If you sell wholesale, sooner or later a buyer asks to be invoiced instead of paying up front. Net payment terms — Net 30, Net 60, and friends — let an approved B2B customer place an order now and pay within an agreed window. On Shopify there are three routes. Shopify Plus B2B offers net payment terms natively: you attach terms to a company, and eligible buyers check out without paying, with a due date tracked on the order. Without Plus, you approximate the same outcome with draft orders and manual invoicing, a payment-terms app, or an external accounts-receivable (AR) system connected to Shopify. And for anything the standard tools can’t reach, a custom workflow bridges the gaps. Which one fits depends on scale: a handful of trusted accounts versus a real wholesale channel.
What net payment terms actually require
“Net 30” is a business process, not a single button. To offer it properly you need six things working together:
- Eligible customers — only approved companies get terms. Everyone else pays now.
- Deferred payment at checkout — the buyer completes an order without entering a card.
- Invoicing — a document that states what’s owed and by when.
- Due dates — the term (30/60/90 days) calculated from a start point (order or fulfilment).
- Order and AR status — a way to see which invoices are open, due, or overdue.
- Collections — a process for chasing late payment, because some accounts will be late.
Any solution you pick has to answer all six. The difference between the options below is how much Shopify handles for you versus how much you stitch together yourself.
The native option: Shopify Plus B2B payment terms
On Shopify Plus, B2B is a first-class part of the platform. You create a company, add its locations and contacts, and attach a payment terms template (Net 15/30/45/60/90, due on receipt, or fixed date). When a buyer from that company logs into the B2B storefront, checkout recognises them and lets them place the order without paying immediately. Shopify creates the order with the term applied, tracks the due date, and exposes payment status so you can see what’s outstanding.
This is the cleanest experience because eligibility, checkout, and order status are one connected system. Terms live on the company, so access control is automatic — a retail shopper never sees deferred payment, and a company buyer never has to be handled manually. It’s the reason many merchants weigh the upgrade; we break down that decision in is Shopify Plus worth it for B2B and, more broadly, in is Shopify Plus worth it.
The without-Plus options
You do not strictly need Plus to invoice a customer later — you need a workflow that produces the same six pieces. On standard Shopify there are three practical routes.
Draft orders + manual invoicing. Build the order as a draft in admin, then send a Shopify invoice or mark it pending and collect payment separately (bank transfer, external payment link). The buyer pays when your terms say so. It’s fully manual and doesn’t gate itself, but for a small number of trusted accounts it works today with no extra tooling. This same draft-order pattern underpins a lot of what we describe in running B2B on Shopify without Plus.
Payment-terms / wholesale apps. Apps can add a “place order, pay later” or “request an invoice” flow, tag customers as eligible, and track outstanding balances. They vary widely in how they handle checkout, taxes, and reconciliation, so vet each against your accounting process before committing.
External AR integration. If your finance team already runs invoicing and collections in an ERP or accounting system, the cleanest answer is often to let Shopify capture the order and hand it off to that system for invoicing, due dates, and dunning. Shopify becomes the catalogue and order-capture layer; AR lives where your accountants already work.
Custom workflows to bridge the gaps
Real wholesale operations rarely fit one tool exactly. A custom app or Shopify Function can bridge the gaps: gate deferred-payment checkout to approved company tags only, auto-generate invoices with the correct term, push orders into your accounting system, flag overdue accounts, or block new orders when a customer is over a credit limit. On Plus this extends the native model; off Plus it can turn the manual draft-order approach into something closer to automatic. The point of custom work here is not to rebuild Shopify — it’s to enforce your credit rules and connect Shopify to the systems where money is actually tracked.
Eligibility and access control
The single most important rule: only approved customers get terms. Deferred payment is credit, and credit you extend to the wrong buyer is a loss. On Plus, terms attach to the company, so eligibility is structural. Off Plus, you enforce it with customer tags, a gated wholesale storefront, or an application/approval step before an account can invoice. Never expose “pay later” to your general storefront.
Checkout experience
For an eligible buyer, the ideal checkout simply omits the payment step: they confirm the order and see that it’s due on terms. On Plus B2B this is the built-in behaviour. In workaround setups, the “checkout” may actually be you sending a draft-order invoice, or an app presenting a “submit for invoicing” button instead of a card field. Whatever the mechanism, the buyer should never be surprised — the terms, due date, and how they’ll be billed should be explicit before they confirm.
Invoicing and order status
Every order on terms needs an invoice and a status you can query. On Plus, the order carries the term and payment status natively. In workarounds, the invoice comes from Shopify’s draft-order invoice, an app, or your accounting system — and you need a reliable way to answer “what’s open, what’s due this week, what’s overdue?” If that answer lives in three disconnected places, reconciliation becomes the real cost. Decide up front where AR status is the source of truth.
Risk and AR — the honest part
Offering terms means some customers will pay late, and a few may not pay at all. That’s the nature of extending credit, and no Shopify feature removes it. Before you turn terms on, decide how you’ll handle credit checks (who qualifies, and for how much), credit limits (a ceiling per account), and collections (what happens at 7, 30, and 60 days overdue). Plus B2B tracks due dates and status, but it will not run a credit check or chase a debtor for you. Treat net terms as a finance decision that Shopify supports, not one it makes.
Options at a glance
| Option | Needs Plus? | Eligibility control | Checkout | Invoicing & status | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plus B2B payment terms | Yes | Native (per company) | Native “pay later” | Native, on the order | Real wholesale channels at scale |
| Draft orders + manual invoice | No | Manual (tags/process) | Draft invoice | Shopify invoice, tracked by hand | A few trusted accounts |
| Payment-terms / wholesale app | No | App-managed tags | App “invoice me” flow | App-tracked balances | Growing B2B without Plus yet |
| External AR integration | No | Your system’s rules | Order capture in Shopify | In your ERP/accounting | Teams with existing AR |
| Custom workflow | Either | Enforced in code | Gated per your rules | Wherever you connect it | Rules no tool covers off-the-shelf |
How to decide
Start from volume and trust. A handful of long-standing accounts? Draft orders and manual invoicing cost nothing extra and are honest about the manual effort. A growing B2B channel on standard Shopify? An app or external AR integration buys you structure before you’re ready for Plus. A serious, scaling wholesale operation where terms are the norm? Plus B2B pays for itself in the integrated experience and access control. And wherever a rule of yours — credit limits, approval flow, accounting hand-off — falls outside the tool, that’s where a custom workflow earns its place.
Common mistakes
- Offering terms to everyone. Deferred payment is credit; gate it to approved accounts.
- No due-date tracking. If you can’t see what’s overdue, you can’t collect it.
- Skipping credit checks and limits. “Net 30” without a limit is an open tab.
- Scattered AR. Invoices in Shopify, balances in a spreadsheet, chasing in email — pick one source of truth.
- Assuming apps behave identically. Checkout, tax, and reconciliation differ; test against your accounting process.
- Forcing Plus too early — or too late. Match the tool to your real B2B volume.
Want to offer your B2B customers net terms? Tell us your setup — we’ll map native Plus B2B terms versus an app or custom workflow, including eligibility, invoicing and order status. See B2B & wholesale or get a free profit audit.