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The Complete Guide to Selling B2B on Net Terms with Shopify

By Bhavin Gopani · Last updated 4 August 2026 · every fact checked against Shopify's current docs on that date

Net terms means your business buyer takes the goods now and pays later — "Net 30" is shorthand for the invoice is due 30 days from now. Since April 2, 2026, every paid Shopify plan can offer net terms natively: you create a company profile for your buyer, assign their terms, and they check out without paying. That part takes about ten minutes.

The part nobody warns you about is everything after: deciding who deserves credit, noticing who's late, chasing politely, and knowing when to stop shipping. That's what this guide covers — the full system, not just the settings.

• What are net terms, exactly?
• Should you offer net terms at all?
• How do you set net terms up on Shopify?
• Who should get terms — and how much?
• How do you actually get paid on time?
• What's an aging report, and how do you read it?
• When should you stop shipping to a buyer?
• Where does Shopify's built-in tooling stop?
• When you don't need any of this

What are net terms, exactly?

When you sell to another business — a gift shop buying 200 of your candles, a gym stocking your protein bars — they usually won't pay by card at checkout the way a shopper does. Business buying runs on an old custom called trade credit: ship now, invoice attached, payment due in 30, 60, or 90 days.

The moment you agree to that, two things become true. First, you've made a small unsecured loan — your product is gone and all you hold is a promise. Second, you've acquired a receivable: money owed to you. A store with 15 wholesale buyers on Net 30 can easily have $40,000 sitting in other people's bank accounts at any moment. Managing that number is the job this guide teaches.

A lot of advice online still says "net terms need Shopify Plus." It was true for years; it isn't anymore. Check the date on anything you read — including this page (the one at the top is real).

Should you offer net terms at all?

Offer terms when real wholesale buyers are asking for them. In the Shopify Community the same story repeats: a merchant lands a corporate account, and the buyer's purchasing department simply won't pay by card per order — no terms, no deal. Net terms are the price of admission to wholesale, and buyers on terms tend to order bigger and more often.

But run one honest number first. Terms mean your money arrives late — and "late" is longer than the label. JimFromTshirtgang, a wholesaler who gives blunt advice in the Shopify forums, puts it this way: model your cash flow at about 45 days, even on Net 30, because that's when the money actually shows up once slow payers average in.

So: if you expect $6,000 a month in wholesale orders on Net 30, roughly $9,000 will be permanently floating outside your account ($6,000 × 1.5 months). Can your store pay its own bills with that money missing? If yes, terms are a growth tool. If no, keep new buyers on pay-now until it wouldn't hurt — that's not timidity, it's solvency.

How do you set net terms up on Shopify?

Shopify gives you two native ways, and they suit different situations:

• Company profiles (the full B2B setup). You create a company for each buyer, assign payment terms like Net 30, and their team logs in and orders self-serve — checkout completes with no payment, and Shopify tracks the due date. Best for repeat wholesale buyers. Works on every paid plan since April 2026.
• Draft orders (the lightweight path). You create the order yourself in the admin, set "payment due later" with a net term or fixed date, and email an invoice with a payment link. No buyer login needed. This has worked on every plan for years, and it's still the right tool for occasional or one-off terms deals.

The exact clicks, what your buyer sees, and the traps of each path get their own guide: How to Set Up B2B Payment Terms on Shopify (Any Plan, Step by Step).

Who should get terms — and how much?

Decide credit once, as policy, and apply it boringly — never in the moment, on enthusiasm. Mine looks like this:

• New buyer? Prepaid first. First one or two orders are pay-up-front, full stop. You learn how they communicate and whether their paperwork is organized — which predicts how they pay.
• Make them fill in a one-page credit application. Legal business name, address, years trading, two trade references (suppliers who already extend them credit), expected monthly volume, and whether their accounts-payable process requires a PO number. Asking is normal; wholesale buyers expect it. There's a free one in our templates.
• Actually call one reference. One five-minute call — "do they pay you on time?" — beats any form. Suppliers answer this question honestly for each other; it's an old courtesy of the trade.
• Start the credit limit at about 2× their expected monthly order value. That covers one order in transit plus one awaiting payment, which is the normal steady state on Net 30. A buyer planning $2,500/month starts with a $5,000 limit. This is my rule of thumb, not a law — the point is to have a number written down before the relationship gets emotional.
• Raise limits on behavior, not requests. Three on-time cycles → raise. First excuse-and-delay → freeze where it is.

