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How to Open a First Aid Supplies Trade Account in Australia
You can open a first aid supplies trade account with FAD today. Call 03 5443 2239, email info@firstaiddistributions.com.au, or send your details through our contact page, and the team will start your credit application. This page explains what a trade account actually involves, so you can read it, forward it to your finance team, and act on it the same day.
The outcome you want is probably simple: order now, pay later, one invoice. The mechanics are where it gets murky. Here is the plain-English Australian version: what an account is, how purchase orders work, what 30-day terms mean, and how one account covers several sites.
How do you open a first aid supplies trade account in Australia?
Contact the supplier and ask to open a trade account. Complete a credit application with your ABN and registered entity details, nominate an accounts payable contact, and provide trade references. Once the supplier agrees payment terms with you, you order on purchase orders and settle each invoice on those terms.
Each of those steps is broken down below, along with consolidated invoicing if you run more than one location.
What a trade account actually is
A trade account is a standing account with agreed payment terms and a named contact at the supplier. Instead of paying by card at guest checkout every time, your orders are recorded against the account and invoiced, and you pay on the terms you agreed up front.
The practical difference is continuity. The team knows what you order, your delivery details are already on file, and you deal with people who recognise your account rather than a fresh checkout each time. When an order looks unusual, a quantity that does not match your pattern or an item you have never bought before, someone here picks up the phone and checks before it ships.
How purchase orders work
A purchase order is your internal authorisation to buy. Your finance team raises a PO with a number, you quote that number when you place the order, and the same number appears again on the invoice we send back. That single reference is what lets accounts payable tie everything together.
A first aid supplies order on a PO runs the same as any other trade purchase. Accounts payable does a three-way match: the purchase order, the delivery docket that comes with the goods, and the invoice all need to agree before payment is released. Quoting the PO on the order at the start saves your team chasing it later.
What 30-day EOM terms actually mean
When buyers ask about 30-day terms on medical supplies, they usually mean end-of-month (EOM) terms, and those are gentler on cash flow than they first sound. With 30-day EOM, an invoice falls due 30 days after the end of the month it was issued in, not 30 days from the invoice date.
An invoice dated 3 March is treated as end of March, then 30 days are added, so it falls due around the end of April. An invoice dated 28 March lands on the same due date. In practice, ordering early in the month buys you close to two months before payment is due. These terms are offered subject to credit approval.
What you need for the credit application
The credit application for a wholesale first aid account is short, and having a few things ready makes approval quick. Before you start, gather:
- Your ABN and the exact registered entity name the account will sit under
- The accounts payable contact who will receive and pay invoices
- One or two trade references, usually existing suppliers you buy from on account
- A rough sense of your ordering pattern, so terms and delivery are set up to suit
How the first order is handled depends on the account. Schools place that order on account through our school ordering process and it is dispatched with an invoice, with no extra paperwork needed. For other new trade accounts, talk to us about terms for the first order, because credit approval is finalised after it and 30-day EOM terms apply from then on. Having your ABN, entity details and references ready keeps things moving, and a heads-up to your referees helps if one is slow to respond.
Consolidated invoicing across multiple sites
If you run more than one location, a single account can still cover them all. Orders go out to each site with its own delivery reference, and you receive one statement rather than a separate bill from every site. Cost-centre coding on that statement lets your finance team split spend back to each location without untangling a pile of individual invoices.
That is the mechanics of it. For the full case on why multi-site operators are consolidating to a single first aid supply account, the companion article covers the value side in detail.
Who trade accounts suit, and how to apply
Trade accounts suit any organisation that orders first aid and medical supplies regularly rather than once: schools, aged care and NDIS providers, medical practices, and multi-site businesses managing workplace first aid compliance in Australia across several premises. Schools can also use our dedicated school ordering process, and sites that would rather not check kits themselves can book onsite audits and restocks.
Account holders running compliance across sites often pair the account with KitCheck, a subscription to our proprietary kit management software that keeps every site's kits, checks and records in one place your own team logs into. If you are still deciding what to stock, our first aid supplies and workplace first aid kits collections are a good starting point, and you can read how businesses manage first aid compliance with KitCheck or where a business can buy a compliant first aid kit.
Ready to set up a trade account? Call 03 5443 2239, email info@firstaiddistributions.com.au, or send your details through our contact page and the team will start your credit application.