Set a credit limit, record a review and place a hold
Control how much a customer may owe, review the limit with a permanent record, and stop sales with a hold, block or blacklist.
Before you begin
You need partner.manage. To see credit limits, temporary limits, guarantees, risk and review history you also need credit.limit.reveal. Without it those fields show blank or ••••, and saving does not change them.
Without credit.limit.reveal the Record credit review dialog opens with a limit of 0, because the real limit is hidden. Recording a review in that state would set the limit to zero. Only people with the reveal permission should record reviews. The credit limit and hold fields are saved at once; there is no second-person approval for them yet.
Set the credit terms
- Open the customer and press Edit. Go to Finance & Credit.
- Enter the Credit Limit in AED (0 or more, two decimals).
- Choose the Limit Mode: Finite, Unlimited or Blocked. Left blank, the mode is Finite when a figure exists and Not set otherwise.
- Choose the Credit Policy. Hard block refuses an order that takes the customer over the limit. Warn only lets it through with a warning. No credit check does neither. A blank policy reads as Review required.
- Press Save.
A limit of 0 under Finite means zero credit, never unlimited. If no limit is set under Hard block, an order is refused with 'No credit limit is set for this customer, so this sale has no credit to draw on.' A Blocked mode refuses with 'Credit is blocked for this customer.'
Add a temporary limit
- In Finance & Credit enter the Temporary Limit, Valid From, Valid To, a reason and who approved it.
- Save. A limit without dates is refused with 'A temporary credit limit needs the dates it is valid between.' A Valid To before Valid From is refused with 'The temporary limit ends before it starts.'
The effective limit is the base limit plus the temporary limit, but only between the two dates, inclusive. Outside them the effective limit goes back to the base limit.
Record a credit review
- On Finance & Credit press Record credit review.
- Enter the Approved limit (prefilled with the current one), the Risk level, a Reason, and optionally a Recommendation and Next review date.
- Press Record review. The button stays disabled while the reason is empty.
The new limit and risk apply at once. A row is added to Credit Review History with the old limit, the new limit and the exposure at the time. These rows cannot be edited or deleted; saving the form does not change them.
Place a hold, block or blacklist
On Controls & History or Overview:
| Control | Effect | Needs |
|---|---|---|
| Hold Type: Sales orders, Invoices, All transactions, Delivery, Payments | Refuses that kind of sale-side action | A Hold Reason |
| On Hold switch | Turns the hold on for all transactions | A hold reason |
| Blocked | Refuses every sales-side confirm, deliver and post | None |
| Blacklist | Blocks the customer | A Blacklist Reason |
Messages you may meet: 'Enter a reason for the transaction hold.', 'Enter a reason for the hold.', 'Enter a reason for blacklisting this customer.', 'Customer transaction hold: Sales orders. <reason>', '<name> is blocked.' and '<name> is blacklisted: <reason>.' Refunds and reversals stay possible.
Hold dates are only a record. The hold applies from the moment you save, whatever the dates say.
What happens next
The Credit Exposure panel is calculated from live data. Exposure is open sales order lines (not yet invoiced) plus open invoices, with overdue amounts and unapplied credits taken into account.
Worked example. The limit is AED 50,000. One confirmed order is 10 units at AED 1,000 with a 10% discount and 5% VAT, not delivered: 10 × 1,000 × 0.90 × 1.05 = AED 9,450.00. One posted invoice of AED 15,000 is not yet due.
- Total exposure = 9,450 + 15,000 = AED 24,450.00. Available = AED 25,550.00. Utilisation = 48.9%, status Good.
- At 35,000 (70.0%) the status is Watch. At 46,000 (92.0%) it is Limit near. At 51,000 (102.0%) it is Limit exceeded and available shows -1,000.00.
- Under Hard block, confirming an order of AED 20,000 when exposure is 35,000 is refused with 'Credit check: This takes exposure to 55000.00, 5000.00 over the limit of 50000.00.' Either record a credit review that raises the limit, or have an approved credit override released in Finance.
An invoice 10 days overdue for AED 3,000 shows the status Overdue with '3000.00 is overdue, the oldest by 10 days.'
Good to know
- Credit overrides and an approval matrix for limits are not available yet in Contacts. Only the Hard block policy is certain to refuse; other policies let the order through with at most a warning.
- Guarantee, credit insurance and deposit amounts are informational. They are not added to the limit.