Email and text documents
Send invoices by email and put a secure pay link in the customer's pocket by text or email.
The customer left before the paperwork was ready, or the person paying was never in the building. Email the invoice straight from the order, or send a pay link they can settle by card from their phone.
Email an invoice
Open the order. Go to the ticket you want to send from Service → Tickets, or straight from the customer's page.
Choose Email Invoice. Click Actions at the top right, then Email Invoice in the menu. A small Email Invoice # dialog opens with the customer's email already filled into Send To.
Check the address and send. Leave the prefilled email, or type a different one if the bill goes to a fleet's accounts-payable inbox. Click Send — the button reads "Sending..." while it works, then "Invoice sent!" confirms it went out and the dialog closes itself.
Estimates don't email from here. Share an estimate by Print (a PDF with signature lines) or through the customer's portal link, where they can approve it — see Create an estimate.
Send a pay link
Open the pay-link control. From the POS checkout rail on the order, click Send pay link. The panel expands with the channel choices.
Pick a channel. Click Text, Email, or Both. Meridian creates a secure pay page for the order's balance and sends the link on the channel(s) you picked; "Pay link created." confirms it, with a per-channel line showing each send's status.
Or copy the link. Once the link exists, click Copy link (it flips to "Copied") to drop it into a chat, another email, or wherever the customer is reachable.
What happens behind the scenes
- Emailing an invoice sends the finished PDF to the address you chose and logs the send on the customer's account — nothing about the money changes; you're delivering a copy of a bill that already posted when the order was finalized.
- The email also carries a link the customer can actually open. It takes them straight to their invoice without signing in — the same document your staff copy shows, so there's no discrepancy to explain on the phone. A walk-in order with no customer record on it simply sends without the link.
- A pay link doesn't post anything by itself. It's an invitation to pay. When the customer pays on the secure page, the card is processed and the payment records itself against the order automatically — the balance drops and Accounting → AR Aging updates, exactly as if you'd taken the card at the counter.
- Texts respect the customer's opt-out and your shop's quiet hours automatically. That enforcement happens on Meridian's side, so a link you fire off at 11pm is held and delivered when the quiet-hours window opens; you don't have to think about it.
- Every send is recorded on the account's activity, so there's always a trail of what was sent, to whom, and when.
Troubleshooting
The document is still an estimate — estimates print or go through the portal for approval, they don't email as invoices. Convert it to a repair order first (Actions → Convert to Repair Order), or if it's a closed/voided order, there's nothing new to send.
The Send To box accepts a one-off address — type it and send. Then add it to the customer's record so it's prefilled next time (their page has an edit button).
The per-channel status line in the panel tells you what happened. A held or skipped text usually means the customer opted out of texts or the message hit your shop's quiet hours (it'll go out when the window opens). Fall back to Email, or Copy link and send it another way.
Sending is handled on Meridian's side; a failure is surfaced in the panel with the reason. Check the address or phone number on the customer's record, fix it, and try again — or use Copy link to deliver the pay page yourself.