Official comment
Two different things to address...
The phase meter shows you the master deck (orange) and the current deck (blue) as to which beat it's on within the bar as determined by the grid.
The beat countdown indicates the number of beats/bars from the nearest cue point. If you have one set at the end of a breakdown, for example, it would count to that so you know how long until that point. But yes, you would have to set those yourself.