Why QuickBooks Online invoices go to spam (and how to fix it)

You sent the invoice. QuickBooks says it was sent. Your customer says they never got it. This is one of the most common complaints from QuickBooks Online users, and it usually isn't anything you did wrong.

Why it happens

QuickBooks Online doesn't send invoices from your email account. It sends them from Intuit's own mail servers, with your company name on them and your address as the reply-to. So as far as your customer's email system is concerned, the invoice comes from Intuit, not from you.

• Scammers copy QuickBooks emails. Fake invoices dressed up as QuickBooks notifications are a common phishing trick, so many company spam filters treat anything that looks like one with suspicion.
• Your customer has never received mail from that sender. Their filters trust addresses they've emailed before. Your own address has that history; Intuit's shared sender doesn't.
• Corporate IT policies. Larger customers, schools and governments often quarantine bulk senders by default. The email may be sitting in a quarantine your customer can't even see.
• Large attachments. Very large attachments can stop delivery entirely.

Six fixes, easiest first

1. Ask the customer to check junk and quarantine, and to add QuickBooks' sender to their safe senders list. It works, but you have to ask every customer, and some IT departments won't do it.
2. Set your customer-facing email. In QuickBooks settings, under your company's contact info, make sure your customer-facing email is correct so replies reach you.
3. Keep attachments small. Compress scans and photos, and avoid attaching large files to invoices.
4. Connect Gmail if you use Google Workspace. QuickBooks Online can send invoices through a connected Gmail account, so they come from your real address.
5. Using Outlook or Microsoft 365? Send the PDF yourself. QuickBooks Online has no Outlook connection. Download the invoice PDF and email it from Outlook. It's the most reliable option today, but it's slow, and QuickBooks won't know it was sent unless you mark it.
6. Automate the Outlook send. Tools can do step 5 for you: they take the invoice from QuickBooks and send it from your Outlook mailbox automatically. That's what we're building (see below).

How to tell if it's a delivery problem

If a customer says they never got an invoice, ask them to search their junk folder for your company name, then ask their IT contact to check quarantine. If it's there, it's a filtering problem, and fixes 1, 4, 5 or 6 will help. If it isn't anywhere, try resending with a smaller attachment or sending the PDF directly.

Disclosure: Code The Cloud makes the early-access tool mentioned above. The other fixes on this page work without it.