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# Payment terms: set them once per customer or vendor

Every customer pays on their own schedule. Set their terms once and BooksGPT fills in the due date on every new invoice you write them.

Vendors work the same way for the bills you owe.

## Set a customer's terms

1. Open **All pages** in the left sidebar, then under **Sales** click **[Customers](https://app.booksgpt.ai/go/customers)**.
2. Click the customer, then click **Edit**.
3. Choose their **Payment terms**.
4. Click **Save changes**.

![The Payment terms field on a customer, set to Net 7](https://booksgpt.ai/help/terms/customer-terms.png)

The list covers the usual terms: Due on receipt, Net 7, Net 10, Net 14, Net 15, Net 21, Net 30, Net 45, Net 60 and Net 90.

For anything else, choose **Other…** and type the number of days over the one it offers. Net 4 and Net 5 are real terms, and this is where they go.

![The Other option, with a box reading Net 4 days](https://booksgpt.ai/help/terms/other.png)

Two values that look similar and are not:

* **No terms set** means you have not told us. New invoices fall back to Net 30.
* **Due on receipt** means payment is due the day you issue the invoice.

## Set a vendor's terms

1. Open **All pages**, then under **Purchases** click **[Vendors](https://app.booksgpt.ai/go/vendors)**.
2. Click the vendor, then click **Edit**.
3. Open **Payments**.
4. Choose their **Payment terms**, then click **Save changes**.

On the vendor's page this reads **Terms** rather than Payment terms. It is the same setting.

## What you get on a new invoice

Pick the customer first. The **Due date** fills itself in from their payment terms.

| Pick the customer first. Point at or tap the info icon beside **Payment terms** to see whose terms produced the due date.

![The Payment terms field set to Net 7, with the info icon open naming Zortech IT Solutions' customer terms](https://booksgpt.ai/help/terms/invoice-payment-terms.png)

That icon tells you whose terms set the date:

* The customer has terms, so it names the customer and their term.
* The customer has none, or you have not picked one yet, so it uses Net 30.

Once you choose the date yourself, a line under **Payment terms** says so.

You can still override any of it. Use the **Payment terms** dropdown, or pick a date in **Due date**.

The dropdown lists the usual terms plus this customer's own, so a Net 4 customer sees Net 4 there. Its last option, **Choose due date…**, opens the calendar.

## What you get on a bill

The same filling-in, minus the dropdown. Choose the vendor and the due date fills in. A line under **Due date** names whose terms produced it:

* The vendor has terms: **Net 30 uses Pacific Paper Co's vendor terms.** (with their name and term).
* The vendor has none: **No terms are set for {vendor}; the bill uses Net 30.**
* You have not picked a vendor yet: **Choose a vendor to apply their payment terms.**
* You picked the date yourself: **Set by hand.**

![A bill due date of Sep 23 2026, with a line naming Pacific Paper Co's vendor terms](https://booksgpt.ai/help/terms/bill-due-line.png)

To use a different date on one bill, just pick it in **Due date**.

## Things worth knowing

|| Saved invoices and bills never move. Terms only fill the due date on a new document you have not saved yet, so changing a customer's terms today does not re-date anything you sent last month.

* **While the app is filling the date in, changing the issue date moves the due date with it.** Backdate a new invoice for a Net 7 customer and it stays seven days out from the new issue date.
* **Anything you set by hand stays put.** The moment you pick a due date yourself, or choose a term from **Payment terms**, that date stops following the issue date. On an invoice a line under **Payment terms** says the date was set manually; on a bill the line under **Due date** reads **Set by hand.** Change the issue date after that and you will need to reset the due date too.
* **A customer's terms are on the Edit screen.** New customer asks only for contact details: save the customer, open it, then click Edit. New vendor has them under **Payments**.
* **Reports and reminders follow the due date**, so getting terms right is what makes your A/R aging and your payment reminders land on the right day.

||| Two places do not use these terms yet. An invoice the AI copilot writes is Net 30 unless you ask it for something else, and an invoice made from an estimate uses the estimate's own valid-until date. Check the due date on those two.

## Coming from QuickBooks

If you import from QuickBooks, terms come across on their own:

* Customer terms arrive from the customer record, vendor terms from the vendor.
* Importing again **never overwrites a term you set by hand**. It only fills in terms that are still empty.
* If a QuickBooks term cannot be read for any reason, nothing is changed.

Contacts you already imported can still have none. An owner or bookkeeper can fill those from QuickBooks without re-importing. Open **All pages**, then under **Sales** click **[Customers](https://app.booksgpt.ai/go/customers)** (or under **Purchases**, **[Vendors](https://app.booksgpt.ai/go/vendors)**), and click **Fill missing payment terms**. That does not change your ledger. See "Fill missing payment terms from QuickBooks".

## Terms we cannot store yet

QuickBooks lets you say "due on the 15th of the month". BooksGPT stores terms as a number of days, so it cannot express that one yet.

Those contacts keep the QuickBooks name of their term on screen, and get no automatic due date:

![A payment terms field reading No terms set, with an orange note saying QuickBooks calls this Net 15th of month](https://booksgpt.ai/help/terms/quickbooks-note.png)

The name in that note is whatever QuickBooks calls the term, and it can be misleading through no fault of yours. Terms named "Net 11" and "Net 14" that are really "due on the 31st" are both real, and we will not read a name as a number of days when the term behind it says something else.

You can either set a day count that suits you, or keep picking the due date by hand on those invoices. We would rather show you what QuickBooks calls it than guess a number and put a wrong date on your invoice.