Contact Credit and Payment Terms
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Overview
Credit terms define the date or point in time whereby a customer or vendor transaction becomes overdue for payment and appears on the associated debtor reports
Sage Business Cloud Accounting provides functionality to offer alternative credit terms for customer and vendor contacts. Depending upon the subscription tier of the business, this can be a simple default number of days or individual credit_terms for contacts.
Start Subscription Tier
Start provides only basic default credit terms accessed via Record and transactions settings in the UI and the invoice_settings API.
The default credit_terms are set to date_from_invoice for customers and the length is defined in the credit_days attribute. The Start subscription tier does not support vendors/suppliers.
Accounting and Accounting Plus Subscription Tiers
The Accounting and Accounting Plus subscription tiers provide more granular functionality to both Customer credit_terms and Vendor/Supplier payment_terms. Terms can be set at business level and for individual contacts.
The available customer credit_terms returned by the API are defined as below:
- Number of days after invoice date : date_from_invoice
- End of month following invoice date (net monthly) : month_end_invoice
- Same as Invoice date : immediate_invoice
The available vendor/supplier payment_terms returned by the API are defined as below:
- Number of days after invoice date : date_from_invoice
- End of month following invoice date (net monthly) : month_end_payment
- Same as Invoice date : immediate_payment
The below JSON response is returned from the invoice_settings API GET request invoice_settings and shows the values for customer_credit_terms and vendor_credit_terms.
{
"$path": "/invoice_settings",
"next_invoice_number": 8,
"next_credit_note_number": 1,
"separate_invoice_credit_note_numbering": true,
"sales_invoice_number_prefix": "SI-",
"sales_credit_note_number_prefix": "SCN-",
"invoice_terms_and_conditions": null,
"default_note_on_invoice": null,
"default_note_on_credit_note": null,
"default_note_on_estimate": null,
"default_note_on_quote": null,
"next_quote_number": 1,
"quote_number_prefix": "SQ-",
"estimate_number_prefix": "SE-",
"quote_default_days_to_expiry": 30,
"estimate_default_days_to_expiry": 30,
"quote_terms_and_conditions": null,
"estimate_terms_and_conditions": null,
"delivery_note_terms_and_conditions": null,
"delivery_note_show_signature": false,
"delivery_note_show_picked": false,
"delivery_note_show_notes": false,
"delivery_note_show_contact_details": false,
"quick_entry_prefix": "QE-",
"late_payment_percentage": null,
"prompt_payment_percentage": null,
"show_auto_entrepreneur": false,
"show_insurance": false,
"insurer": null,
"insurance_area": null,
"insurance_type": null,
"insurance_text": null,
"payment_bank_account": null,
"sales_corrective_invoice_number_prefix": null,
"next_sales_corrective_invoice_number": null,
"document_headings": {
"sales_invoice": "Sales Invoice",
"sales_credit_note": "Sales Credit Note",
"sales_corrective_invoice": null,
"sales_quote": "Sales Quote",
"sales_estimate": "Sales Estimate",
"pro_forma": "Pro Forma Invoice",
"remittance_advice": "Remittance Advice",
"statement": "Statement",
"delivery_note": "Delivery Note"
},
"line_item_titles": {
"description": "Description",
"unit_price": "Price/Rate",
"quantity": "Qty/Hrs",
"discount": "Discount"
},
"footer_details": {
"column_1": null,
"column_2": null,
"column_3": null
},
"print_contact_details": {
"business_name": true,
"contact_name": true,
"website": true,
"telephone": true,
"mobile": true,
"email_address": true,
"due_date": true,
"default_delivery_address": "INVOICE_ADDRESS"
},
"print_statements": {
"days_overdue": true,
"table_of_balances": true
},
"customer_credit_days": 30,
"vendor_credit_days": 30,
"customer_credit_terms": "date_from_invoice",
"vendor_credit_terms": "date_from_payment",
"updated_at": "2023-12-20T12:00:18Z"
}
Contact defined credit and payment terms
In addition to the business level credit and payment terms, it is possible to define terms for individual customers and vendors/suppliers in the Accounting and Accounting Plus tiers of Sage Business Cloud Accounting.
