What is vaulted-card payment for B2B, and how is it different from storing a card on a regular customer account?

Who owns a B2B vaulted card, and how is it different from a saved customer card?

A business-to-business (B2B) vaulted card belongs to a company location, while a card saved on a regular customer account belongs to one customer. So every customer with permissions for the location can use the vaulted card at checkout (Shopify Help Center, October 2026). Shopify's developer docs describe a regular customer's card as "A customer's saved payment method", stored for recurring charges such as subscriptions (Shopify developer docs, October 2026). How net terms run from invoice to payment shows where the vaulted card comes in: the buyer names it at checkout for the end of the term.

Why is a shared company card a different risk from a personal saved card?

A shared company card is a different risk because the cardholder, the buyer and the approver can be three different employees of a company you have a contract with. A personal saved card belongs to the shopper who uses it, so the person paying and the person approving are the same. A business-to-business (B2B) chargeback arrives against a corporate card with an internal approval story you can't see. Three consequences follow:

• Departures break payment silently. When the employee whose card sits in the vault leaves, their employer cancels the card and nobody tells you. The failure surfaces on the next charge, which on Net 30 to Net 60 terms comes 30 to 60 days after the order.
• Shopify gives you a repair step, not a warning. You can email the buyer a link to update a vaulted card, "such as when the credit card has expired or failed" (Shopify Help Center, October 2026).
• Deleting a card doesn't stop payment. A deleted card can't be charged for future orders, but "You can still charge the card for any existing orders that were placed using that card" while they're pending payment.

Does Shopify charge a vaulted card when payment terms expire?

Shopify doesn't charge a vaulted card on its own when payment terms expire: "This card isn't automatically charged when the payment terms expire" (Shopify Help Center, October 2026). At checkout the business-to-business (B2B) buyer picks which card to charge at the end of the term, and after that only your staff can switch it. You charge the card from the admin, or a Shopify Flow workflow does through the Charge vaulted payment for B2B order action, which requires Shopify Payments (Shopify Help Center, October 2026). Shopify's own pages disagree on that Flow route.

So pilot the Flow charge on one account, and keep a manual charge from the admin as the fallback.

How do vaulted bank accounts differ from vaulted cards?

Vaulted bank accounts work like vaulted cards but debit by Automated Clearing House (ACH) Direct Debit, and only in the United States. Bank account vaulting is "available only to merchants in the United States that use Shopify Payments and to customers with United States bank accounts" (Shopify Help Center, October 2026). Your store must also accept USD and have fulfilled more than 100 orders (Shopify Help Center, October 2026). The money is slower and less certain than a card's. A debit takes up to 4 business days to confirm, and a failed debit costs $4 USD. Buyers can dispute a debit through their bank for up to 60 calendar days. Like a card, a vaulted bank account isn't debited automatically when terms expire. Flow's charge action debits it only when you and the buyer are both in the United States (Shopify Help Center, October 2026). So buyers outside the United States settle terms another way.

When should you not vault a card for a B2B account?

Don't vault a card for a business-to-business (B2B) account when you need it to do a job a payment instrument can't do.