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Accounts Contacts - Invoice Email Recipients

Accounts Contacts - Invoice Email Recipients

Overview

You can designate specific contacts to receive invoice-related emails. This feature allows you to separate invoice/accounts communications from other customer contacts, ensuring that billing emails reach the right people in your customer's organization.

What Are Accounts Contacts?

Accounts Contacts are people associated with a customer who are designated to receive billing and invoice communications. When you add contacts with the "accounts" type to a customer record, they will automatically receive:

  • Invoice emails

  • Overdue payment reminders

  • Suspension warnings

  • Other billing-related notifications

How It Works

When PracBill sends invoice-related emails, the system now includes:

  1. Primary customer email - The email address on the main customer record

  2. Accounts contacts - Any people marked as "accounts" type contacts for that customer

All valid email addresses are combined and deduplicated, ensuring each recipient only receives one copy of the email.

Setting Up Accounts Contacts

Adding an Accounts Contact

  1. Navigate to the customer record

  2. Go to the Contacts section

  3. Add a new contact or select an existing person

  4. Set the Contact Type to "accounts"

  5. Ensure the contact has a valid email address

  6. Save the contact relationship

Best Practices

  • Use for billing contacts: Add accounts payable staff, finance managers, or bookkeepers as accounts contacts

  • Keep emails current: Ensure email addresses are valid and monitored

  • Multiple contacts allowed: You can add multiple accounts contacts per customer - all will receive invoice emails

  • Don't duplicate the primary email: If the customer's primary email is the same as an accounts contact, the system will automatically deduplicate

What Emails Include Accounts Contacts?

The following automated emails now include accounts contacts as recipients:

  • Invoice emails - When invoices are sent manually or automatically

  • Payment reminders - First reminder (1 day overdue)

  • Suspension warnings - 7 days overdue

  • Suspension reminders - 28 days overdue

  • Service suspended notices - 60 days overdue

Troubleshooting

Emails Not Being Received

If accounts contacts are not receiving emails:

  1. Verify the contact type - Ensure the contact is marked as "accounts" type

  2. Check the email address - Confirm the email address is valid and correct

  3. Check spam folders - Invoice emails may be filtered by the recipient's email system

  4. Verify the contact is active - Ensure the contact record is not marked as deleted

Contact Not Appearing

If a contact doesn't appear as an accounts contact:

  1. Check that the contact is properly linked to the customer

  2. Verify the people_type field is set to "accounts"

  3. Ensure the contact record itself is not marked as deleted

  4. Confirm the email field is populated

Technical Notes

  • The system validates all email addresses before sending to prevent delivery issues

  • Email addresses are case-insensitive and automatically deduplicated

  • If neither the customer email nor accounts contacts have valid emails, the send will fail with an appropriate error message

  • Accounts contacts are retrieved efficiently using a single database query