Emailing Invoices to Clients
Orchard Stack can email invoices and statements to your clients as PDF attachments — in a batch at the end of the month, or one at a time from a client's record. This guide covers turning email delivery on, writing your email message, choosing which clients receive invoices by email, and sending them.
Setting up email delivery requires administrator access.
How it works
Turn on email delivery and write your email message in Billing Settings .
Send yourself a test email to see how it looks.
Decide which clients receive invoices by email — by billing type, or client by client — and make sure each has an email address on file.
Run your month-end billing as usual. When charges are generated, every invoice is tagged for mail, route, or email delivery.
After you commit charges, send the emails from the Email Invoices page.
Turn on email delivery
Navigate to the Administration page.
In the Accounting section, click Billing Settings.
Open the Email Delivery section and set Enable Email Delivery? to Yes, enable sending invoices by email.
Fill in the message your clients will receive:
Email Subject — the subject line of the email.
From Name — the sender name recipients see.
Email Message — the body of the email. Line breaks are preserved.
Reply-To Address — where client replies are delivered.
Click Save Settings.
Personalize the message
You can drop these variables into the email fields, and Orchard Stack fills them in for each client:
{{org_name}}— your organization name, from Billing Settings .{{client_name}}— the client's first and last name.{{invoice_date}}— the invoice date, written out (for example, July 31, 2026).{{org_email_address}}— your organization email address, from Billing Settings .
Not every field accepts every variable. The help text below each field lists what's available: Email Subject accepts the organization name, client name, and invoice date; From Name accepts the organization name; Email Message accepts all four; and Reply-To Address accepts the organization email address.
Emails are sent from a secure Orchard Stack sending address, so the From Name is what clients actually see in their inbox. Replies go to your Reply-To Address — make sure it's a mailbox someone monitors.
The email itself is branded with your organization's name, address, phone number, and logo, pulled from your Billing Settings and General Settings . The invoice is attached as a PDF, formatted exactly like your printed invoices.
Legacy invoice format. Email delivery isn't supported with the legacy invoice format. If Invoice Format in the Basic Information section is set to Legacy , the Email Delivery section is unavailable. Switch to Standard to enable email delivery.
Send yourself a test email
Before sending anything to clients, send a test to see the finished email.
Navigate to the Administration page.
In the Accounting section, click Test Invoice Email . (This button only appears once email delivery is enabled.)
Enter an email address and click Send Test Email .
The test uses your current settings with a sample client and sample invoice items, so nothing touches a real client record. The page also shows a summary of your current subject, from name, and reply-to address.
Choose who receives invoices by email
Set a default for a billing type
Most organizations set the delivery method once per billing type, and every client on that billing type follows it.
Navigate to the Administration page and click Billing Types in the Accounting section.
Edit a billing type and set Default invoice delivery to Mail , Route , or Email .
The Email option only appears when email delivery is enabled in Billing Settings.
Override the setting for one client
Open the client's record, click Edit , and choose Billing .
In the Invoice and statement delivery section, set How should invoices and statements be delivered? :
Default for Billing Type — follow the billing type's setting.
Mail — always print this client's invoice.
Email — always email this client's invoice.
Make sure the client has an email address
A client set to email delivery still needs somewhere to send the invoice.
- Primary email address — open the client's record, click Edit , choose General , and enter the Email address in the Contact info section.
- Alternate billing email — if invoices should go to someone else, such as a family member, go to Edit → Billing , set Use alternate email address for invoices and statements to Yes , and enter the Invoice email address . Orchard Stack uses this address instead of the client's primary email for anything billing-related.
Set delivery methods before you generate charges. Each invoice is tagged for mail, route, or email delivery at the moment charges are generated for the month. If you change a client's delivery setting or add an email address afterwards, that month's invoice keeps the method it was already assigned. Either revert and regenerate charges, or email that single invoice from the client's record (see below).
Send the monthly invoice emails
Navigate to the Accounting page and select your billing month in the Billing section.
Generate and review your charges, then click Commit Charges . Invoices can't be emailed until charges are committed.
Click Email Invoices .
Review the Email Delivery Statistics — Total Email Invoices , Sent , Pending , and Errors .
Click Send All Unsent Emails and confirm, or click Send Email on an individual row to send just that one.
The list below the statistics shows every invoice designated for email delivery this month, along with the address it will go to and its current status:
- Sent — delivered, with the date, time, and address it went to.
- Pending — not yet sent.
- Error — something went wrong. Hover over the badge to see the reason.
A few things worth knowing:
- Send All Unsent Emails only picks up invoices that are still Pending . Anything with an Error status can be retried with its own Send Email button once you've fixed the problem.
- Clients with no email address on file are listed as No email address and are skipped. Add an address on the client's record, then send that invoice individually.
- Sending happens while you wait, so stay on the page until it finishes. A large batch can take a few minutes.
- You'll need edit access to the Accounting module to send emails.
Email a single invoice from a client's record
Handy for resending an invoice, sending one to a different address, or emailing a client who normally receives mail.
Open the client's record and go to the account and invoice you want to send.
Click Email . The button appears on committed invoices that haven't been voided, as long as email delivery is enabled.
The client's billing email address is filled in for you. Change it if you need to, then click Send Email .
Troubleshooting
- The Email Delivery section is unavailable in Billing Settings. Your Invoice Format is set to Legacy . Switch to Standard and save.
- There's no Email Invoices button on the billing page. Email delivery isn't enabled yet in Billing Settings .
- The send buttons are greyed out. Charges for the month haven't been committed yet. Return to the billing page and click Commit Charges .
- A client is missing from the Email Invoices page. Their invoice wasn't tagged for email delivery when charges were generated — check the client's delivery setting and their billing type. Invoices that are voided, mid-month, or zero-balance (when the billing type doesn't print zero-balance invoices) won't appear either.
- An invoice shows an Error. Hover over the Error badge for the reason. A missing or mistyped email address is the usual cause. Correct it on the client's record and click Send Email for that invoice.
- A client says the email never arrived. Ask them to check their spam folder, confirm the address on their record, and consider resending from the client's invoice with Email .
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