Use phases in payment cyclesBudgetingYou can frame a payment cycle with a phase, so a recurring payment spread across the shoot lengthens or shortens automatically when the shoot does.A cash flow rule anchors a payment two ways: to named **milestones**, for money that moves once at a point in time — see [use milestones in cash flow rules](/kb/article/use-milestones-in-cashflow-rules) — or to a **payment cycle**, for money that recurs across a stretch of time. The app names both in one breath, at the bottom of the timeline: *"Milestones and phases are needed to create cash flow rules."* This is the phase side.1. What frames a payment cycle's windowOpen **Cash Flow**, choose **Payment cycle**, then set how its window is bounded:- **Cycle start and end** — two explicit points, each a milestone or a fixed date with its own offset. - **Start/End defined by phase** — pick a phase, and its own span becomes the window.Both give the same thing to the engine underneath: a start and an end. The difference is what moves them.2. Why tie the window to a phaseA phase-framed cycle **resizes itself**. Preparation runs three weeks instead of two: the phase's span changes, so the payment window changes with it — nobody has to open the rule and drag its end date.Use this for anything genuinely paid across the shoot itself: a crew salary spread over Shooting, an office rented monthly across Preparation. Reach for an explicit Cycle start/end pair only when the payment window is not actually the phase — a run that starts after the phase begins, or outlasts it.3. How the money is spread inside the windowChoose a **preset** — an interval and a unit. KOSMA ships three: **Weekly**, **Bi-Weekly** and **Monthly**, and a new rule starts on Monthly. The window is cut into that many periods, and each period's share lands at the period's end, then lags by the preset's own payment delay.A window rarely divides evenly. The leftover part-period is not dropped and not rounded away — it is paid too, in proportion to how much of a full period it covers. A three-and-a-half-month window on a monthly preset pays three full shares and a half share, not three.4. Editing or adding a presetThe **Payment cycle preset** dropdown's **Edit cycle presets** entry opens the preset list for the whole budget — interval, unit and payment delay, per preset. A change there moves every rule using that preset.**What you get.** A crew salary tied to the Shooting phase lengthens with the shoot, the same way a milestone-anchored delivery payment moves with a slipped delivery date. Both are the timeline doing the rescheduling instead of someone finding every payment by hand — see [what phases and milestones are](/kb/article/what-phases-and-milestones-are).Markdown