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Why an email might not be sent

There are several reasons why a receipt or remittance advice email might not be sent, including payments that do not trigger an email, or entries marked Skipped or Failed on the Receipts or Remittances page. Delays or problems at Xero can also affect when payment activity reaches AutoReceipts. Start by checking your email history on the Receipts or Remittances page in the AutoReceipts dashboard. Find the payment and check its status to see whether the email was sent, is still processing, failed, or was skipped. Skipped entries include a reason to help you understand why the email was not sent.

The contact has no recipient email address

The Xero contact on the invoice or bill needs a primary email address. If it is missing, AutoReceipts cannot send the email.

Check the contact's details in Xero. See Who receives emails for more information.

Sending is disabled in settings

Receipt emails and remittance advice emails can be enabled or disabled separately. If sending is disabled for that type of payment, the email is skipped.

Check Send receipt emails in Receipt emails settings, or Send remittance emails in Remittance emails settings.

Contact-group rules exclude the recipient

Your Xero contact groups can restrict who receives emails:

  • Contacts in No AutoReceipts do not receive emails.
  • If a Send AutoReceipts group exists, only contacts in that group receive emails.
  • If a contact belongs to both groups, No AutoReceipts takes precedence.

AutoReceipts uses the group information captured when it processes the invoice. See Choose which contacts receive emails for setup instructions.

The payment is not linked to an invoice or bill

AutoReceipts sends receipts for invoice payments and remittance advice for bill payments. Standalone transactions that are not allocated to an invoice or bill do not trigger an email.

See What triggers emails for supported payment types.

The payment predates your AutoReceipts connection

AutoReceipts starts processing payment activity when your organisation is first connected. It does not automatically backfill historical receipts, so payments recorded before that connection may not have a receipt.

The payment was recorded over a week ago

AutoReceipts skips emails for payments whose last update in Xero was more than seven days ago. This helps prevent unexpectedly late receipts being sent after a long processing delay.

Note

This check uses Xero's last-update timestamp, which can differ from the payment date shown on the receipt.

Xero has not supplied the payment's update time

AutoReceipts needs Xero's last-update timestamp to check how recent the payment activity is. If that timestamp is missing, the email is skipped because the payment's age cannot be verified.

The email failed to send

A problem with the recipient's email address or a technical issue while preparing or sending the email can cause the send attempt to fail.

If the entry shows Failed in the dashboard, check the status message for available details and confirm that the recipient's email address is correct in Xero. If you need help understanding or resolving the failure, contact AutoReceipts Support.

The email is still waiting to be sent

An email that has not arrived may still be queued for processing. Higher demand, API rate limits from Xero or other connected services, and retries after temporary service issues can all delay sending.

Being queued does not mean the email has been skipped. Check its status on the Receipts or Remittances page. If you are unsure why an email has not been sent, contact AutoReceipts Support.