Credit Management: #3 Setting Credit Limit for Customers

Think about that one familiar customer of yours who always buys on credit. They usually pay on time, maybe a little late here and there, but not alarming. So, you are fine saying, "Sure, pay later."

Then, one day, they place a significantly bigger order than usual. That's great news for you, until you notice their previous invoices were unpaid. Suddenly, you're wondering, "Should I accept this order or wait for earlier payments?"

This is a dilemma many business owners secretly face.

How much credit is too much credit?

It's not because customers are unreliable. Cash flow is the oxygen for the business, and too many unpaid invoices can unexpectedly suffocate operations.

That's precisely why credit limits exist.

They allow customers to buy on credit within a reasonable, predefined limit. They aren't about mistrust; they are about protecting the relationship, your cash flow, and the health of your business at the same time.

Just like speed limits keep drivers safe, credit limits keep finances balanced.

So, What Exactly is a Credit Limit? 

A credit limit is the maximum unpaid amount you'll allow a customer to owe your business. Think of it like a spending cap. It ensures your customer has breathing space to pay later and keeps your cash flow healthy.

Here is how it usually works:

• You allow your customers to buy up to $10,000 on credit.

• They can continue making new purchases if their unpaid invoices are below $10,000.

• Once they hit that limit, you pause new sales until some of their dues are cleared.

 It's pretty simple. Right? It's a small step that keeps your receivables from growing out of control.

​
Why is it Important? 

When you extend credit, you lead your product or service until the customer pays. That trust can pile up without limits into overdue invoices and unexpected cash crunches. Credit limits act like a speed breaker for running away receivables.

• It protects cash flow by keeping too much money from being tied up in unpaid invoices.

• It reduces the risk of delayed customer payments, and your losses stay within safe boundaries.

• It encourages quick payments as customers pay faster when they know their limit is close.

• It brings predictability, making forecasting the income and plan easier.

Managing Credit Limits in Zoho Billing 

Zoho Billing does the heavy lifting of managing your customer credits automatically with little to no manual intervention.

Some of the key aspects that are covered by using Customer Credit Limit are listed below.

Personalised Credit for Every Customer

Zoho Billing allows you to assign a maximum outstanding balance for each customer. Instead of treating all customers the same, you can tailor these limits based on their payment history, purchasing patterns, and the level of trust you've built with them over time. This creates a more personalised approach to credit rather than relying on assumptions or informal agreements.

Real-time Visibility on Outstanding Balances

Once credit limits are in place, Zoho Billing gives you real-time visibility into each customer's outstanding balance. At any point, you can review how much credit a customer has already used and how much room remains. This clarity helps you detect early signs of overextension before overdue invoices start piling up. It's the information that would otherwise require manual tracking.

Alerts When Credit Limits Are Exceeded

When a customer's unpaid invoices push them beyond their assigned limit, Zoho Billing highlights the situation immediately. Instead of discovering credit issues after they've already grown, you'll be notified when risk increases. This allows you to pause, have a timely conversation with the customer and ensure earlier invoices are settled before additional credits are offered.

Controlling New Invoices Based on Limits

For businesses that want firmer control, Zoho Billing can be configured to block the creation of new invoices once a customer surpasses their limit. This reinforces healthy payment behaviour by encouraging customers to clear pending dues sooner. It also protects your receivables from growing beyond your business's comfort level.

Adjusting Limits as Relationship Evolves

As customer relationships evolve, so can their credit limits. With Zoho Billing, you can easily adjust a customer's limit upwards when they consistently pay on time, rewarding reliability with increased flexibility. Likewise, in case payment patterns slow down, you can tighten their limit to shield your cash flow. This dynamic approach ensures that credit policies stay fair and adaptable rather than rigid or outdated.

Bringing Automation to Credit Control

Zoho Billing, on the whole, turns credit limit management into an integrated part of your billing process. Instead of manually flagging later payments or tracking balances in spreadsheets, the system automates it for you. It provides the visibility, alert, and enforcement needed to keep credit extensions safe, predictable and structured. By offering credit responsibly and monitoring it wisely, you can drive growth without risking your business's financial health.

