The supply house: pricing tiers, a trade account, and the preliminary notice your supplier will send your customer
In one paragraph
The supply house is a bank, a sales office and a school. A trade account with net terms floats the materials on every job until the customer pays; the counter knows which general contractors are short an electrician; and the outside sales rep prices your big jobs. The part nobody explains: when you buy on credit for a job, your supplier may serve a preliminary notice on your customer, and the homeowner reads that a lien may be placed on their home even though they paid you. Set expectations before the letter lands.
The rule
A materials supplier who wants to keep lien rights on your customer's property must give preliminary notice to the owner, the direct contractor and any lender within 20 days of first furnishing materials (Civil Code 8200, 8204); the notice must carry the boldface statement that a lien may be placed on the property even though the owner has paid the contractor in full (Civil Code 8202(a)(3)). On the tax side, buy materials tax-paid and fixtures on a resale certificate (CDTFA).
Why it matters
A new contractor paying counter price on a debit card is paying more than the competition and financing every job out of pocket. A new contractor whose customer gets a lien warning from a supplier they have never heard of, with no explanation, loses that customer's trust in one envelope. Both are avoidable in the first week.