The right recipient and subject line on invoice emails

The invoice email goes to a contact person who does not pay bills, and the subject line is the same for everyone. Business Central can do more than many people think, but not everything. This article explains how recipient and email body are controlled in standard, with document layouts per customer and sending profiles, and where you have to accept that the subject line cannot be controlled in the same way. You also get a test invoice that reveals what happens in your setup.

What the system suggests

When you send a posted invoice as email, Business Central opens the Send Email page, according to Microsoft Learn. The To field by default contains the customer's email address, and the subject by default contains the customer's name and the invoice number. You can rewrite both fields before you send.

Learn does not say whether the address comes from the customer who is to be invoiced or from the customer who placed the order. Check it yourself with a test invoice where the two customers are different.

This is worth knowing, because many problems with wrong recipients are caused by assuming that the system chooses the address by one rule, when in practice it depends on the setup.

Document layouts per customer and vendor

The most important tool is the Document Layouts action on the customer and vendor card. For each usage, for example invoice or reminder, you can specify one or more email addresses. You can choose them from the contacts registered on the customer or type them in. Addresses are separated with semicolons and no spaces.

Then invoices can go to the customer's accounting department, order confirmations to the purchaser and reminders to a third person. You can also choose different layouts for the email body and the attachment.

Remember to maintain the addresses when contact persons change jobs. A wrong address in a document layout is harder to spot than a wrong address on the customer card.

Email body, profiles and sender

For the email body you can use a Word layout. On the Report Selection - Sales page you mark that the layout is used as the email body. It can contain a greeting and information from the document. Learn says the layout must be a Word file, not RDLC.

If there are several languages or companies, you can make several layouts and link them to the relevant customers.

The document sending profile determines whether the document is sent as email or as an electronic document, and whether the Send Email page opens. If it is set to Yes (Prompt for Settings), you can change recipient and subject each time.

The sender address is controlled through email scenarios. You can let sales documents go from one account and purchase documents from another. With the SMTP connector you can use Send As or Send on Behalf and show an address such as noreply.

The subject line

We found no standard setting for building the subject dynamically from fields on the document. The idea Dynamic Subject for Email has about 159 votes on Microsoft's ideas portal, and an idea about using the bill-to customer has about 149. As long as this does not exist, you can edit the subject manually when the page opens, or put the important information in the email body.

If the subject matters for the customer's accounts department, add the invoice number in the email body, and agree with the customer how they want it.

Test it before you rely on it

Create two customers in a sandbox: an orderer and a payer with different email addresses. Create a sales order with the orderer as the customer and the payer as the bill-to customer. Post and send. See which address is in the recipient field and which subject the email has.

Repeat with and without a document layout on the customer card. Then you know what wins when both are set. Write the result down for whoever has to maintain the setup.

Checklist and idea

Create a document sending profile and link it to the customers.
Put the accounting contact's email in Document Layouts for invoices.
Test with an invoice where customer and bill-to customer are different.
Smart Email Rules is an idea on our list of possible apps, which we are considering. It cannot be downloaded or bought today.