Shopify B2B & the wholesale channel
Net terms in the native B2B tooling work as a property of an account rather than a payment method a buyer chooses. You set them on the company or the location, the buyer sees them at checkout instead of a card form, the order is placed, and an invoice with a due date exists from that moment.
Everything hard about terms happens after that. The platform will create the invoice and show you the due date; it will not decide who deserves terms, will not chase a late payment, and will not tell you that a growing share of your revenue is sitting in other people's tills.
What the buyer sees when terms are on
Worth walking through, because it changes how the order feels to a buyer.
A trade buyer on terms logs in, builds an order at their prices, and reaches a checkout that does not ask for a card. Instead it shows the terms that apply and completes the order. No payment is taken. The order then appears to you as a trade order with an invoice attached and a due date calculated from either the order date or the fulfilment date, depending on how you have configured it.
That distinction matters more than it looks. Terms counted from the order date start the clock while the goods are still in your building, which quietly shortens the credit you are giving. Terms counted from fulfilment are what most buyers assume they are getting. Pick one, state it in your terms sheet, and do not change it silently.
Buyers not on terms see an ordinary card checkout, which is how every new account should start. What the rest of the trade checkout does differently is covered in the B2B checkout.
Setting terms where they belong
Terms live on the company record, or on a specific location for a chain whose branches settle separately. They do not belong on the order, and they do not belong in your memory.
Two configuration decisions are worth making deliberately.
The first is whether a location inherits the company's terms or overrides them. For a small chain paying centrally, inheritance is right. For a group where each shop pays its own bills, per-location terms are the only workable structure, and that is one of the strongest arguments for using company profiles properly from the first account.
The second is what happens when an account is over its limit or overdue. The safe pattern is to move the account back to prepay rather than blocking it entirely, because a blocked buyer feels punished and a prepay buyer just pays a card. Keep that reversible, and reverse it once the balance is clear.
The weekly routine that actually collects
Terms fail through neglect rather than through bad accounts. A twenty-minute routine, once a week, prevents nearly all of it.
Open the list of unpaid trade invoices sorted by due date. Anything due in the coming week gets a short friendly reminder with the invoice attached. Anything a few days overdue gets a direct email to the person who pays, not the person who ordered, which is why that contact belongs on the account. Anything two weeks overdue gets a phone call, because email stops working at that point and a call almost always resolves it.
Three details make the difference between a routine that works and one that annoys people.
Send the invoice again with every reminder. A large share of late payments are lost invoices, and the reminder that includes the document gets paid the same day.
Keep the tone flat. A wholesale invoice is a normal part of a shop's week, and a reminder that reads as an accusation damages a relationship that is worth far more than one invoice.
And write down what happened. A one-line note on the account after every chase turns a vague feeling that someone is always late into a fact you can act on.
Deciding who gets terms, and for how much
Granting terms to everyone who asks is how a small brand ends up funding other people's inventory.
A workable rule for a brand under thirty accounts: first order prepaid, always. Terms considered from the second order, granted from the third, and only to accounts that paid the earlier ones on time. A credit limit set at roughly one order's value, so a shop that has not paid cannot place a second order on top of the first.
That is conservative and it costs you a few orders, which is the point. The policy side of that decision, including when to say no, is in should you offer net terms, and the written version you send to accounts is in payment terms policy.
What matters more than the exact rule is applying it identically to everyone. Terms granted case by case become terms granted to whoever asks most confidently, which is rarely the same as whoever pays most reliably.
What terms actually cost you
Terms have a price, and working it out makes the decision easier.
Take a four-hundred-dollar order at net thirty, on a product costing you two hundred and forty to make. You pay your suppliers on delivery, so two hundred and forty dollars leaves your account weeks before four hundred arrives. Across ten accounts ordering quarterly, that is a permanent few thousand dollars of your money sitting in shops, and it grows exactly as fast as the channel does.
Add the collection time, which is real, and the occasional invoice that is never paid at all. Most small brands find that a small share of terms revenue is simply lost, and that share is a cost of the channel rather than a surprise.
Two adjustments help. Offer a small early-payment reduction for settlement within a week, which many shops will take and which costs less than a month of your cash. And keep the minimum order high enough that the cash tied up per invoice is worth the paperwork.
Terms on a store without the native tooling
Below the plan that includes B2B, terms are an invoice you send and a date you watch. The mechanism is usually a draft order with payment due later, described in draft orders for wholesale.
Functionally this is the same channel with more manual steps, and the weekly routine above is what makes it survivable. What you lose is the credit limit and the automatic enforcement, which means the discipline has to be yours: check the balance before building an order for an account that already owes you money.
That is also the moment to notice whether the channel is big enough to deserve the tooling. If the missing piece is accounts rather than automation, paste a product link into WholesalePilot and look at the preview of shops and distributors that stock comparable products, and spend the time there instead.
Questions brands ask about B2B net terms
Are terms a payment method the buyer chooses? No. They are granted to the account, so the buyer either sees them at checkout or does not.
Should the clock start at order or at delivery? Delivery is what most buyers assume. Whichever you choose, say so in writing, because this is a frequent source of disputes about who is actually late.
Can you charge interest on late invoices? You can state a late fee in your terms, and most small brands never apply it. Its value is as a signal that the due date is real.
What is a sensible credit limit for a new account? Roughly the value of one typical order. It caps the damage and it forces a conversation before the exposure doubles.
When should an account lose terms? After two late payments without an explanation, or one very late one. Move them to prepay quietly, explain it in one sentence, and offer to restore terms after a clean run.