Will Deal Lifecycle sync set the lifecycle stage of Companies backwards?

[Phisher]

According to the documents, when using automatic Lifecycle Sync for Deals, it will automatically update the lifecycle stage of its associated companies and contacts. It explicitly mentions that  "This setting will not set the lifecycle stage of contacts backwards. For example: If a contact has a lifecycle stage of Customer, and a deal is created and associated with that contact, the lifecycle stage of the contact will not change to Opportunity." I am wondering if this is true for Companies as well. We use Lifesycle Stage to identify our customers. If a Deal to "upsell" that customer with additional products is opened, we wouldn't want the Lifecyscle stage to change to Opportunity because they're still a customer. We'd identify the new "opportunity" via lead stutus or deal stage. But we don't want to risk reporting reliability by asking reps to remember to change all the associated contacts Lifecycle stages manually. How are others handling this?

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @Phisher, you might also find this post by @KyleJepson helpful: https://community.hubspot.com/t5/CRM/Lifecycle-vs-Lead-Status/td-p/8737 Cheers!

[Phisher]

Thank you for your reply. Actually, that article is exaclty why I asked the questions. I read it a long time ago and planned my strategy for set up around that. But back then I had no need to automate lifecycle in deal stages. Now I'm at a new company where that is already in place and I thought it may be a cause of a mismatch in actual customer list to the customer companies view. But, if it really doean't change backwars, then that can't be it. Now my issues aer more around proper reporting on conversions by original source. 

[Phil_Vallender · Accepted solution]

Hi @Phisher 

Company lifecycle works the same as contact lifecycle in that it can't be moved backward, manually or automatically, without first clearing it. So creating a new deal with an existing customer will not move Company lifecycle back to opportunity. 

Hope this helps.

[Phisher]

That helped a lot! Thank you for your reply. I hope Hubspot will make that clearer in the help articles.