# What payment terms are

A payment term is a rule that works out when a document's payment falls due, offered wherever a term is chosen.

A payment term answers one question: given the date on a document, when is the money due? Storefront ships with the common ones, and the list is shared across the business rather than being the storefront's own.

![The Payment Terms screen, headed with the note Define the terms that set when a document payment is due. The table lists Due on Receipt, Net 14 Days, Net 15 Days, Net 20 Days, Net 30 Days marked Default, Net 45 Days, Net 60 Days, Net 90 Days, Due End of Next Month and Due End of the Month, all Active.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/storefront/payment-terms/terms-list.png)

*The default term is starred, and it is always active.*

## What the list shows

- **Term**: The name, such as Net 30 Days. The term marked Default is the one documents take unless something else is chosen.
- **Status**: Active or not. An inactive term stays in the list and stops being offered on new documents.
- **Actions**: The menu for making a term the default, turning it on or off, editing it or deleting it.

## The four due date rules

Every term is built on one of four rules, and the rule is what does the arithmetic.

- **Net Days**: Due a fixed number of days after the document date. The only rule that takes a number, which is why there can be many of them.
- **Due on Receipt**: Due the same day the document is issued.
- **Due End of the Month**: Due on the last day of the document's own month.
- **Due End of Next Month**: Due on the last day of the following month.

> **Note:**
>
> Three of the four rules take no parameters, so only one term can exist on each of them. Net Days is different: `Net 14 Days` and `Net 30 Days` are two terms on the same rule with different day counts.

## The default term

Exactly one term is the default, marked with a star in the list. It is the term a new document starts on, and it is always active: a term cannot be both the default and turned off, so the default has no activate control in its menu.

## Why this sits in the storefront rail

Payment terms are a cross-module concern rather than a storefront invention. They reach sales documents, purchase documents and contacts alike, and the list here is the same list every other app is reading. Changing a term changes it everywhere.