QSlower Than Monthly
Terms Frequency Code Q: Quarterly
Terms Frequency Code Q means "Quarterly". A payment is due every three months, four times a year. Two out of every three reporting cycles carry no payment obligation. It is reported in Terms Frequency (Field 28) of the Base Segment, 1 character at position 194.
Specification
| Code | Q |
|---|---|
| Meaning | Quarterly |
| Field | Terms Frequency (Field 28) |
| Record | Base Segment |
| Length / position | 1 char · 194–194 |
| Category | Slower Than Monthly |
| CRRG reference | CRRG Base Segment field definition, Terms Frequency |
What Terms Frequency Code Q means
- Q means four payments a year, typically aligned to calendar quarters or to the anniversary of the loan.
- Two thirds of monthly records under Q will show no payment received, which is the contractually correct outcome and must not be read as delinquency.
- Because a single missed quarterly payment leaves the account unpaid for three months, delinquency ages fast in Payment History Profile terms even though only one obligation was missed. The Payment History Profile counts months, not missed payments.
- Q appears in agricultural lending, some commercial term debt, certain insurance-premium finance arrangements, and specialty consumer products tied to quarterly income.
- Q does NOT mean four payments in total. It is a cadence, not a term. Terms Duration carries the count.
- Q does NOT excuse leaving Scheduled Monthly Payment blank. The monthly equivalent is one third of the quarterly payment.
When to report Q
- 1An agricultural lender reports an operating loan repaid quarterly out of receipts.
- 2A commercial lender furnishes a term loan with quarterly principal-and-interest payments and a personal guarantee.
- 3An insurance-premium finance company reports a quarterly-billed arrangement.
- 4A specialty lender aligns payments to a borrower's quarterly distribution income.
- 5A furnisher reports two zero-payment months and one payment month each quarter, with the account current throughout.
Reporting rules
- Populate Scheduled Monthly Payment with one third of the quarterly payment so debt-to-income calculations are not overstated by a factor of three.
- Do not report delinquency in the two months of each quarter where nothing is due.
- Express Terms Duration as a count of quarterly payments and document the convention.
- Be deliberate about how delinquency ages after a missed quarterly payment, and apply the same rule across the portfolio.
- Keep producing a monthly record throughout, including in months with no obligation.
Codes and fields that must agree
A file can be structurally valid and still be wrong. These are the cross-field conditions Terms Frequency Code Q has to satisfy.
- Scheduled Monthly Payment is a MONTHLY figure and equals one third of the quarterly payment. Reporting the full quarterly amount triples the consumer's apparent monthly obligation.
- Terms Duration counts quarterly payments, so 020 is five years. Reading it as months understates the term threefold.
- Pairs with Portfolio Type I. Q on Portfolio Type R or M is essentially always a mapping error.
- Actual Payment Amount is zero in two of every three cycles by design, so zero-payment validation rules must be gated on Terms Frequency.
- A missed quarterly payment produces three consecutive months of unpaid obligation, which the Payment History Profile will age toward ninety days even though only one contractual payment was missed. Document how you handle that.
- Date of First Delinquency runs from the missed quarterly due date, not from the first month in which no payment appeared.
Common errors involving Q
Vocabulary
Keep browsing
- All 11 terms frequency codes — the full set with categories and cross-field rules.
- Metro 2 codes cheat sheet — every CRRG code set on one page.
- Terms Frequency field reference — position, length, and validation rules.
- Metro 2 format reference
See Terms Frequency Code Q in your own file
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