How do you actually get paid on time?

Getting paid is a rhythm, not an event. The merchants who don't have a late-payment problem all run some version of this:

Invoice the same day you fulfill. Every day between shipping and invoicing is a free extension you're granting silently.

Put their PO number on everything. A PO (purchase order) number is the buyer's own internal reference for the purchase. Large buyers' payment systems match invoices to POs automatically — an invoice without one falls into a hand-processing queue, and as Jim warns in that same forum thread, "Net 30 quietly becomes Net 75." Shopify supports PO numbers on B2B orders on all plans; make the field non-optional in your own process.

Then run a fixed reminder ladder — polite early, plain later:

Two notes on that ladder. Shopify's built-in payment reminders can automate the middle of it — but only five emails, none before the due date, and none later than 30 days past due (the day-30 wall, explained). And the "ask if something's wrong" step matters more than it looks: a surprising share of late payments are a missing PO, a bounced email, or an invoice sitting in the wrong inbox — not a buyer dodging you.

Monthly, send each terms buyer a statement — one document listing every open invoice and the total. Buyers' bookkeepers genuinely use these to schedule payments. (Your buyers can also see their unpaid orders by logging into their account on your store, but a statement lands in front of the person who actually pays.)

What's an aging report, and how do you read it?

An aging report is a list of who owes you money, sorted by how late it is — the one screen that answers "where's my money?" It groups every unpaid invoice into buckets. Here's a realistic one for a store with eight terms buyers (sample numbers):

Two numbers tell you almost everything:

• Total outstanding vs. your monthly wholesale sales. If you sell $12,000/month on Net 30, about 1.5× that ($18,000) outstanding is normal. This store is at $31,450 — collections are lagging sales.
• The over-60 bucket. My line: keep it under 5% of the total. Money over 60 days late has stopped being "slow" and started being "in doubt." This store's 7% means someone owns that $2,200 — and they're this week's phone call, and probably on hold.

The habit that makes the report work: 15 minutes every Monday. Open it and act on the 31–60 column: whoever just crossed day 31 gets the firm email today. Chasing at day 31 is a nudge between partners; at day 61 it's a confrontation. The report's whole value is letting you act while it's still a nudge.

Shopify doesn't have this screen built in — each order shows paid or pending individually. Merchants build it weekly from an orders export, or use an app (more below).

When should you stop shipping to a buyer?

Write the tripwires down before you need them: a buyer goes on hold when they're over their credit limit, or anything is 60+ days late. On hold means new orders wait — placed, acknowledged, not shipped — until the balance clears.

This feels harsh the first time and isn't. A buyer who owes $40,000 against a $25,000 limit and keeps ordering isn't a great customer — they're your biggest risk wearing a great customer's clothes. Every extra shipment raises what you stand to lose, and the only free debt collection is the debt you never let exist.

The words can stay warm even when the rule is firm: "Happy to keep orders coming — I just need the March balance cleared first. Want me to resend the statement?" No apology, no accusation. Buyers who are worth keeping respect a supplier who runs their books like a business.

Where does Shopify's built-in tooling stop?

Native Shopify handles selling on terms well. The waiting-for-money part, less so. As of August 2026:

• No aging view. Orders show paid/pending one by one; the "who owes me what, how late" picture is a spreadsheet you maintain yourself.
• Reminders end early. Up to five automatic emails, on or after the due date, none later than day 30 past due — exactly when your worst payers stop needing nudges and start needing pressure. (Details and options.)
• Credit limits don't exist. Shopify has no field for "this company's max is $5,000" — the limit lives in your head, and checkout won't enforce it.
• Flow can't loop. Shopify Flow (the built-in automation tool) can send a reminder at the due date, but merchants who've tried "email every few days until paid" end up stacking four chained workflows with tags — the tool has no repeat-until-paid concept.

Your options, honestly: discipline (the Monday habit + the ladder, run by hand — free, and genuinely enough at small scale), Flow (if you enjoy building automations and accept the duct tape), or an app. Several cover parts of this — Sufio and Chaser chase invoices, AReceivables does follow-ups — and our own TermsPilot exists because I wanted the receivables side in one place: the aging dashboard, reminders that don't stop at day 30, and credit limits that can actually hold an over-limit order before it ships.

Common follow-up questions