In B2B the sale and the payment are usually separate events. The buyer places an order on account, you ship it, you invoice it, and they pay on terms. The credit limit is the guardrail on how much exposure that creates, and it belongs to finance, not to marketing.
The hard part on a storefront is that the limit is not a static number. It is the limit minus what is already outstanding, and the outstanding balance changes every time an invoice is raised or a payment lands. A storefront that knows the limit but not the current balance will happily accept an order that finance then has to unwind, which costs more trust than the order was worth.
Ask where the check happens and when. If the storefront checks at checkout against a nightly snapshot, you have a window. If the ERP checks at import and puts the order on hold, the buyer gets a confirmation and then a phone call. Neither is wrong, but the business needs to have chosen one deliberately rather than discovered it in production.
Why it decides a platform
If the storefront cannot read the live credit position from the ERP, it will either block good orders or accept orders the finance team then has to unwind. Both erode trust in the channel quickly.
Also called: payment terms, net terms, on account.
Last updated 2026-08-20.