Frequently Asked Questions
Have questions about how Cornerstone Billing Solutions can streamline your security alarm business? Look no further! Our in-depth FAQ covers everything you need to know.
General FAQs
With the intricate processes involved in accurate and timely recurring billing, companies often miss key items, even unknowingly. Our system can handle 100% of these processes for you!
Take a Look Here and see how your billing compares to ours!
To ensure a smooth and efficient automated billing experience, Cornerstone will act as the merchant company for your account. This approach offers several advantages:
- Streamlined Payment Posting: We handle the automatic posting of payments, eliminating manual work for your team.
- Simplified Autopay: Your company can easily connect to autopay, ensuring timely and hassle-free payments.
- Competitive Merchant Costs: Cornerstone prioritizes cost-effectiveness. We frequently achieve significant savings on merchant fees for our new customers.
By leveraging our expertise as the merchant company, you can benefit from a streamlined billing process and potentially lower costs.
Cornerstone offers a flexible pricing structure designed to meet the specific needs of your business. We employ a tiered pricing model based on several factors, including:
- Number of Recurring Bills: The average number of paper and non-paper recurring bills your company sends in an average month.
- Number of Accounts: The number of accounts you have that have recurring charges.
- Features Required: Cornerstone offers a variety of features and functionalities. You can choose the plan that includes the specific features your organization needs.
By offering a la carte options, Cornerstone ensures you only pay for the features and functionalities you need. This helps to keep the software affordable and ensures a strong return on investment (ROI).
Get a Quote
To get a more accurate estimate for your organization's needs, please contact our sales team at 224-577-1197 or visit our Get A Quote page.
Cornerstone can be a valuable asset for businesses of all sizes. We've successfully partnered with dealers managing anywhere from 50 to over 10,000 accounts with recurring charges. Our software streamlines operations and ensures accurate billing, freeing you to focus on what matters most - growing your business.
That said, we find that many businesses see the greatest benefit from Cornerstone when they reach around 200 accounts with recurring charges. At this point, the complexity of managing billing and multiple software platforms can become burdensome.
Onboarding FAQs
Cornerstone has developed a streamlined process specifically designed for Alarm Companies. This process allows you to learn about Cornerstone's offerings, gather all the necessary information to make an informed decision, and then seamlessly transition to working with us. We provide a clear set of steps to ensure everything is completed accurately, facilitating a smooth and efficient onboarding experience. Most of our customers are onboard and working with Cornerstone within 30 days of signing up!
Our system can handle a variety of data essential for your business operations, including:
- Customer list: This includes customer names, contact information, and account details.
- RMR list: We can import your Recurring Monthly Revenue data for seamless billing setup.
- Transaction Details: Past transactions, including invoices and payments, can be imported to maintain a complete financial history.
- Sales Tax (if applicable): Sales tax information can be integrated for accurate billing calculations.
- Inventory Lists (optional): For dealers managing inventory, we can import product details upon request. However, to ensure accuracy, we recommend obtaining this data directly from your inventory suppliers.
We offer flexible options for data submission. Our team can work with various data formats, including those exported from popular accounting software like QuickBooks. Spreadsheets are also accepted, regardless of how the data is presented our team will work diligently to get your data into Cornerstone.
The timeframe for data conversion depends on the complexity and source of your information. In most cases, with a well-organized data dump provided on Friday, we can have your information cleansed, formatted, and imported into our system by Monday or Tuesday. This allows for a swift review and initial billing preparation. Most dealers who partner with Cornerstone are up and running within 30 days from the time we get the data!
Account FAQs
Absolutely! Cornerstone is designed with a modular approach, allowing you to select the specific features that best suit your business needs. These modules include:
- Service (Work Orders/Inventory/Calendar): Manage your field service operations with features like work order creation, inventory tracking, and scheduling.
- Mobile Tech App: Empower your technicians with a mobile app for streamlined service delivery, including real-time updates and customer communication.
- Quotes: Create professional quotes to win more jobs and streamline your sales process.
- Collections: Efficiently manage payments and ensure timely collections.
- Multiple Company Management: Oversee operations for multiple companies from a single platform, ideal for businesses with multiple locations or subsidiaries.
- Central Station Integrations: Integrate Cornerstone with your existing central station for seamless data exchange.
- FTP Storage: Securely store and manage important files.
This is not an exhaustive list, and additional features are available. The beauty of Cornerstone's modular system is that you can activate or deactivate features at any point during your partnership. This ensures you only pay for what you need and can easily scale your use of Cornerstone as your business grows.
Cornerstone offers a powerful solution for automated recurring billing, taking care of 100% of those tasks and saving you valuable time. This includes automatic generation, delivery, and processing of recurring invoices.
However, Cornerstone understands that your business may also require ad-hoc invoicing or invoicing for one-time services. These scenarios are still managed by your team within Cornerstone.
Service Invoices with Cornerstone:
- Creation and Editing: Your team can create and edit service invoices directly within Cornerstone as jobs are completed.
- Delivery: Send invoices electronically to your customers for streamlined communication.
- Payments: Your customers can conveniently make payments using alarmpayments.com, a secure online portal. Cornerstone automatically posts these payments to your account.
In short, Cornerstone simplifies your billing process by automating recurring tasks while giving you the flexibility to manage ad-hoc and service invoices directly within the platform.
Yes! Cornerstone streamlines managing multiple businesses with its Multicom Management feature. This powerful tool allows you to consolidate operations for up to four companies under a single, unified database.
Benefits of Multicom Management:
- Centralized Organization: Effortlessly oversee all your companies from one central location, saving you time and simplifying workflows.
- Account Segregation: Clearly identify which accounts belong to each individual business within the platform.
- Customized Branding: Maintain a professional image for each company by using distinct logos on invoices and reports.
- Targeted Reporting: Generate detailed reports that focus on the specific performance of each business.
Cornerstone eliminates the complexities of managing separate profiles for multiple companies. Multicom Management provides a centralized hub for a comprehensive view of your operations, fostering better control and informed decision-making.
Cornerstone offers an open API that allows you to connect your current sales CRM software to our platform. This integration streamlines your workflow by enabling you to:
- Push New Accounts: Seamlessly transfer newly acquired accounts from your CRM directly into Cornerstone, automatically initiating the automated recurring billing process.
CRM Compatibility:
It's important to note that compatibility can vary depending on your specific CRM platform. Our knowledgeable customer service team is happy to review your CRM and determine the best course of action for integration. We'll provide you with an honest assessment of what functionalities are possible with your specific CRM.
By connecting your CRM to Cornerstone, you can benefit from a unified system that simplifies data management and automates key processes, saving you time and effort. Contact our customer service team today to discuss your CRM integration options.
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