If you’re only selling to the person standing at your counter, you’re leaving money on the table. A lot of cigar shops also supply other businesses — restaurants, bars, golf clubs, other retailers. TORO handles the wholesale side right alongside your retail operations, so you’re not juggling two separate systems.
Wholesale vs. Retail in TORO #
Wholesale accounts are still regular TORO accounts — they just have wholesale settings turned on. That means you get the same customer management, purchase history, and reporting you’re used to, plus the tools you need for B2B: invoicing, payment tracking, credit terms, and tiered pricing.
The key differences come down to how you get paid and what you charge. Retail customers pay at the register and walk out. Wholesale customers order in bulk, get invoiced, and pay you later. The margins are thinner, but the volume makes up for it.
Setting Up a Wholesale Account #
Start by creating a new account (or converting an existing one) with the wholesale designation. From there:
- Assign a pricing tier. Wholesale customers don’t pay retail. Set up pricing tiers so they automatically get wholesale rates, volume discounts, or whatever structure you’ve agreed on.
- Configure credit terms. Net 15, Net 30, whatever you’ve negotiated. This determines when payment is expected after invoicing.
- Set a credit limit if you want to cap how much they can owe at any given time. This is optional but smart, especially for new accounts. Trust is great, but a credit limit is better.
Creating Invoices #
The invoicing workflow is straightforward:
- Process the order as a transaction or through the wholesale module
- Select Invoice as the payment method
- TORO generates the invoice with all the order details, pricing, and payment terms
- Print it or email it directly to the customer
- The amount goes onto their account as a receivable
That’s it. The invoice tracks what they owe, and you can follow up as needed.
Getting Paid #
This is where a lot of shops get sloppy with wholesale — they send invoices and then lose track. TORO won’t let that happen if you use it.
View open invoices for any customer at any time. You can see exactly what’s outstanding, when it was invoiced, and when payment is due.
Record payments as they come in. If a customer sends a check for $2,000 against a $3,500 invoice, record the partial payment. TORO tracks the remaining balance automatically.
Mark invoices as paid when fully collected. Clean books, no guesswork.
Aging reports are your best friend. They break down receivables into buckets — current, 30 days past due, 60 days, 90+ days. When you see an invoice sitting in the 60-day column, it’s time for a phone call. Don’t let accounts age quietly.
Price Sheets #
If you’ve got sales reps or wholesale customers who need a printed list of what you offer and at what price, TORO can generate price sheets. You can create different sheets for different pricing tiers and email or print them as needed. When prices change, update the sheet and send the new version.
Accounts Receivable at a Glance #
The accounts receivable view gives you a dashboard of everything owed to you. Total AR balance, broken down by customer and by age. This is the report you should be looking at weekly — maybe daily if wholesale is a big part of your business.
A healthy AR looks like mostly current balances with very little in the 60+ day columns. If your 90-day bucket is growing, you’ve got a collections problem that needs attention before it becomes a cash flow problem.
A Few Things to Keep in Mind #
Invoice payments don’t go through the drawer. Wholesale payments are recorded separately from your register transactions. This keeps your daily drawer reconciliation clean and your wholesale accounting accurate.
Reports separate wholesale and retail. You can see exactly how much revenue comes from each channel, what the margins look like, and which wholesale accounts are most profitable. Keep a close eye on this — wholesale margins are thinner by nature, and a high-volume account that’s paying late or returning a lot can quietly become unprofitable.
Tax-exempt accounts are common in wholesale. Resellers often have tax-exempt status. You can configure this per account in TORO so tax is automatically excluded from their invoices. Just make sure you have their exemption certificate on file.
Monitor margins carefully. It’s easy to get excited about a big wholesale order and forget that you’re making half the margin you would on retail. That’s fine if the volume justifies it. But keep an eye on the numbers — a wholesale account that buys a lot and pays late might be costing you more than it’s earning.
Wholesale can be a serious revenue stream for cigar shops that do it right. The key is treating it like a real operation — proper invoicing, prompt follow-up on payments, and clear-eyed analysis of which accounts are actually worth the effort. TORO gives you the tools. The discipline is up to you.