Control Vs Stop 

Keeping Credit under control is not about restricting customers but protecting your business's health. With Zoho billing, you can manage your credits with flexibility and clarity. This is crucial because a smart business operation isn't about saying no to credit but knowing where to stop. 

Credit limits are sorted. Great!

Here is the twist. What happens when a customer suddenly hits "Pause" on their subscription? Do their credits freeze?

In the next post, we will explore Pause Period Credits, a feature that makes your billing feel trustworthy and reliable.

 

• Topic Participants

• Hari | Zoho Billing

  

• Sticky Posts

• Community Learning Series | Digest #5 — September 2020

  Dear customers, We're happy to bring you the September edition of our #CommunityDigest! Keep track of your subscription KPIs right from your smartphone: Last month, we enhanced our Android mobile app to help our customers get daily updates on their business health. We got to know from a lot of customers that this has made their job much more easier because they no longer have to keep a reminder to manually check on the previous day's revenue or activations. If you have not downloaded it yet, here's

• Community Learning Series | Digest #4 - August 2020

  Dear customers, We hope you're staying safe and healthy. I'm happy to bring you the fourth edition of our #CommunityDigest with some brand-new updates from us. 1. Daily Business Updates (for Android users) The Zoho Subscriptions Android app has got a cool new update: You can now get a push notification to your smartphone that lets you know how many activations and cancellations have taken place, and what's the net revenue for the previous day. The best part is, you can tell the app when exactly you

• Community Learning Series | Digest #3 - July 2020

  Dear customers, We hope you're staying safe and healthy. We're glad to bring you the July edition of our #CommunityDigest. New community members can view our previous newsletters here. This time, we have two major updates and three interesting topics for you: 1. Zoho Subscriptions Developer Community Since the inception of Zoho Subscriptions, our team believed that the recurring billing platform we provide should be able to offer an extensive API library that empowers businesses to automate most

• Introducing: Community Learning Series | Digest #1 - May 2020

  Dear customers, We hope you are staying safe and healthy. Helping businesses manage their customer subscriptions more efficiently has always been, and always will be, our goal at Zoho Subscriptions. We strongly believe this is possible if we grow together as a community and share what we know with each other. To nurture this shared learning experience, here is our brand-new Community Learning Series! ​ Welcome to the first edition of our digest! Each edition of our community digest includes guides

• Recent Topics

• Add multiple users to a task

  When I´m assigning a task it is almost always related to more than one person. Practical situation: When a client request some improvement the related department opens the task with the situation and people related to it as the client itself, the salesman

• Enhancing Task Accuracy: Automatically notify the owners upon Task duplication.

  Hello Everyone, A Custom function is a user-written set of code to achieve a specific requirement. Set the required conditions needed as when to trigger using the Workflow rules (be it Tasks / Project) and associate the custom function to it. The requirement

• Show/ hide specific field based on user

  Can someone please help me with a client script to achieve the following? I've already tried a couple of different scripts I've found on here (updating to match my details etc...) but none of them seem to work. No errors flagged in the codes, it just

• Where are Kanban swimlanes

  So i've been playing with Zoho Projects Kanban view a bit more. It appears that task lists are being used as the Kanban columns, which makes sense from the implementation point of view but not the logical one.  Kanban columns are statuses that a task can flow through, while a task list has been a logical way to organize related tasks and relate them to a mislestone. In other words a task in a particular task can go through several stages while remaining in the same task list. After doing some research

• Tip 19: How to display images in Pages using ZML snippets

  Hi folks, We're back with another tip on how to use Zoho Markup Language (ZML) to create interactive pages in Zoho Creator. You can use ZML snippets to add various kinds of components to your pages and structure them in meaningful ways. That's not all, though—using ZML you can ensure your application is automatically compatible with all kinds of devices without any inconsistencies. We often get questions from users about how to invoke Deluge scripts within ZML code. Here's a simple use case for adding

• Can zoho swign format block text spacing automatically when prefilled from zoho crm?

  I'm sending zoho sign template from zoho crm, so that zoho crm pre-populates most fields. I have existing pdf documents that i am having signed. I have no ability to change the pdf documents, they are standardized government forms. The problem I am facing

• Forced Logouts - Daily and More Frequent

  In the last month or so, I've been getting "power logged out" of all of my Zoho apps at least daily, sometimes more frequently. This happens in the same browser session on the same computer, and I need to re-login to each app separately after this happens.

