How do I set a separate e-mail address for sending invoices?
Yes, you can. In addition to the e-mail address in the customer details — the address the customer is known by and the one the reservation workflow uses by default — you can record extra e-mail addresses in the Contact details block. For each address, two check boxes determine what it is used for: Workflow and Invoicing. If you tick only Invoicing on an address, invoices go there while the reservation correspondence keeps going to the primary address.
That is exactly what you need for a customer who arranges the booking from one address but wants to receive the invoice at another: an accounts payable department, an accountancy firm, a shared mailbox such as invoices@, or a parent's address for a course booked for a child.
How the two check boxes work
- Workflow = yes — the address is used during the reservation workflow: confirmation, change, reminder and cancellation.
- Invoicing = yes — the address is used when invoices are sent.
The two check boxes are independent. You can tick both (this address then receives everything), one of the two, or neither — in which case the address is there purely for reference, for example the mobile number of a contact person.
You can record several contact lines per customer, and therefore several e-mail addresses side by side. If you tick Invoicing on two addresses, both of them receive the invoice. That is how you arrange for the booking contact to receive a copy of what goes to the accounts department.
The same approach applies to a company: there too you record e-mail addresses in the Contact details block, with the same two check boxes. See Company contact details block.
Requirements
- You have the right action_customer_add_contact to add a contact line and action_customer_edit_contact to change an existing one.
- In the customer's Financial details block, invoice sending is set to E-mail. If it is set to 'Do not send', no invoice is e-mailed at all — not even to an address with the Invoicing box ticked. You change this field with the right action_customer_changefinancial.
Step 1: open the Contact details block
Go to the customer's dashboard and find the Contact details block. You will see an overview with the columns type, detail, description, workflow and invoicing. The Workflow and Invoicing columns show you at a glance which address is used for what.
Step 2: add the invoicing address
- Click Add contact.
- Choose the e-mail address as the type and enter the address under detail, for example invoices@customercompany.com.
- Under description, state what this address is for, for example 'Accounts payable'. For your colleagues, that description is the only thing that later explains why this address is there — do not skip it.
- Tick the Invoicing box.
- Leave the Workflow box unticked. If you tick it as well, the accounts payable department also receives every confirmation and reminder mail for the reservation.
- Save the line.
Step 3: check the primary address
In the overview, check that exactly one line has the Invoicing box ticked (or more, if you deliberately want to send a copy) and that the address for the reservation workflow is unchanged. A common mistake is to convert the existing address instead of adding a line: the workflow correspondence then moves along with it.
Step 4: verify the result
Send an invoice for this customer and then check the customer's e-mail overview to see which address it went to. See How do I see which e-mails have been sent to a customer?
Working with companies?
If invoice sending for the customer is set to 'Do not send' and the invoice is linked to a company, the setting of the company is used. In that case, record the invoicing address with the company instead of with the customer. See How do I make sure an invoice is only sent to a company?
A full description of the block can be found on Customer contact details block.
