Running standing orders for restaurants, cafés and hotels: a supplier's guide

Search 'standing order' in Singapore and you'll mostly find bank instructions to pay a fixed amount on a fixed date. A supplier's standing order is different: a repeat order for goods, agreed once with a customer, that you deliver and invoice each time. The customer may still pay by GIRO or bank transfer, but the standing order itself is about what you deliver.

Put it in writing, even if it's one page or an email both sides reply to. Cover:

A cut-off is the latest time a customer can change the next delivery. It must leave you time to buy, pick and pack, so work backwards from your own day. A farm supplier that picks at 4am and buys extra at the market the evening before might set 2pm the day before. A bakery that starts baking at midnight might need changes by 6pm.

Say it once in the agreement and repeat it in reminders: 'Changes for tomorrow by 2pm today, please.' After the cut-off, do what you can but don't promise. Customers respect a firm time more than a supplier who says yes and then delivers short.

Each delivery should go with a delivery order listing what was sent, for which order and PO, with space for the receiver's name, signature and date. Ask the receiver to write any shortage or rejected item on the DO before signing. The signed copy settles arguments at month end, and anything short or rejected comes off with a credit note instead of an edited invoice.

Most restaurant and hotel customers buy on credit, often 30 days. Invoice each delivery, or each week, and send a statement at month end: what was owed at the start, each invoice, each payment, and what's owed now, with a due date. If you're GST-registered, IRAS expects a tax invoice to reach a GST-registered customer within 30 days of the supply, so invoices can't wait for the statement if that would push them past 30 days.

Set a credit limit for each account and decide in advance what happens when it's passed: a phone call, then cash on delivery, then a pause. Deciding at 6am on a loading bay is how suppliers end up carrying bad debts.

Standing orders are on Business. On the customer's page, add a standing order: tick the days, add each item with a quantity, or kilograms for items sold by weight, a delivery address (left empty if they collect), an optional delivery time, their standing PO number and any notes.

In the early hours of the day before each delivery day, the app makes that day's order as an ordinary order at the customer's own prices, with their PO number on the order, invoice and delivery order, and delivered orders go onto your driver's route. A day is never made twice. That gives you a natural cut-off: to change tomorrow, open tomorrow's order and change it on its own page, and the standing order stays as it is for the weeks after. Pause stops the next orders until you resume.

If stock was short or the customer has gone over their credit limit, the order is still made and you're alerted, so you can check it before packing. If it couldn't be made, Today lists it under 'Standing orders with a problem' with the reason, and you make that day's order by hand. The packing list shows today's or tomorrow's orders with the total of each item to pick, and you can mark many orders ready at once.

Each delivery gets a delivery order with its own number, the customer's PO and a 'Received in good order and condition' box for name, signature and date; when your driver takes the signature on delivery, the DO shows it as signed. Mark the customer as a business account with a credit limit, payment terms, their own prices and 'Purchase order number required'. Each month's statement shows what was owed at the start, charged, paid and owed at the end, with its due date, ready to email.