Payment Terms
These are the credit (or cash) conditions you assign to a customer or a vendor: how many days they have to pay, when their credit gets blocked for being overdue, and what discount they get for paying early. You pick them on the Customer and Vendor record, and they're saved on every invoice, order and other sales or purchase document.
What is it and what is it for?
A Payment Term is a template of credit conditions you assign to a customer (for your sales) or a vendor (for your purchases): how many days until the payment is due, when credit gets blocked for being overdue, and whether an early-payment discount applies. When you pick it on an invoice, order or other document, AdmCloud uses that data to calculate the due date and, later on, to warn you if the customer is late or if a discount applies.
You'll find and use it in several places in AdmCloud:
- On the Customer and Vendor record, as their default payment term.
- When recording Quotes, Sales Orders, Credit Invoices and other sales documents, and Purchase Orders, Bills and other purchase documents.
- In the Collections Workspace and the cash flow projection reports, to calculate the estimated collection or payment date when a document has no explicit date.
- When applying a Cash Receipt to a customer's open invoices, to show whether the early-payment discount still applies.
- In Online Store configuration, as the payment term used on orders generated from the store.
The same catalog of Payment Terms is used for both Customers (sales) and Vendors (purchases); each term states which of the two document types it can be used on.
How it's used
- Open "Payment Terms" from System Administration. You'll see the list of terms already created, sorted alphabetically.
- Create a new one with the add button, or open an existing one to review or edit it from its detail screen.
- Type the name of the term (for example "Cash", "Net 30" or "2/10 Net 30"). It's the only required field.
- Set the expiration days (when the payment is due) and, if it applies, the blocking days after the due date and the early-payment discount with its own days.
- Mark whether it's a cash term and which document type (sales, purchases, or both) this term can be selected on.
- Save. The payment term becomes available right away to assign to customers, vendors and transactions.
Key fields
| Field | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Name | Identifies the term throughout the app (lists, pickers, reports). Required and can't repeat. |
| Expiration Days | Number of days from the document date to the payment's due date. Used to automatically calculate the estimated collection or payment date in the Collections Workspace and the cash flow projection reports. |
| Blocking Days | Extra days, after the due date, a customer is allowed before their credit gets blocked. Once exceeded, AdmCloud prevents creating new sales orders or credit invoices for that customer while the overdue invoice remains outstanding. |
| Discount Days | Number of days, counted from the document date, within which the customer can pay and still get the early-payment discount. |
| Discount Percent | Early-payment discount percentage shown when applying a Cash Receipt to an invoice, if the payment arrives within the "Discount Days". |
| Cash Terms | Marks the term as cash (no credit). On Sales Orders, for example, it hides the option to generate a Credit Invoice, leaving only the cash invoice option. |
| Show in Sales Documents | Determines whether this term appears as an option when picking the payment term on sales documents (Quotes, Sales Orders, Credit Invoices, etc.). |
| Show in Purchase Documents | Determines whether this term appears as an option when picking the payment term on purchase documents (Purchase Orders, Vendor Bills, etc.). |
| Notes | Free-form remarks, visible only within this screen. |
| Relationships Detail | Name a specific Vendor or Customer uses for this payment term in AdmCloud Xchange. It's filled in automatically the first time it's missing when receiving a document from that relationship, but you can also register it ahead of time here. When viewing the Payment Term, this detail shows in its own "Relationships" tab, with a filter by relationship name and paging. That tab only shows up if AdmCloud Xchange is enabled for your company. The same Vendor/Customer can have several references, but the same Vendor/Customer and reference pair cannot repeat, neither within this record nor in another payment term: if another one already uses it, saving tells you which. Duplicating the record does not copy this detail. |
Validations when saving
- The Name is required.
- The Name can't repeat: if a payment term with that name already exists, AdmCloud rejects the save.
Deleting a payment term
A payment term can't be deleted while it's in use. AdmCloud blocks the deletion when it detects the term is linked to:
- Transactions already recorded (invoices, orders and other documents with that payment term).
- A customer or vendor that has it set on their record.
- An Online Store configured with that payment term.
- A relationship registered in its Relationships Detail.
While any of these dependencies exist, you must first reassign or remove those references before you can delete the payment term.
Availability
- Available on every AdmCloud plan; it doesn't depend on an add-on module.
- Requires the matching System Administration permission in your user group to view, create, edit or delete payment terms.
Tips and common errors
Keep your sales and purchase terms separate by unchecking "Show in Sales Documents" or "Show in Purchase Documents" as appropriate; that keeps your pickers from filling up with options you'll never use on that document type.
Can't create a sales order or credit invoice? Check whether the customer has an overdue invoice older than the "Blocking Days" on their payment term; while that invoice remains outstanding, AdmCloud blocks their credit.
Can't delete a payment term? The message tells you which documents, customers/vendors or online stores are using it. Reassign those references to another payment term before trying to delete it again.