Argent Payments Team · September 1, 2026
Quick Answer
Distributors and wholesalers run on repeat B2B accounts more than one-off sales, so the processing setup that matters most is a recurring, securely stored payment method for standing accounts, ACH for large recurring orders, and a clear policy for customers who insist on paying by card. Reach out to our team at Argent Payments to see where your current setup stands.
A distribution business rarely sells to a stranger once. The same accounts order again and again, on terms that were negotiated once and then followed for months or years. That repeat relationship is exactly what a payment setup should be built around — and it’s usually where a generic, retail-oriented processor falls short.
Key Takeaways
Most distribution revenue comes from accounts that order repeatedly under terms set once, not new customers found each month. A payment setup built for one-off retail sales misses that entirely, forcing staff to re-collect and re-key payment details on every order instead of billing against a payment method already on file.
A recurring B2B payment setup worth having usually includes:
What Argent Looks For
For distributors, we look at how much staff time goes into manually re-running or chasing payment on standing accounts before recommending a vault-based recurring setup — that hidden labor cost is often bigger than the processing fee itself.
Days Sales Outstanding — the average time it takes to actually collect on an invoice after it’s issued — tends to improve once collection is automated against a stored payment method instead of relying on a customer to remember to pay. See ACH vs. credit card processing: cost and speed for how the two methods compare on both cost and how fast funds actually land.
Some distributors offset the cost of customers who prefer cards over ACH with a surcharge on card payments. That’s legal in most states, but the rules genuinely vary; see our compliant fee-offset guide before adding one, and see manufacturing payment processing if you sell into that vertical as well, since the same ACH-first approach applies there.
Want to see how this fits your business specifically? Contact Argent Payments.
We set distributors up with a customer vault for standing accounts, ACH collection for large recurring orders, and electronic invoicing that ties billing directly to your existing terms, rather than a generic retail checkout flow.
See our distribution payment processing page for the full picture of how we work with distributors, or contact Argent Payments today for a free review of your current setup.
A customer vault securely stores a customer’s payment method on file so recurring orders can be billed automatically, without your team re-collecting or re-keying card or bank details every time an order goes out.
Usually, yes. Billing against a stored payment method on agreed terms removes the step where someone has to remember to pay and someone else has to remember to chase them, which is where a lot of DSO creep actually comes from.
In most cases, yes — you can set ACH as your default or preferred method for recurring accounts, though some customers may ask to use a card, which is where a documented policy and possibly a surcharge come in.
The mechanics are the same as any surcharge program — a disclosed percentage added to card transactions to offset processing cost — but B2B accounts often have more negotiating leverage to push back, so it’s worth applying consistently rather than account-by-account.
A card on file can be refreshed automatically with an account updater in many cases; a changed bank account for ACH generally needs to be re-authorized manually, so it’s worth confirming with a customer periodically on long-standing accounts.
If your team is still manually chasing down recurring wholesale accounts, there’s usually a faster way to collect the same revenue. Connect with an Argent Payments specialist to see what an automated setup would look like for your accounts.