You return from Canton Fair with product photos, a promising quotation and a salesperson asking for a deposit to hold production capacity. Your buyer remembers the booth. Finance has never paid the company. Before the transfer, turn that conversation into an order that another colleague can check.
The purchase situations here are fictional illustrations, not customer stories. This article is general information, not legal, tax or investment advice. Completing these checks does not guarantee supplier performance or payment acceptance.
Agree which order the deposit buys
Ask for a supplier-issued proforma and written purchase terms. They should describe the goods, quantities, specifications, invoice currency and price. Record what the deposit covers and what remains due. A product photo can help purchasing identify an item, but it does not settle which material, packaging or model the supplier agreed to make.
If the quotation still leaves shipping or packaging open, ask purchasing to resolve that before approving the deposit. Finance needs to know whether the payment reserves capacity, starts production or pays for work already completed. Those are different commitments even when the requested amount is the same.
Save the version both sides accepted. Keep the booth quotation as background rather than quietly replacing it with a revised invoice. A colleague should be able to see why the price changed.
Connect the salesperson to the contracting company
A business card gives you a contact, not evidence that the named person can bind the invoice issuer. Ask for the supplier's registered name, including the Chinese name where available, and company records your buyer can check against the contract. Ask who is manufacturing the goods and who is selling them if those are different businesses.
For a new relationship, establish a contact channel independently of the payment instruction. Verify the company and contact using records your team considers reliable, rather than calling only a number supplied in the same email as the bank account. Document what you checked and what remains uncertain. Meeting someone at a booth does not authenticate every later message from their mailbox.
The supplier-details guide explains how to compare the contracting company with the beneficiary. If the names differ, pause for a documented explanation and review; a verbal assurance from the salesperson does not close the question.
Decide what the supplier will receive
Ask whether the supplier wants tokens in a wallet or bank currency credited to an account. Holding USDT does not tell you which receipt the supplier will accept. For a bank payout funded with stablecoins, the funding transfer and the supplier credit are separate events.
Use the China supplier payment guide to prepare that conversation. Before funding, ask the payment provider whether it can accept this buyer, beneficiary, purchase and proposed deposit. The supplier's willingness to accept an instalment is not approval from the provider.
A2vanta's invoice payment page describes showing the rate, amount and fee before confirmation. Request the terms for this particular payment, including the expected supplier receipt, funding network and quote validity. Do not fund from an old screenshot or an instruction that someone has changed after approval.
Put the later release condition in writing now
Agree what makes the balance payable and who in your business accepts that evidence. If inspection is required, specify the agreed inspection scope and how defects or rework affect release. A report attached to a chat does not by itself tell finance that purchasing accepted the goods.
The deposit and inspection guide covers the handoff between purchasing and treasury. When several factories are involved, use the 30/70 multi-factory schedule to keep each obligation separate. Do not let one factory's readiness authorise payment to every supplier from the trip.
Approve the instruction, then preserve the credit
Give a second colleague the current invoice, source beneficiary instruction and accepted quote. Ask them to compare the names, currencies, amounts and references rather than reviewing your summary alone. Unexplained differences should stop funding, not become notes to fix after payment.
After the transfer, ask the supplier to acknowledge the amount received and how it credits the invoice. Record that credit in the invoice currency, separate from the stablecoin funding amount. Keep the payment open if acknowledgement is missing.
The partial-payment guide explains the running balance. To discuss the proposed deposit and document requirements, use pay an invoice before sending funds. A production deadline is a reason to prepare the file promptly, not a reason to skip the beneficiary check.