Sales terms are reusable payment terms, net 30 days and the like, that you define once and apply to documents so due dates and conditions stay consistent. Rather than retype “payment due within thirty days” on every invoice, you name the term once and pick it, and the due date calculates itself.
- What a sales term holds
- How it sets a document's due date
- Why the term text is copied onto the document
- How defaults flow from the customer category
Anatomy of the record
A sales term is deliberately simple: a name (for example “Net 30”), a free-text description spelling out the conditions, and a due days number. It can be marked active or archived. There is intentionally no late-fee or early-payment-discount engine; any such conditions live in the description as words and print on the document, leaving the actual money to be handled where money is handled.
How it behaves
It sets the due date
The one calculation a term drives is the due date: document date plus due days. Set net-30 on an invoice dated the 1st and it falls due on the 31st. That single rule is what keeps receivables ageing consistent across every customer.
Defaults flow from the category
You rarely pick a term by hand. A customer category carries a default term, so customers in that category get it automatically on their documents, with a per-document override always available. Define the term once, attach it to the category, and correct invoicing follows.
The text is copied onto the document
When a term is applied, its description is copied onto the document as the term instruction at that moment. This denormalisation is on purpose: if you later reword or retire the term, documents already issued keep the exact wording the customer agreed to. The document is a faithful historical record, not a live mirror of today's settings.
Edge cases and good practice
- Terms are shared beyond sales. The same term library serves purchasing and other modules, so name them generically rather than “Sales net 30”.
- Edit safely. Because the wording is copied at issue, revising a term never rewrites history; only new documents pick up the change.
- Archive, do not delete. Mark an obsolete term inactive so it leaves the picker but stays attached to the documents that used it.
Related
- Reference: Invoice (where the due date lands)
- Reference: Customer Management (category defaults)