If the credit_terms and method are selected for the contact, any invoices created for the contact after selection will adhere to the terms selected at the contact level and will ignore those set at a business level.
The below JSON response is returned from the contacts API GET request contacts and shows the values for customer_credit_terms and vendor_credit_terms depending upon the value of contact_types_id : CUSTOMER or VENDOR.
{
"id": "7fc89508f38342faaffb91c9c21a5da5",
"displayed_as": "A1 Design Services (A1D001)",
"$path": "/contacts/7fc89508f38342faaffb91c9c21a5da5",
"created_at": "2024-12-30T11:08:11Z",
"updated_at": "2025-01-02T09:23:55Z",
"links": [
{
"href": "https://accounts-extra.sageone.com/contacts/customers/167725225",
"rel": "alternate",
"type": "text/html"
}
],
"contact_types": [
{
"id": "CUSTOMER",
"displayed_as": "Customer",
"$path": "/contact_types/CUSTOMER"
}
],
"name": "A1 Design Services",
"reference": "A1D001",
"default_sales_ledger_account": {
"id": "96ad4689c69811ef95250228e20b7aa1",
"displayed_as": "Other income (4900)",
"$path": "/ledger_accounts/96ad4689c69811ef95250228e20b7aa1"
},
"default_sales_tax_rate": {
"id": "GB_STANDARD",
"displayed_as": "Standard 20.00%",
"$path": "/tax_rates/GB_STANDARD"
},
"tax_number": "GB938484382",
"notes": "",
"locale": "en",
"main_address": {
"id": "4098f935623740dcba98835458c683fd",
"displayed_as": "",
"$path": "/addresses/4098f935623740dcba98835458c683fd"
},
"preferred_address": {
"id": "4098f935623740dcba98835458c683fd",
"displayed_as": "",
"$path": "/addresses/4098f935623740dcba98835458c683fd"
},
"delivery_address": null,
"main_contact_person": {
"id": "c7ca0b4397fb4a40868b47b9820418a4",
"displayed_as": "Main Contact",
"$path": "/contact_persons/c7ca0b4397fb4a40868b47b9820418a4"
},
"preferred_contact_person": {
"id": "c7ca0b4397fb4a40868b47b9820418a4",
"displayed_as": "Main Contact",
"$path": "/contact_persons/c7ca0b4397fb4a40868b47b9820418a4"
},
"bank_account_details": {
"account_name": null,
"account_number": null,
"sort_code": null,
"bic": null,
"iban": null
},
"credit_limit": "1000.0",
"credit_days": 30,
"credit_terms": "immediate_invoice",
"credit_terms_and_conditions": "null",
"product_sales_price_type": {
"id": "ada2e5058c184c49a1fa9bd937f82f02",
"displayed_as": "Sales Price",
"$path": "/product_sales_price_types/ada2e5058c184c49a1fa9bd937f82f02"
},
"source_guid": null,
"currency": {
"id": "GBP",
"displayed_as": "Pound Sterling (GBP)",
"$path": "/currencies/GBP"
},
"registered_number": null,
"deletable": false,
"tax_treatment": {
"home_tax": true,
"eu_tax_registered": false,
"eu_not_tax_registered": false,
"rest_of_world_tax": false,
"is_importer": null
},
"email": null,
"tax_calculation": "",
"gdpr_obfuscated": false,
"system": false,
"has_unfinished_recurring_invoices": false,
"cis_registered": false,
"ni_based": false,
"is_active": true,
"gb_based": true,
"cis_settings": null,
"destination_vat_blocking": false,
"mandate_active": false,
"send_statements": true,
"statement_run": {
"id": "statement_delivery_method_email",
"name": "Sent by email"
},
"go_cardless_mandate": null
}