Fixed or recurring
Every project in TCB is one of two kinds, and you choose when you create it:
Fixed price, a job with a total and an end
Recurring, a retainer that bills per cycle for an initial term and renews from there
A recurring project holds the fee per cycle, the cadence, the term and the notice period, so documents and invoices come out of the same data month after month.
Why cycles exist
A retainer does not finish. With the tasks created once at activation, the progress bar filled to 100% in the first month and stayed there forever, so the project looked delivered while the work carried on. Cycles fix that: the work is measured one cycle at a time.
Starting the next cycle
Inside a recurring project, the Start next cycle action closes the current cycle and opens the next one. Three things happen:
Tasks you did not finish stay in the cycle that closed. They do not migrate, so the month you just closed reads as it actually happened.
The new cycle is created with a fresh set of tasks from your Base, attached to the same delivery milestones.
Milestones you tick by hand are unticked, so a stage like Review does not stay marked forever.
The turn is manual, and deliberately so. Nothing creates tasks for you overnight, you decide when the month is closed.
Past cycles stop asking for attention
Anything left open in a closed cycle stops counting as active work. It will not appear as an overdue task or turn into a reminder, because the cycle it belonged to is done.
Progress and money
Progress reflects the current cycle, so it can reach 100% this month and start again next month. On the money side, each cycle is billed on its own, and your finances show the recurring income separately from one-off work.