• Zoho Inventory / Finance Suite - Add feature to prevent duplicate values in Item Unit field

  I've noticed that a client has 2 values the same in the Unit field on edit/create Items. This surprised me as why would you have 2 units with the same name. Please consider adding a feature which prevents this as it seems to serve no purpose.

• Reference lookup field values in Client script

  hello all, I'm using a "ZDK.Apps.CRM.Products.searchByCriteria" function call, which is returning the matching records correctly; however, one of the fields is a lookup field which I need the associated data. I believe there is a way to get this data

• In App Auto Refresh/Update Features

  Hi,    I am trying to use Zoho Creator for Restaurant management. While using the android apps, I reliased the apps would not auto refresh if there is new entries i.e new kitchen order ticket (KOT) from other users.   The apps does received notification but would not auto refresh, users required to refresh the apps manually in order to see the new KOT in the apps.    I am wondering why this features is not implemented? Or is this feature being considered to be implemented in the future? With the

• Every time an event is updated, all participants receive an update email. How can I deactivate this?

  Every time an event is updated in Zoho CRM (e.g. change description, link to Lead) every participant of this meeting gets an update email. Another customer noticed this problem years ago in the Japanese community: https://help.zoho.com/portal/ja/community/topic/any-time-an-event-is-updated-on-zohocrm-calendar-it-sends-multiple-invites-to-the-participants-how-do-i-stop-that-from-happening

• How can I filter a field integration?

  Hi,  I have a field integration from CRM "Products" in a form, and I have three product Categories in CRM. I only need to see Products of a category. Thanks for you answers.

• Email task creator when task is updated/marked complete

  I am looking for a way to notify the creator of a task in zoho todo when - Task is updated Task is closed Comments entered 1 and 2 are critical, and I cannot find a zoho flow to do this. There is no way that as a manager I will know when someone has completed

• How to move emails to Shared Mailbox?

  Hello, I created a Shred Mailbox instead of using a distribution group. But I cannot move previous emails to certain shared mailbox. Is it possible move some emails from inbox to shared mailbox?

• How to implement new online payment gateway?

  Hello, Can you tell me how to proceed to implement my local payment gateway? DIBS has an open avaiable API that should be easy to implement into ZOHO BOOKS. http://tech.dibspayment.com/dibs_payment_window

• Zoho CRM - Portal Users Edit Their Own Account Information

  Hi Community, I'm working on a client portal and it seems like the only I can make the Account record editable to the Contact, is if I add another lookup on the Account to the Contact record. Am I missing something as the account already has a list of

• I’ve noticed that Zoho Sheet currently doesn’t have a feature similar to the QUERY formula in Google Sheets or Power Query in Microsoft Excel.

  These tools are extremely helpful for: Filtering and extracting data using simple SQL-like queries Combining or transforming data from multiple sheets or tables Creating dynamic reports without using complex formulas Having a Query-like function in Zoho

• Connecting Zoho Mail with Apollo.io

  Hi, I am trying to connect my Zoho Mail account with my Apollo.io account to start sending cold email for prospecting purposes. I have activated the IMAP setting but I am still unable to connect to the Apollo account. I am using my email credentials but

• Where does this report come from in the Zoho One ecosystems?

  Is this directly from MA, Analytics or ??? ???

• Contact's title in "Contact Role Mapping"

  When I'm creating a deal, I'd like to see the contacts title in the listing. Right now, I only see this: How can I get the contact's title in there?

• Zoho CRM - Client Portal - Hide Notes Related List

  Hi Community, I'm building a customer portal and I can't find a way to hide the notes related list. I don't want the client to see the notes I have about them. Is there a way to do this as it is no bin/trash icon when I hover over.

• "Pivot Table" Conditional Formatting

  Team, I there a way to use conditional formatting a "Pivot Table"  report? Thanks, Arron Blue Pumpkin Hosting | Solutions Made Simple

• How many clients can be added to Zoho Practice?

  How many clients can be added to Zoho Practice without having their zoho app?

