A retailer can refuse credit. A wholesaler rarely can: their customers resell the goods before paying for them, and a depot that insists on cash watches the order go next door.
Credit is therefore not a favour, it is a sales tool. And it has a cost: each dirham outstanding pays neither the supplier, nor the rent, nor the wages.
Credit: the engine and the risk of wholesale
The difference from retail is scale. A 300-dirham slate at a grocery is a nuisance; three unpaid deliveries to a wholesale customer are the sum missing on the day your own supplier wants paying.
And the risk rarely comes from one bad payer. It comes from twenty decent customers who all pay "a bit late" at the same time: added up, they are a share of your stock you are financing for them.
Set a limit per customer
The limit is the amount past which a customer receives no more goods on credit until they have paid. It is decided calmly and in advance, never while the customer is standing in front of you with an order.
Start from what the customer buys and how long they take to pay. For example, a customer who takes around 20,000 DH a month and pays at 30 days naturally carries 20,000 DH outstanding; a limit near 25,000 DH gives them room without exposing you to two months of unpaid goods. Illustrative figures: what matters is that the rule is written and applies to everyone.
- Count what has left, not only what is invoiced. A delivery note not yet invoiced is goods at the customer's premises. A limit that ignores it can be bypassed by delivering without invoicing.
- Decide who can go over it. A sales rep on a round should not be able to cross the limit alone; the owner or a manager approves it, case by case.
- Review it, both ways. A customer who always pays on time deserves a higher limit; one who is slipping deserves a lower one before it is too late.
Knowing who owes what, and since when
The basic rules — one line per customer, a due date on every sale — are covered in the article on tracking customer debt. Wholesale adds one difficulty: when three reps each run their own round, each leaves credit behind, and the total appears nowhere until the notebooks are put together.
The rule: credit given on a round is recorded the same day, under the customer's name, in a single register — not in the rep's notebook.
Post-dated cheques and bounced cheques
In wholesale, much of the credit is settled by cheque, often dated for later. A cheque received is not money collected: until it clears, the debt has not gone away, it has changed form.
- Keep a cheque register. Number, bank, amount, customer, due date. Check every week which ones are coming due, so they are deposited on time.
- Record which invoices each cheque settles. One cheque often covers several invoices at once. Without that link, there is no way to know what is really paid.
- When a cheque bounces, reopen the invoices. The invoices it covered are owed again, and the customer's balance goes back up by the same amount. The classic mistake is leaving those invoices marked "paid" because the cheque was received.
A bounced cheque also has a legal side. That is not something to settle from a blog post: your bank or a lawyer will tell you which steps are possible and whether they are worth it.
A cheque in the drawer is not money. It is a date to watch.
Chasing without losing the customer
A wholesale customer is often a ten-year customer, and chasing should stay a formality: the exact figure, the invoices concerned, a date. The order of reminders and the mistakes to avoid are in the article on chasing a debt without losing the customer.
From the credit notebook to an up-to-date balance
A credit notebook drifts without anyone cheating: a payment recorded at the depot but not in the rep's notebook, a bounced cheque never carried over, a discount agreed on the phone.
The fix: once a month, send each large customer their statement — invoices, payments, cheques, balance — and ask them to confirm it. A gap found after a month is one conversation; after a year, it is a dispute.
In Gestio, the customer's balance is up to date after every sale and payment, the limit is set per customer, one payment can settle several invoices, a bounced cheque returns the invoices it covered to their previous state, and cheques coming due show up when you open the app. See Gestio for wholesalers.