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Setting Up a New Project for Billing

For the monthly billing automation to fire on a project, two fields must be filled in on the Project record at job setup. This is a Project Manager checklist.

If either field is empty, the project will be silently skipped by the monthly cycle creator — no error, no cycle, no prompts.

Required fields on the Project​

FieldWhat to enterExample
Billing DateThe day of the month billing is due, in two-digit DD format.05, 15, 30
AccountantThe Contact field. Pick the accountant who handles this project.Linda
Project ManagerThe Contact field. Pick the PM.(your name)
Billing Date format

Enter the date as a two-digit day of the month — not a full date. So if billing is due on the 15th, enter 15, not 5/15/2026. The system handles year and month for you.

What if the day doesn't exist that month?

If you enter 31 and a month only has 30 days, the system caps it to the last day of the month. February's last day is the 28th (or 29th in a leap year). You don't have to track this.

When does the first cycle fire?​

The cycle creator runs on the 1st of every month at 6:00 AM. So:

  • Project created on May 20 → No cycle in May (the 1st has already passed). First cycle appears on June 1.
  • Project created on May 1, before 6:00 AM → A May cycle could appear that morning.
  • Project created on May 1, after 6:00 AM → No cycle in May. First cycle appears on June 1.

This is intentional — mid-month catch-up cycles aren't created, because the Billing Date for that month is usually already past or imminent and there's no time for the T-5 prompt sequence to play out.

If you absolutely need a cycle for the current month (e.g., a one-off retainage billing), you can manually create a Billing Cycle item by hand and fill in the fields. The status-change automations will still fire normally.

What if I change the Billing Date later?​

You can change the Project's Billing Date field at any time. The change affects future cycles only — past and current cycles use the Billing Date that was in place when they were created (stored as Billing Date Source on each cycle).

So if the Billing Date was 15 when May's cycle was created, and you change it to 25 on May 20:

  • The May cycle still uses the 15th.
  • The June cycle (created June 1) will use the 25th.

Other fields you don't need to touch​

These exist on the Project but are managed by the system:

FieldManaged by
Linked Billing CyclesAuto-populated when each cycle is created.
Billing Cycles CompleteFlipped to Yes by the system when the final retainage cycle reaches "Submitted." Don't flip this manually unless you want to permanently stop cycles for this project.

Pre-launch checklist​

Before you mark a new project as active, confirm:

  • Billing Date field is filled in (two-digit DD format)
  • Accountant field has a real user (not a name typed as text)
  • Project Manager field has a real user
  • Billing Cycles Complete is No (default — only flip this if you're deliberately stopping billing for the project)

That's it. The first cycle will appear on the 1st of the next month.