Every payment processed through Biller Genie can produce two emails: a customer receipt (the person who paid) and a merchant receipt (your own staff inbox). Whether each one actually goes out is controlled by three independent toggles. This article walks through the toggles, when receipts fire, and how to route them.
When receipts fire
Receipts fire at transaction creation time — the moment Biller Genie successfully authorizes the payment and writes the transaction record. This is true for:
- Manual one-off payments (Virtual Terminal, processing an invoice through the merchant portal)
- Customer-driven payments (paying through the customer portal or via a payment link)
- Autopay charges
- Bulk Pay flows
- Captured checks being processed (RDC and Mobile Check Capture)
- PayPal payments
Receipts do NOT wait for funding. An ACH or check transaction takes 3–5 business days to settle, but the receipt is sent the same day the transaction is created. If the transaction later rejects, no follow-up "receipt cancellation" email is sent — instead, the invoice reopens and the rejection appears on the Rejected Transactions Report.
The three toggles that decide whether a receipt is sent
Receipt sending is decided by three independent toggles that each control a different scope:
| Toggle | Where to set it | Controls |
|---|---|---|
| Merchant Receipt — org level | Control Panel > Settings > "Email Merchant Receipts" | Whether any merchant copy is ever sent on this account. |
| Customer Receipt — customer level | Customer record > "Send Receipts" toggle | Whether this specific customer ever gets a customer receipt. |
| Customer Receipt — per transaction | Payment form "Send Receipt" checkbox | Whether this one transaction sends a customer receipt (overrides the customer-level setting downward — you can suppress for a single payment). |
Both copies also require a valid recipient email on file:
- A merchant copy needs at least one address in the Merchant Email field in Control Panel > Settings.
- A customer copy needs at least one email on the customer's contact record.
Merchant receipt — the copy that goes to your staff
Turned on by Control Panel > Settings > Email Merchant Receipts. Sent to the address(es) in the Merchant Email field on the same page. The Merchant Email field accepts multiple addresses separated by commas or semicolons — every address on the list receives every receipt.
Routing receipts to different inboxes: there is no native way to send some receipts to one inbox and other receipts to a different inbox — for example, you can't say "send credit card receipts to billing@ but ACH receipts to operations@." The Merchant Email list is all-or-nothing. If you need that split, common workarounds are:
- Set Merchant Email to a distribution list like
billing@yourcompany.com, then use rules in your email provider (Gmail filters, Outlook rules) to split the inbound stream based on subject line or body content. - Use an alias inbox (Gmail's
+aliases, or a fan-out alias at your provider) and route from there.
Customer receipt — the copy that goes to the person who paid
Controlled by two toggles working together:
- Per-customer Send Receipts flag on the customer's record. Default ON for new customers. Toggle off if a customer has explicitly told you they don't want receipts — for example, a high-volume B2B customer whose accounting team gets receipt data through your accounting software sync instead.
- Per-transaction Send Receipt checkbox on the payment form. Defaults to the customer-level flag. Useful for one-off suppression — e.g., refunding a duplicate charge where the customer has already been notified separately, or processing an internal write-off.
For a customer receipt to send, the customer must also have at least one valid email address on their record. If you process a payment for a customer with no email, no receipt is sent regardless of the toggles.
Receipt branding
Both customer and merchant receipts use the logo and Site Primary Color you've configured in Branding Setup. The merchant copy and customer copy share the same template — the only differences are the recipient and the salutation.
The sender's name and address on the receipt come from your Invoice Email in Control Panel > Settings. If you've set up a Custom Email Domain, the receipt envelope is from your own domain — much better for deliverability and customer trust.
Common scenarios
"This one customer doesn't want receipts"
Open the customer's record and toggle Send Receipts to Off. The customer will still receive invoice reminders (a different email type) — only the post-payment receipt is suppressed.
"My inbox is flooded with merchant receipts"
Either turn off Email Merchant Receipts in Control Panel > Settings, or add a filter in your email provider that auto-archives the receipts to a folder (so they're searchable but out of the main inbox). The All Transactions report inside Biller Genie covers the same information, in case you prefer to suppress and look up on demand.
"I need a receipt copy to go to my accountant"
Add your accountant's email to the comma-separated list in Merchant Email. They'll receive every receipt going forward.
"A customer says they didn't get their receipt"
Check in this order:
- Does the customer's record have an email address?
- Is the customer's Send Receipts toggle On?
- Was the per-transaction Send Receipt checkbox checked when you processed the payment?
- Ask the customer to check spam/junk and search for "Biller Genie" or your business name in their inbox.
- If still missing, see Email Deliverability Troubleshooting or contact support@billergenie.com with the customer name, transaction date, and amount — we can pull the Mailjet delivery log.
"I need to resend a receipt"
Open the transaction in the All Transactions report (or from the invoice's transaction list), and click the resend-receipt action on the transaction detail page. You can also send to an alternate email at that point if the original recipient's address changed.