Why trade business is worth the setup
A homeowner renovates a bathroom every decade; a busy installer buys every week. Contractors bring volume, predictability and referrals — they'll send their clients to your showroom to pick material. The trade-off is thinner margins and payment on terms, which is why the structure matters more than the discount.
Trade pricing: one tier, applied automatically
Decide your contractor discount structure once — a percentage off retail, or cost-plus on volume lines — and put it on the account so it applies automatically at the counter. Improvised "contractor prices" from whoever is on the till are how margin leaks start and how contractors learn to negotiate every ticket.
Credit terms: generous enough to be useful, tight enough to be safe
Net-30 with a credit limit is the standard shape. Start new accounts with a modest limit and grow it with payment history. The two guardrails that matter: the counter should see the account status when ringing a sale (over-limit or overdue should surface immediately, not at month-end), and terms should be an account setting, not a conversation.
Monthly statements: the feature contractors actually want
Contractors juggle a dozen jobs; what they want from you is one clean statement a month listing every invoice, job by job, so they can bill their clients and pay you in one pass. Stores that email accurate statements on the first of the month get paid faster and become the default supplier. This is exactly what statements of account in TilesPOS automate.
Keep the relationship data
Which installer buys which lines, who's gone quiet, whose volume earned a better tier — that's CRM data, not memory. A quick monthly review of account activity surfaces the installer who stopped coming (call them) and the one who doubled volume (thank them, and maybe deepen their discount).
The takeaway
Fixed trade tiers, terms with visible guardrails, statements on the first, and account history you actually review. Trade business run this way compounds; run casually, it's a discount program with paperwork.
Run trade accounts without the spreadsheet
Credit terms, automatic trade pricing and monthly statements are built into TilesPOS.