Set Up an invoices@ Inbox That Prints Every Invoice

Supplier invoices arrive by email. Someone in accounts opens each one, downloads the PDF, prints it, codes it, and chases a manager for a signature. The manager is in a truck, on site or in a barn, so the signature happens on paper. Then the paper gets matched to the delivery docket and filed.

The printing part is the only step nobody needs to do. Give suppliers one address, connect it to AutoPrintEmail, and every invoice comes out on the accounts printer by itself, PDF only, statements and reminders skipped.

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Table of Contents

• Pick the address and tell suppliers
• Connect it
• Print the PDF only
• Skip statements and reminders
• Where the paper goes
• Several entities, several printers
• Keep it running

Pick the address and tell suppliers

Use a mailbox that is only for invoices: invoices@, faktura@, ap@, payables@. Anything, as long as nothing else lands in it. Then:

• Put it on your website and on your purchase orders: "Send invoices to invoices@yourcompany.com".
• Ask suppliers to set it as the billing contact in their accounting system, so the invoice goes straight there every month instead of to whoever placed the order.
• Already receive invoices in a few people's inboxes? Have each of them forward invoice emails to the new address until suppliers catch up.

Already have an address like that? Skip ahead and connect it.

Connect it

AutoPrintEmail runs on the computer next to the accounts printer and watches the mailbox from there. Sign up and add your first account covers the steps. Where the mailbox lives decides how you sign in:

• Google Workspace or Gmail. Add it as a Gmail account and sign in with Google.
• Microsoft 365 shared mailbox. An invoices@ with no password of its own is a shared mailbox. Sign in as a user who has Full Access to it and add it on the Mailboxes step. See Auto-Print From a Microsoft 365 Shared Mailbox.
• Anything else. Connect over IMAP with the mailbox's password or an app password.

On the printer step pick the accounts printer, then click Save & Start Monitoring.

Print the PDF only

Out of the box the whole email prints: the message, then the attachments. For an invoices inbox you want the PDF and nothing else. On the account's Print tab, under Manage:

1. Turn off Print message body.
2. Leave Print attachments and Print PDFs on.
3. Turn off Print images, so signature logos don't come out on their own page.
4. Click Save Changes.

With the body off, an email with no PDF prints nothing at all. That quietly handles most statements, payment reminders and "please find attached" emails that forgot the attachment. The full reasoning is in Print Only the PDF Attachments.

Invoices that arrive as Word or Excel files are governed by a separate toggle, Convert Office documents to PDF for printing, in the desktop app's Settings. Check it is on. More here.

Skip statements and reminders

Some senders attach a PDF to things that aren't invoices: monthly statement runs, dunning letters, remittance advices. Those still print with the setup above. Add a Don't print rule for each:

1. Click Manage on the account, open Rules and click Add Rule.
2. Name it, like "Skip statements".
3. Set When this matches to Don't print it.
4. Add the condition Subject contains with Statement. Add more conditions for Reminder and Remittance and keep Match ANY condition.
5. Click Create Rule, then Save Changes.

A sender whose address gives it away, like statements@ or noreply@yourbank, is easier to catch with Sender contains. "Don't print" rules always win, and everything they don't match keeps printing. How rules work together.

Where the paper goes

Each invoice prints once, as the PDF the supplier sent, on the accounts printer. From there the paper does what it did before: coding stamp, the approver's signature, matched to the PO or delivery docket, filed by job or by month.

A few settings that help:

• Need two copies, one for the job folder and one for the file? Set Copies to 2 on the Print tab.
• Multi-page delivery notes from quarries and hauliers print in full. If you only want the front page, that's a printer setting, not an app setting; most drivers let you set a page range in their defaults.
• Lost or mis-filed an invoice? Open the dashboard, find it under Recent Prints and click Reprint.
• Want the print log to show sender and subject? It does by default, so accounts can see what printed when. Turn off Email metadata in print history on the dashboard's Settings page if you'd rather it didn't.

The invoice is downloaded from your mailbox and printed on your computer. It never passes through our servers.

Several entities, several printers

One computer can watch more than one mailbox, each with its own printer. If you run invoices@ for two companies, add both accounts and pick a different printer on each. On Microsoft 365, add each shared mailbox under the same user. You pay per computer, not per mailbox.

Want one mailbox but a printer per entity? Give each entity its own alias on the mailbox, then route by address with a Sent to contains rule. See Print Each Email Alias to Its Own Printer.

Keep it running

• Keep the computer awake. A sleeping PC prints nothing until it wakes, then prints the backlog. See Windows or Mac.
• Does the clerk read invoices on a phone? By default only unread emails print, so an invoice opened on a phone first is skipped. Untick Only print unread emails on the Print tab. Why.
• Going on holiday and want the pile to wait? Turn off the account's Forwarding switch under Manage Connections, and back on when you return. Everything that arrived in between prints then.

More on the whole setup: auto-print email invoices.