customers not receving invoices hotmail accounts

Therese Dabbs
Therese Dabbs Member Posts: 31
edited October 2019 in Accounts Hosted
we send out 1000 invoices every quarter ( yes this is not a typo). Every new customer with a Hotmail/ sometimes gmail account does not receive. this is not picked up until a few weeks later when we send the customer a text to remind them of payment. there is no point emailing a reminder either as they dont get the original invoice, they don't get the reminder. I am not going to email to myself and then to the customer as I need to do this 1000 times and it would take days! can someone from Reckon please tell me how this problem can be solved!! every quarter we have at least 100 people who dont get their invoices; and even if we have invoiced them in the past! there is no point having an online solution as this to make invoicing easier if customers dont get the invoice and then you spend all this time following it up! Therese

Comments

  • Big Hat
    Big Hat Accredited Partner Posts: 93 Accredited Partner Accredited Partner
    edited March 2017
    Hi

    Have seen this issue with other software/domains and my research showed that the domain may have updated their spam filtering.

    Suggest you use Dr Google to see if this applies to @hotmail.com

    John Peppas

  • Therese Dabbs
    Therese Dabbs Member Posts: 31
    edited May 2017
    hi John, how does that help me if they have though and are Reckon going to do anything about this? I wouldn't be surprised as the problem has gotten worse the last 6 months.
  • Robert Lee
    Robert Lee Member Posts: 10
    edited March 2017
    I have had constant trouble with Hotmail address for about months, and not getting any better
  • Robert Lee
    Robert Lee Member Posts: 10
    edited March 2017
    12 months

  • Rav
    Rav Administrator, Reckon Staff Posts: 15,305 Community Manager Community Manager
    edited October 2019
    Therese,

    Does this occur with every new contact with a Hotmail address in your list and does it occur on every invoice sent to these particular contacts? Or is it intermittent?

    Have you checked with any of the affected customers if the invoice has been diverted to their spam/junk folders?

    As emails from Hosted are coming from accountshosted@reckon.com, I'd recommend asking customers to add this address as a trusted contact or mark as 'not spam'.

    There are plans on enhancing and improving the email processes from Hosted, however in terms of timeframe, it's a longer term project.


    ℹ️ Stay up to date with important news & announcements for your Reckon software! Click HERE for more info.

  • Big Hat
    Big Hat Accredited Partner Posts: 93 Accredited Partner Accredited Partner
    edited March 2017
    My opinion is that it is a general issue not related to anything that Reckon can do.

    John Peppas

  • Therese Dabbs
    Therese Dabbs Member Posts: 31
    edited March 2017
    Hi Rav,
    Pretty much every new contact. Some it goes to junk and some don't receive at all. some receive it one billing period and then not the next.
    the problem is that we dont receive notification either way and due to the volume of our customers it makes our invoicing very inefficient.
    it has been getting worse the last 6- 12 months. perhaps it is an outside problem with Hotmail filters, but how do I ensure customers get their invoices?
    we do ask them to add accountshosted... as a safe sender.
  • Jeffrey Arana_7451558
    Jeffrey Arana_7451558 Member Posts: 51
    edited March 2017
    Team, if I may add, another angle of looking at it, give the thousand customers the option to get their invoices from your end themselves after receiving a standard email coming from you such as
    "We are pleased to inform you that your Invoice for the period of February 2017 are 
    ready for viewing and retrieval at HERE"

    and ..."Please log on to our Portal at: HERE"

    Portal could be RAH or at your end. Just a thought.

    Empower them in other words.
  • Larissa_7048652
    Larissa_7048652 Member Posts: 36 ✭✭
    edited March 2017

    Hi Jeffrey

    I have the same issue too (happens to me with new employees with Hotmail for payslips).

    I don't understand your method, though.  I read it that the customer now logs into my RAH to access their invoices??

    Sorry but can you explain a bit further.

    Thanks,

    Larissa


  • Jeffrey Arana_7451558
    Jeffrey Arana_7451558 Member Posts: 51
    edited March 2017
    Hi there Larissa,

    Invoicing (or payslips). It's usually from us to them, the customers (or employees). We can't control any issues in-betweens.

    What if, and it's happening here in our city,:
    1. I have, at our end, thousand invoices/payslips which are organised in folders per customer/employee. Each folder's access rights are given specific to each corresponding customer/employee. Access is controlled through putting email address. The folder is in the cloud - e.g Google Suite's Drive
    (You could even put an expiry on each folder's sharing settings.)

    2. and then let the thousand customers themselves to get/download their invoices that is after receiving a standard email coming from me.

    There's a small manual labour in doing so, but it's better than sending the invoice to them via snail mail or totally rely attaching such on different kind of email addresses.

    (BTW, we use an autoresponder to email customers easily for such 'every month standard email about invoices' .)

    I'm from IT and hence the thought patterns I have.

  • Julie McIntyre
    Julie McIntyre Member Posts: 9
    edited March 2017
    Sounds labourious to me.
    We shouldn't have to do this, the invoices are emailed via hosted and it is expected that the client will receive them (unless server issues etc).
    We really need notification when emails do not reach the intended server or are rejected... this information is imperative and it should be a priority.

  • Therese Dabbs
    Therese Dabbs Member Posts: 31
    edited March 2017
    I also agree. why pay for a system to make life easier for all when you cannot be guaranteed that a customer receives an invoice or not and have to follow them up. this has become so time consuming and I pay extra admin staff just to text/ email individual new customers to make sure they have received invoices each school term! I might as well go back to posting invoices! probably a higher success rate! I understand that it is possibly a problem with Hotmail's filtering but reckon at least needs to build in a notification if an email does not get through so we can follow up. if Reckon do not do something about this it is time to look for another system.
  • Therese Dabbs
    Therese Dabbs Member Posts: 31
    edited May 2017
    is there a simple way reckon can allow us to receive a notification if an email/invoice is not received/ does not reach the customer/or is incorrect. we get this in outlook and also through our web page provider when we send bulk emails. this would enable us to sort those people who do from the others and then address their email problems.
  • Therese Dabbs
    Therese Dabbs Member Posts: 31
    edited May 2017
    is there a simple way reckon can allow us to receive a notification if an email/invoice is not received/ does not reach the customer/or is incorrect. we get this in outlook and also through our web page provider when we send bulk emails. this would enable us to sort those people who do from the others and then address their email problems.