QBO: Why do "Bounced Email" invoices indicate they have been viewed by the customer?

Hi PJBooks, 

It's an interesting outcome when getting bounced email. I'm here to help check the reasons why it indicates viewed by your customer. 

Generally, a bounced email happens when your clients failed to received the message you've sent due to different situations. Thus, it shouldn't show viewed since the recipient didn't get it. 

I've checked here if there are ongoing issues about this, and so far, there aren't any. The initial troubleshooting steps we can do is verifying whether or not your browser's causing this to happen. 

A typical browser uses a cache of memory to work efficiently and load pages faster, but as data collects it can cause unexpected results. To start with, let's login to your QuickBooks Online account using a private browser and send the invoice back to the same customer. 

Here's how:

• Google Chrome: press Ctrl + Shift + N 
• Mozilla Firefox: press Ctrl + Shift + P
• Internet Explorer: press Ctrl + Shift + P
• Safari: press Command + Shift + N

If you can't get a bounced email prompt or see a viewed by customer message using the private browsing session, you need to go back to your regular browser and clear its cache. Refer to the article to guide you through the process:

How do I clear my browser cache and temporary Internet files?

These steps can normally resolve unexpected behaviors in QuickBooks Online and get you back up and running. 

Please give them a try and update me with the results. I'll be here to help you further. 

Have a great day ahead! 

Every single emailed invoice is showing bounced in quickbooks, but our customers have received them, why is this happening?  Cleared browsers, sent through incognito, difference browsers, it's all the same result.  

At first it caused a major issues with customer relations because they were angry they were getting duplicate invoices when I saw the bounced message and tried resending after following the corrections of clearing browsers, using incognito, different browsers. 

Is quickbooks going to fix this or is this something I have to just assume will always be wrong and waiting until an invoice is past due and then call the customer and then find out they never received them, because calling every single customer to find out if they really did get the invoice is not an option.

Or following up in quickbooks to confirm every single invoice emailed the day before was viewed.

Not an option, this is an administration nightmare

I had an overdue invoice to a vendor our company uses and the invoice showed it had been viewed several times by the customer, I got concerned and dropped them as a vendor thinking they were being sketchy. After reading about this issue it seems it is a QB issue...NOT HAPPY AT ALL!

It looks like this is still a problem. Did you manage to resolve it? I sent about 20 invoices out today and all of them are marked as undelivered, but I have checked with a random few clients and they have all said that the email was received. Indeed, 3 of them have already paid so they must have received the invoice.

As has been said by others, to contact clients just to ask if they have received an invoice is both time consuming, unprofessional and should be unnecessary.

Should I always assume that QBO is lying ?!

Hello there, @uswebworx.

Thanks for chiming in on this thread. Allow me to share some information about the email delivery issue with invoices in your QuickBooks Online account. 

We currently have an open investigation regarding bounced emails. Our product development team is working with your bank to resolve this issue, and we're going to roll it out as soon as possible. For us to send you an update, I recommend calling our phone support so we can add you to our notification list.

Here’s how to get in touch with them:

1. Go to the (?) Help icon in your QuickBooks Online (QBO) account.
2. Select the Search tab, and click Contact Us.
3. Enter a brief discussion of your concern and click Continue.
4. Select either Chat with us (if you preferred messaging) or Give us a call.

Make sure to review their support hours to know when agents are available. This way, you can contact them at a time that is convenient for you. 

I can see how these additional options and functionality would be helpful for both you and your business, and I encourage you to submit feedback. These requests and suggestions are forwarded directly to our Product Development Team for consideration in future updates.

You can submit this form within your QBO account by selecting the Gear icon and Feedback or by going to the following link: QuickBooks Online Feature Requests.

I've also added a reference on how to view lists of bounced emails: How To View List Of Bounced Emails With Delivery Errors.

If you need further assistance regarding your QuickBooks Online transactions, you can always leave a comment below. Stay safe!

It's a real shame that QBO has not resolved this issue.

Our invoices are usually issued to multiple email addresses and often we receive generic automated responses which I believe are triggering these delivery failure reports.

There is no way of telling which email address has failed or why it has failed. ie. wrong email address, contact has left, out of office, auto response confirming receipt etc. 

As others have said, we cannot resend these each time on the off chance they didn't receive as this then causes confusion and frustration for our client's. We also have around 50 a month!

We really need to be able to see the bounced email just like we would in Outlook. It is only when chasing for payment once our invoice is over 30 days overdue (as statements are also issued from QB) when we actually see the bounced email. This is therefore costing us money and needs to be resolved asap.

Thanks!