• Stage History

  when viewing a ticket , and you look at stage history tab (kanban view) and look at the stage duration column in days, it shows the current stage of the ticket as " current stage ". Should it not rather show the amount of days it has been in that current

• Send Automated WhatsApp Messages and Leverage the Improved WhatsApp Templates

  Greetings, I hope all of you are doing well. We're excited to announce a major upgrade to Bigin's WhatsApp integration that brings more flexibility, interactivity, and automation to your customer messaging. WhatsApp message automation You can now use

• Automating Ticket Responses Using Zoho Desk's AI Features

  We’re looking to set up an automation within Zoho Desk that can analyze incoming emails or tickets and automatically respond with relevant knowledge base articles based on the content of the request. Could you please guide us on how to configure this

• Optimising CRM-Projects workflows to manage requests, using Forms as an intermediary

  Is it possible to create a workflow between three apps with traceability between them all? We send information from Zoho CRM Deals over to Zoho Projects for project management and execution. We have used a lookup of sorts to create tasks in the past,

• Service locations are tied to contacts?

  Trying the system out. And what I discovered is that it seems that the whole logic of the app is, I'd say, backwards. There is a Customer - a company. The company has contact persons and service locations can be associated with different contact persons.

• Enhancements to Zoho Maps integration tasks

  Hello everyone, We're excited to announce enhancements to the Zoho Maps integration tasks in Deluge, which will boost its performance. This post will walk you through the upcoming changes, explain why we're making them, and detail the steps you need to

• Bug in Total Hour Calculation in Regularization for past dates

  There is a bug in Zoho People Regularization For example today is the date is 10 if I choose a previous Date like 9 and add the Check in and Check out time The total hours aren't calculated properly, in the example the check in time is 10:40 AM check

• Cliq iOS can't see shared screen

  Hello, I had this morning a video call with a colleague. She is using Cliq Desktop MacOS and wanted to share her screen with me. I'm on iPad. I noticed, while she shared her screen, I could only see her video, but not the shared screen... Does Cliq iOS is able to display shared screen, or is it somewhere else to be found ? Regards

• Narrative 12: Sandbox - Testing without the risk

  Behind the scenes of a successful ticketing system: BTS Series Narrative 12: Sandbox - Testing without the risk What is a sandbox environment? A sandbox environment is a virtual playground that allows you to test freely and experiment with various elements

• Dynamically catching new file creations

  I have a team folder with many subfolders, and in those folders we add new documents all the time. I'd like to have a workflow or script to notify me (and then take other actions) when a file is added anywhere in that structure that ends in "summary.txt".

• Announcing new features in Trident for Mac (1.27.0)

  Hello everyone! Trident for macOS (v1.27.0) is here with new features and enhancements to improve scheduling and managing your calendar events. Let's take a quick look at them. Stay aligned across time zones. Both the scheduled and original time zones

• Branding of native system emails

  Make system emails adjustable in terms of branding. We want our system to be completely white label, because it is not a CRM anymore, it's way more than that. We are following the strategy of "CRM for everyone" to use the CRM in all departments, not only

• Slow uploads of large files

  I'm wanting to use Workdrive for transferring large images and video (we're talking things from 100MB-5GB). I'm running solo on a 500MBit/sec fiber connection. I'm getting upload speeds to Workdrive of no more than about 1-3Mbytes/sec when going through

• Migrate Your Notes from OneNote to Zoho Notebook Today

  Greetings Notebook Users, We’re excited to introduce a powerful new feature that lets you migrate your notes from Microsoft OneNote to Zoho Notebook—making your transition faster and more seamless than ever. ✨ What’s New One-click migration: Easily import

• need to upload from airtable to google drive

  I have a zapier zap that automates between airtable and google drive. When a customer uploads a new file into airtable via a client portal interface, zapier uploads that file into a folder linked to that customer's project record. I need to replicate

• Can't delete functions that are associated with deleted workflow rules

  We have a handful of functions that were once associated with a workflow rule, but the rule has been deleted. The function still thinks it is associated so I can't assign it to a new rule. It is starting to get really messy because we have a list of functions

• Default Sorting on Related Lists

  Is it possible to set the default sorting options on the related lists. For example on the Contact Details view I have related lists for activities, emails, products cases, notes etc... currently: Activities 'created date' newest first Emails - 'created

• Next Page