I have a home-based (fully inspected/licensed/insured) cookie business. Recently I had an inquiry for a very large cookie order ($2000+) from a university. Normally, I would require a non-refundable 50% deposit to hold the date (it is a full week's work for me), and payment of the balance 10 days prior to the event. The university required me to do a bunch of paperwork to become a vendor which included agreeing to their NET30 payment terms. Fortunately for a variety of reasons, it turned out that the order was significantly reduced and down to a level that I feel comfortable doing on NET30 terms.

For the future, I'm wondering how to handle orders for large businesses/universities that require net30 payment terms. Do I get a signed contract for the order in lieu of the 50% deposit and 100% prepayment? How has anyone else handled this issue?

PM indydeb. She has posted about this before but since the search option sucks on Cake Central you won't be able to find it.

Thanks for the hint This one was a really hard topic to search for!

FWIW, we used a Purchase Order and I now have a better understanding of the binding nature of a PO. I didn't need the deposit to purchase supplies or get started on the work, I just wanted to be sure they would not walk away from the order once it was placed.

Thanks again!