Emails and reminders
Which billing emails Tidemark Billing sends, to whom and when, how invoice reminders are scheduled, and what you can and cannot change.
Tidemark Billing sends a fixed set of emails for billing events. This article lists them, shows how reminders are scheduled, and covers the settings that affect them. Mail server setup is in Email.
Emails to customers#
| Sent when | Button | |
|---|---|---|
| Invoice INV-... from your business (heading "New invoice") | An invoice is issued, or you click Resend email. Not sent for invoices with a zero total. Includes the amount due, the due date and the PDF. | View and pay invoice |
| Reminder: invoice ... or Overdue: invoice ... | The reminder schedule reaches the invoice. The overdue version warns that services may be suspended. | Pay now |
| Payment received | A payment is recorded, with the invoice PDF. | View invoice |
| Quote QUO-... from your business | You send a quote. | Review quote |
| Your trial of ... has started and ... ends soon | A trial starts, and a few days before it ends. See Free trials. | Manage service |
| ... is ready | A service has been set up. | Manage service |
| ... plan changed or plan change scheduled | After a plan change. | Manage service |
| Payment failed, Action needed | A saved-card charge fails or needs the customer to confirm. See Payments and refunds. | Pay invoice |
| Welcome to your business | A client account is created. | Open client area |
Tidemark Billing does not send a customer email when a service is suspended or terminated. The overdue reminder is the warning. The service.suspended and service.terminated webhook events let you send your own. See Webhooks.
Emails to you#
These go to the Contact email in Settings → General. If it is empty, they go to the From address in Settings → Email.
- Quote ... accepted, when a client accepts a quote.
- Provisioning failed, when setting up, suspending, terminating or changing a service on its server fails. Plan changes whose package update fails also send it.
- Autopay gave up, when the last automatic payment attempt for an invoice fails.
Reminder schedule#
Reminders are set in Settings → Billing → Recurring billing, in Reminder schedule (days from due date). The default is -3,1,7,14: three days before the due date, then 1, 7 and 14 days after. Negative numbers are before the due date. Clear the field to send none.
The billing run checks every open invoice once a day. For each invoice it sends the next reminder in the list when the days from the due date reach that number, and sends at most one per run. A reminder is only sent while the invoice is Open. Once it is paid, voided or written off, reminders stop.
Because the schedule counts from the due date, an invoice created on its due date, such as a new order, gets its first reminder in the next run. The later ones follow on the days they fall due. For the full timeline with suspension and termination, see Recurring billing.
Settings that affect email#
| Setting | Where | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Send emails | Settings → Email | On by default. Off stops all outgoing mail. |
| From address, From name | Settings → Email | The sender shown to customers. |
| Attach the PDF to invoice emails | Settings → Billing | On by default. Attaches the invoice PDF to new invoice, reminder and receipt emails. |
| Business name, Brand colour, Logo URL | Settings → General | The name and button colour in every email. |
Use Send test email on Settings → Email to check your mail setup. It sends to your own address using the saved settings.
While Send emails is off, the billing run still counts reminders as sent. Turning it back on does not send the ones that were skipped.
What you cannot change#
The wording of these emails is built into the software. There is no template editor in the admin area. The layout is plain: your business name at the top, a heading, a few lines of text, and a button with the link written out below it. If an email fails to send, the error is written to the log and the billing action itself still goes ahead.