No. A sent or viewed invoice status improves delivery evidence, but it does not prove buyer approval, payment initiation, or cash receipt. Use the event to update the next action and confidence, not to manufacture an expected collection date.
Read status as a sequence
QuickBooks distinguishes statuses such as Not sent, Sent, Viewed, Partially paid, Paid, Deposited, Undelivered, and Voided. Each answers a narrower question than “When will cash arrive?”
| Status evidence | Supported conclusion | Unsupported leap | | --- | --- | --- | | Sent | The platform recorded a send event. | The customer received or approved it. | | Viewed | The customer opened the invoice experience. | The customer scheduled payment. | | Partially paid | Some payment was recorded against the invoice. | The remaining balance will arrive on the same timeline. | | Paid | The invoice is recorded as paid. | Funds are already available in the bank. | | Deposited | A deposit is recorded in QuickBooks. | The deposit contains only this invoice without reconciliation. |
An Undelivered status is a direct exception. The undelivered-invoice forecast guide covers the address correction and resend handoff.
Add the buyer-workflow evidence
After a viewed event, look for evidence that changes the cash assumption: a dated payment commitment, accepted invoice status in a buyer portal, resolved dispute, completed vendor setup, confirmed payment initiation, or a recorded receipt. Preserve the evidence source and timestamp.
Do not use a universal rule such as “viewed invoices pay in five days.” Without observed company evidence, that would be an invented benchmark. Keep the invoice due date separate from the management collection assumption using the due-date versus expected-date framework.
Turn the status into an action
Use this progression:
- **Not sent or undelivered:** correct the delivery path and assign an owner.
- **Sent but not viewed:** confirm the intended recipient and buyer channel.
- **Viewed with no commitment:** identify the buyer approval or payment dependency.
- **Commitment received:** record amount, date, source, owner, and confidence.
- **Payment status recorded:** reconcile the invoice and cash events separately.
If the status changes after the dated forecast snapshot, append the event and reassess the current week. Do not rewrite the prior assumption. The invoice collection assumptions template provides fields for evidence, owner, confidence, and review date.
Decision rule
Treat Viewed as stronger delivery evidence than Sent, but weaker collection evidence than a dated commitment or payment event. It may raise confidence that the invoice reached the customer, yet the expected week still needs support from the customer's process. Finance teams can inspect the AR Pulse example for an invoice-level action and forecast format.