An undelivered invoice should remain in open accounts receivable when the accounting source says it is issued and unpaid, but its delivery failure should lower forecast confidence and raise action priority. Delivery status changes the evidence for timing; it does not by itself change the posted balance.

Intuit's undelivered-invoice guidance describes an `Undeliverable` status when an invoice email fails for at least one recipient and directs users to inspect the delivery error. A finance team should treat that status as an exception requiring ownership rather than as proof the receivable does not exist.

Separate accounting state from delivery state

Record these fields independently:

  • posted invoice number and open amount;
  • invoice date and due date;
  • delivery channel and last attempt date;
  • observed delivery status and error detail;
  • intended recipient and whether the address is current;
  • exception owner, next action, and review date; and
  • collection week or unassigned status with its evidence.

The invoice can be valid in the books while the customer has not received it. That is exactly why netting the balance away or assigning an ordinary collection week would misstate the situation.

Use delivery status as a priority signal

An undelivered invoice belongs near the top of an exception queue when the due date is near or past, the amount is material to the four-week range, or no current accounts-payable contact exists. The missing AP contact checklist provides the related owner-and-evidence handoff.

Do not turn the exception into a customer-contact script. The finance team's job is to establish a valid recipient and document a supported next action under its own process. AR Pulse does not send invoices or contact customers.

Rebuild timing after delivery is confirmed

A successful resend improves evidence but still does not prove when cash will arrive. Move the invoice from `delivery blocked` to a supported timing bucket only when a separate signal justifies it: customer acknowledgment, supplier-portal acceptance, a dated promise, a scheduled payment, or another documented state.

The invoice-viewed status guide explains the same boundary at the next step. Viewed means access was observed; it is not a payment commitment. The supplier-portal acceptance framework distinguishes intake acceptance from payment approval.

A compact decision matrix

| Evidence | AR balance | Priority | Timing treatment | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Issued and undelivered | Keep the supported open amount | High exception | Unassigned unless other evidence exists | | Resent with no receipt evidence | Keep open | Continue review | Do not restore old timing automatically | | Delivery confirmed | Keep open | Reassess blocker | Use only independent timing evidence | | Corrected or reissued invoice | Follow the new source record | Reconcile lineage | Retire duplicated timing assumptions | | Paid and applied | Reduce the open amount | Close the delivery exception | Record cash once |

Decision rule

Keep an undelivered issued invoice in AR, make the delivery failure visible as an owned exception, and withhold unsupported collection timing. After delivery is repaired, require fresh evidence before assigning a specific week.

AR Pulse converts an authorized QuickBooks receivables export into a ranked cash-action list and four-week collections range. It does not change invoice delivery settings or contact customers. Apply for an AR Pulse review when the export needs an evidence-first exception pass.