Terms Due alongside Xero or QuickBooks
Your accounting app can send invoice reminders. It cannot stop an overdue buyer checking out on your Shopify store. The two do different jobs.
Where accounting software stops
Xero, QuickBooks and similar tools are good at the ledger: recording invoices and payments, reconciling the bank and reporting. Many can send reminders for invoices raised inside them.
They do not sit in your Shopify checkout. They cannot see a new order before it is placed, so they cannot enforce a credit limit or a hold. And if your Shopify orders sync across in summary, as a daily sales total or one invoice per payout, the reminders may not match the orders your buyers recognise, or may never be raised for them at all.
Who does what
| Job | Accounting software | Terms Due |
|---|---|---|
| Ledger, VAT or sales tax, reconciliation | Yes | No |
| Credit limit and holds at Shopify checkout | No | Yes |
| Reminders tied to Shopify orders, by email and text | Email only, on its own invoices | Yes |
| Collect from Shopify saved cards | No | Yes |
| Aging report | Yes, on synced invoices | Yes, live on Shopify orders |
| Statements | Yes, from the ledger | Yes, from Shopify orders with a pay link |
| UK late payment interest | Some, by hand | Automatic |
| Year-end accounts | Yes | No |
Two reminders, one buyer
Accounting app reminders
- Sent for the ledger invoice, which may be a summary or a different number.
- Email only, to the address on the ledger contact.
- No link to the Shopify pay page.
- Nothing changes at checkout when it is ignored.
Terms Due reminders
- Sent for the Shopify order, with the number the buyer sees on their confirmation.
- Email and text, to the company contact in Shopify.
- One-tap link to pay, which marks the Shopify order paid.
- Ignored reminders lead to a hold at checkout.
Using both
Keep your accounting integration as it is. Payments that Terms Due collects are recorded on the Shopify order, so they sync to your ledger in the usual way. Turn off duplicate reminders in your accounting app for Shopify trade invoices so buyers only hear from you once.
A sensible split: Terms Due decides who can order and chases the money; the accounting app records it and produces the accounts. Your bookkeeper gets a cleaner ledger because more invoices are paid by card against the right order, and fewer arrive as unexplained bank transfers.
Worked example
The invoice the ledger never chased
A manufacturer's Shopify integration posts one summary invoice per day to Xero. A trade buyer's $6,400 order on Net 30 is inside Tuesday's summary. When it goes overdue, Xero has nothing to remind anyone about, because the summary invoice is already matched to a payout. The buyer orders again on Net 30 the following week.
With Terms Due, the $6,400 order is an invoice with its own due date from the day it is placed. It gets a heads-up, a due-today text, an overdue notice and a hold, and the second order is stopped at checkout. Xero carries on recording the payout as before.
Questions to ask about your integration
- Does each Shopify order become its own invoice in the ledger, or are orders summarised?
- Does the ledger invoice carry the Shopify order number the buyer will recognise?
- Does the ledger know the order was placed on terms and has a due date?
- When the buyer pays through a Shopify pay link, does the ledger see it as paid?
If the answer to any of these is no, your accounting app cannot run credit control on Shopify orders, whatever its reminder features.
Questions
Will Terms Due duplicate invoices in my accounting software?
No. Terms Due does not write to your accounting app. It records payments on Shopify orders and your existing integration carries them across.
Can I use the accounting app's aging report instead?
For the ledger view, yes. For a live view of Shopify orders on terms that also drives holds and reminders, use the Terms Due report. The two should agree once payments have synced.
Does Terms Due integrate with Xero or QuickBooks directly?
Not directly, and it does not need to. Your Shopify-to-accounting connector already carries orders and payments across.
What about Sage, NetSuite or an ERP?
The same split applies. Terms Due works on the Shopify orders and records payments there; your ERP integration sees them as normal.
Related
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Read moreDue-date collection
Collect Shopify B2B net terms invoices automatically by charging the buyer's saved card on the due date, with advance notice and automatic retries.
Read morevs Shopify payment terms
What Shopify's native B2B payment terms do, what they leave to you, and what Terms Due adds: credit limits, holds, reminders, collection and aging reports.
Read moreStop chasing wholesale invoices by hand
Install Terms Due, set a credit limit for each buyer and let the app hold, remind and collect.
Install on Shopify