PDF attachments (invoices)

Good afternoon, Deadwood Al.

Thanks for bringing your question forward here in the Community. I want to make sure your customers are able to view attachments when sent from your QuickBooks Desktop account.

Based off of the description, this sounds like a potentially broken invoice template. To rule this issue out, I recommend creating a new template to test and see if the same results occur with a new one. Here's how to get this done:

1. In the File menu and select Switch to Single-User Mode.

2. Go to the Edit menu and choose Preferences.

3. Select the Send forms menu and then the Company Preferences tab.

4. From the Delivery Method Default drop-down menu, select Email.

5. In the Email Templates drop-down menu, select a transaction type. You can create multiple templates for each transaction type transaction listed.

6. Select Add Template.

7. Give your template a name.

8. Customize the subject line and body.

9. You can select Insert Field to put a dynamic data field in your email. These use real data from the form, like the customer name or due date, to fill out the field.

10. When you're done customizing, select Save. After you close the template, select OK in the Company Preferences tab to save your changes.

The following article provides additional info about creating custom email templates in QuickBooks Desktop.

Once you've completed these steps, send an invoice with an attachment to one of your customers that has run into the issue and see if they're able to view the PDF. Please don't hesitate to reach back out in the comments below if you have any other questions or concerns. I'll be here to lend a hand.

If you mean winmail.dat (not windows.dat), then...

This is a rather common issue when sending email using outlook or other Microsoft-based email program.

See https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/winmaildat/3cf36058-1941-4fce-bf48-901d417d4e...

Not sure if this matters, but the email arrives at the phones ok ... people can read the email. It's the attachment that appears to have been sent as PDF that is the .dat file and they can't open. Would changing the format of the email make a difference in the treatment of the attachment?

I will try the template change tonight when others log off ... the majority of people are receiving the emails and the attachments with no problem ... it seems to be the ones trying to read things on their phones, usually I-Phones. Not sure if the template has a problem if the majority have no issues ...???

Thanks for following up with the Community, Deadwood Al.
 

After performing MorganB's troubleshooting steps, please feel welcome to update me here with your results.
 

To answer your other question, invoices are sent with PDF attachments from QuickBooks. They shouldn't show any other file extensions attached to their invoice emails.
 

Like you speculated in your original post, it's also possible this could be an issue on the recipient's end, instead of something wrong with your template. For example, their email provider could be blocking the PDF attachment for some reason. They'd want to check with their email provider about this possibility.
 

I'll be looking forward to your reply. Have a great Thursday!

Here's an update:  I created a new template as was suggested, and tried sending that via "Send Forms" as the customer (member, we are a chamber of commerce) is flagged to "email later". It failed in the same way.

I then tried emailing directly ... NOT through "send forms" but via the Email link on the invoice screen ... not the "Email later" method.  This one worked just fine and the member received the invoice PDF.

So I believe that there is something wrong with the "email later" option and Send Forms ... something is different between immediately emailing the invoice and emailing it "later". I am going to submit a bug report.

That's what I am doing too, and it is a pain. Too bad QB "crack" design team can't get their ducks in a row.

We are experiencing the same problem. Super frustrating for the business team has they have hundreds of invoices to send. I recently add dummy email address to the invoice run to see if our devices show the same problem. All my test accounts received invoices fine but a guest received the following see attached. Still gathering data on what the cause could be and hopefully find a solution.

Good morning, @eprunty. 

Thanks for chiming in on this thread. 

If you've tried the steps listed on this thread and the issue is still persisting, I recommend contacting our Customer Support Team for further assistance. Here's how: 

1. Go to the Help menu. 
2. Press the Contact Us button. 
3. Enter your question and hit Let's talk. 
4. Scroll down and choose to Get a callback. 

Keep us updated on how the call goes. Have a wonderful day!

If you haven't already done this, you might ask some of the people who are unable to get the PDF document when using Send Forms, ask them if they are trying to open the document on a cell phone or on their computer. We found that some of our customers were trying on a phone, and the file they get on a phone isn't really a PDF, it's some other kind of weird format.  Some but not all.  Sadly, one of ours that always got jibberish was the Board President of our company's board of directors ... needless to say, the reputation of QB didn't score high on her list!

You can try customer service, but likely they'll lead you down a rabbit hole trying to find errors in your system, the customer's system, sunspots, the "time of the month", the weather in China, or who knows what else????