What gets assessed
- Payment discipline. The heaviest weight: shipments settled within the agreed term. Not the amount, but how consistently the term is kept.
- Regularity of purchasing. A steady volume is more predictable than one large order.
- History and paperwork. How long we have worked together, how complete the documents are, how communication goes when something is disputed.
Why 30 days is not granted straight away
Because a new customer has no history — neither good nor bad. A sensible path: start with payment on delivery, open 7 days after several orders settled on time, then widen the limit as the rating builds, up to 30 days.
How to speed the limit up
Pay on time even where you could stretch it; keep one channel of communication; warn in advance if a payment will slip. One flagged postponement damages a rating far less than a week of silence.
Transparency
A rating should be visible to the customer, not live in a manager's head. With us it is shown in the personal account and updates after every settled shipment, while the resulting terms are fixed in the contract.