Writing invoice payment terms in South Carolina

A due date in days is the term that does the work

An invoice a court can enforce states its own deadline. "Net 30 from invoice date" is a contract term. "Payment due on completion" is an argument waiting to happen.

Write the trigger and the count together: net 30 from the invoice date, or net 15 from delivery. A mover who bills after the truck is unloaded, a cleaner who invoices on the first of the month and a food truck that collects before an event all set that clock differently, and the words on the invoice are where each one is set.

The due date also starts every other clock on this site. The demand letter, the interest charge and the magistrate's complaint all count from a deadline the invoice has to state. If you are already past it, the past-due checklist picks the order of moves from there.

$7,500A suit on an unpaid invoice is an action arising on a contract for the recovery of money only, which a South Carolina magistrate can hear as long as the sum claimed does not exceed $7,500. — South Carolina Code of Laws, Title 22, Chapter 3, retrieved 2026-09-29

Write the interest rate down, or accept the default

A late payment draws interest in South Carolina whether you wrote a rate or not. The question is which rate you get, and that is decided partly by your invoice.

On an account stated, the legal rate is set by statute. An invoice that restates the balance after delivery, and gets no objection, is the everyday form of an account stated.

If you want a different rate, say it in the contract, in plain words, before the work starts. A number written on the invoice after the job is done has weaker footing than one agreed up front. What you can charge once payment is late, at each rate and in each situation, is laid out in late fees and interest.

8.75% per annumIn all cases of accounts stated, the legal rate of interest in South Carolina is eight and three-fourths percent per annum. — South Carolina Code of Laws, Title 34, Chapter 31, retrieved 2026-09-29

Construction invoices carry a notice nobody else needs

If you improve real estate, an electrician or a landscaper, your pay request can carry a sentence that switches on statutory interest worth one percent a month.

That interest is not automatic. The statute collects it only when the party you are charging was notified of the section at the time the payment request was made. A one-line citation on every construction invoice is the cheapest collections tool this site covers.

The sentence names the statute and says late payment draws interest at the statutory rate. On private jobs the parties can contract around it, but only by waiving the section by number, in bold or underlined type. The full mechanics of the 21-day and 7-day clocks are in construction prompt payment.

1% a monthOn construction, interest of one percent a month is owed on a delayed payment only if the person being charged was notified of the statute at the time the payment request was made. — South Carolina Code of Laws, Title 29, Chapter 6, retrieved 2026-09-29

The name on the invoice decides who can collect it

Whoever the contract names as the payee is who a judgment belongs to. If the invoice says your sole proprietorship's trade name, the judgment follows you personally, along with the business's other debts.

If the invoice is in the name of a company, the payment and the lawsuit belong to the company. A cleaner invoicing a commercial building, or a salon owner invoicing under the shop's name, should make sure the name on the paperwork is the one that owns the bank account.

That choice is worth making deliberately, not by accident, because changing it later means changing every customer record at once. Whether an LLC changes how you get paid covers the $110 filing and what it does to the invoice.

$110South Carolina charges $110 to file articles of organization for a domestic LLC, the filing that puts a company name behind the invoice. — South Carolina Code of Laws, Title 33, Chapter 44, retrieved 2026-09-29

Terms for the payment methods you actually accept

If you take checks, the invoice should say so plainly, because a returned check opens a statutory remedy that needs the customer's details. Write the account holder's name and phone number on the check or your copy of it when you take it, and deposit it within ten days.

That is not busywork. The bounced-check statute hinges on the check being deposited inside ten days of being handed over, and on the holder having taken the identifying details at the moment it was written.

If you take cards or transfers, put the surcharge or fee on the invoice where the customer sees it before the work starts. What a bounced check opens up, and the letter that must precede it, is in what to do when a check bounces.

10 daysSouth Carolina's fraudulent check statute does not apply to a check that has not been deposited to the payee's account within ten days from the date it was presented. — South Carolina Code of Laws, Title 34, Chapter 11, retrieved 2026-09-29

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