B2B terms in your store: credit limits, payment terms and tax exemptions that match the ERP

The order is placed where the limit is unknown

A B2B order on terms captures no payment at checkout. The store accepts it, and the money is due 30 days after the invoice. Whether the account can take another order is known only in the ERP: the credit limit, the open balance, the orders not yet billed, and whether an invoice is overdue. Shopify B2B has payment terms on a company location. It has no credit limit and no balance.

Take customer 10432, with a credit limit of 25,000.00 in NetSuite:

credit limit                    25,000.00
open balance (balance)         -23,880.00
unbilled orders (unbilledorders)  -909.90
available                          210.10
order #31907, PO-88213             216.10
over the limit by                    6.00

At 40 accounts on terms, someone in accounts receivable checks each order by hand before it is released. At 500 accounts and 200 orders on terms a day, they do not, and the warehouse ships orders for accounts that are 60 days behind. The order itself, from the store to the ERP, is on orders, customers and shipping. This page covers the terms that travel with it.

How it works

Where the credit check sits

Three places can stop an order over the limit. Which ones apply depends on the store plan.

Checkout to draft is a setting on the company location, checkoutToDraft in its buyer experience configuration. The draft carries the PO number and the payment terms. The integration reads the account, completes drafts within the limit with draftOrderComplete and holds the rest with the reason. A draft over the limit is checked again when a payment is applied, so it goes through without anyone touching it once the account has room.

Whether unbilled orders count toward the limit is a setting in NetSuite: unbilledorders is part of the credit calculation only when the preference Customer Credit Limit Includes Orders is on. The integration uses the same rule as the ERP. Otherwise it approves an order the ERP would block, or the reverse.

Credit holds

A hold in the ERP becomes a setting on the store: while it is on, the company location submits every order as a draft. A rule such as "more than 15 days overdue" holds an account before the limit is reached. Customer 10432 with an invoice of 4,120.00 that is 17 days past due on Net 30 is held on that rule, even with room under the limit.

Payment terms

Shopify has a fixed set of payment terms templates: net 7, 15, 30, 45, 60 and 90 days, due on fulfillment and due on receipt, plus a fixed date on draft orders. NetSuite stores a term with daysuntilnetdue, discountpercent and daysuntilexpiry, or as date driven with dayofmonthnetdue. Business Central stores dueDateCalculation as a formula such as 30D. Every ERP term needs a rule:

The ERP stays the source of the due date, because it writes the invoice. The store shows the buyer a date that is never later than the one on the invoice.

Tax exemptions

A reseller buys without sales tax in the states where it holds a resale certificate. Shopify sets this per company location in its tax settings: taxExempt for a full exemption, taxExemptions for specific ones, and taxRegistrationId. There is one reseller exemption value per state and for DC. The integration writes the states from the ERP, not a blanket flag:

{
  "companyLocationId": "gid://shopify/CompanyLocation/880412",
  "taxExempt": false,
  "exemptionsToAssign": ["US_TX_RESELLER_EXEMPTION", "US_OK_RESELLER_EXEMPTION"],
  "exemptionsToRemove": ["US_LA_RESELLER_EXEMPTION"],
  "taxRegistrationId": "32051234567"
}

In NetSuite the customer is not taxable only when taxable is cleared and taxitem is empty; the resale number goes in resalenumber. In Business Central the customer has taxLiable, taxAreaId and taxRegistrationNumber. The certificate number and expiry date stay in the ERP. When a certificate expires, the next run removes that state's exemption.

What goes wrong quietly

The last row costs a credit memo or a phone call per order. The run report lists every account where the store exemption and the ERP tax setting disagree.

What it covers

• A credit check on every order on terms. Limit, balance and unbilled orders from the ERP, by the same rule the ERP uses.
• Holds that reach the store. A hold or a block in the ERP switches the company location to drafts until it is lifted.
• Payment terms per account. Each ERP term mapped to a Shopify template that is never later than the invoice.
• Tax exemptions per state. Reseller exemptions from the certificates in the ERP, removed when a certificate expires.
• Buyers and roles. Contacts from the ERP as customers of the company, Ordering only or Location admin per location.

Prices per account are on customer-specific pricing and which items an account sees on customer catalogs. Both are part of pricing and customer terms.

Which systems

The Shopify fields are in the Admin API reference and the B2B plan features, the NetSuite fields in the Records Browser, the Business Central fields in its API v2.0 reference, all checked on October 3, 2026. Combinations: Shopify B2B and NetSuite, and the system pages for NetSuite and Business Central.

Where standard connectors stop

Standard connectors and iPaaS platforms move the customer and the order. The credit limit, the open balance and the hold status are not part of their field set, so an order on terms is accepted and imported whatever the state of the account. The check then happens by hand in accounts receivable, or after the goods have shipped.

In an integration built for your accounts, every order on terms is checked by the rule your ERP uses, a hold reaches the store on the next run, and the exemptions follow the certificates on file. Before the first live run, a dry run lists the accounts that would be held and why. Send us the terms and limits of five of your accounts.