a customer's recurring charges, navigate to the customer's record and open the Recurring Charges screen:

1. Open the customer record in Customer Maintenance.
2. Select Recurring Charges from the left-hand navigation menu within Customer Maintenance.

The Recurring Charges screen will display all active recurring charge lines for the customer, including the Seq, Code, Cycle, Next Date, and Charge Amount columns.

How Cycle Letters Are Assigned

The cycle letter assigned to each recurring charge is determined by your company's billing cycle structure. You may use any letter to represent a billing group — common examples include M for a main monthly cycle, but your setup may differ. The letters you use should correspond directly to the cycle letters configured in your billing run.

A single customer can have recurring charges assigned to different cycle letters, meaning individual charges on the same account can be billed on different schedules or billing runs.

Editing the Cycle Field on a Recurring Charge

To change the Cycle letter on an existing recurring charge line, use the Change action available on the Recurring Charges screen:

1. Open the Recurring Charges screen for the customer as described above.
2. Select the charge line you wish to modify.
3. Click Change from the action menu on the left side of the screen.
4. Update the Cycle field to the correct letter for the desired billing cycle.
5. Save your changes.

⚠️ IMPORTANT

The Cycle letter on a recurring charge must match the cycle letter used when running your billing cycle. If these do not match, the charge will not be included in the billing run. Always confirm your billing cycle letter assignments before processing invoices.

Cycle Field Reference

Need Additional Help?

Our Customer Success team is here to assist you.

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

Copyright © 1999–2026 Cornerstone Billing Solutions. All rights reserved.