Email every posted invoice to your accountant, automatically.

If your accountant needs a copy of every customer invoice, Odoo can email it to them automatically as soon as the invoice is posted. This guide sets that up with an automation rule and a copy of the invoice email template, without custom code. One setting decides whether it works: on the template, Default Recipients must be unticked, or the email goes to the customer instead of the accountant.

It is written for whoever runs invoicing, such as a bookkeeper or owner. The steps were verified on Odoo 19, with Odoo 20 notes at the end.

Before you start

• Version and edition. The steps apply to Odoo 19, Community and Enterprise.
• Apps. You need Invoicing or Accounting, plus the Automation Rules module. If the Automation Rules menu described below is missing, open the Apps menu, remove the default "Apps" filter from the search bar, search for Automation Rules and install it.
• Access rights. Creating automation rules and installing modules both require a user with the Administrator role.
• Developer mode. This switch shows Odoo's technical menus. Open the Settings app, scroll to Developer Tools and click "Activate the developer mode".
• Working outgoing email. The rule sends through Odoo's normal email queue, so outgoing mail must already work.
• Terms used. An automation rule is an instruction that makes Odoo act by itself when a record changes. An email template is a saved email layout that sets the recipients, subject, body and attachments. An invoice is posted when you click Confirm on it, which moves its status from Draft to Posted.

How the automatic copy works

The automation rule fires when an invoice's status changes to Posted, and its action sends an email built from an email template. The rule decides when the email goes out; the template decides who receives it and what it contains.

That split matters because the standard invoice template, "Invoice: Sending", is built to mail the customer. Its Default Recipients box is ticked, which tells Odoo to take the recipient from the invoice, meaning the customer, and hides the To (Emails) field. You therefore need your own copy, addressed to the accountant.

Step 1: build the accountant's template

1. With developer mode on, open the Settings app, then go to Technical > Email > Email Templates.
2. Open the template named "Invoice: Sending".
3. Duplicate it and give the copy a clear name, such as "Invoice: Copy to accountant".
4. On the Settings tab, untick Default Recipients. The To (Emails) field now appears.
5. Enter your accountant's address in To (Emails). Several addresses can be separated by commas.
6. On the Options tab, add Invoice PDF under Dynamic Reports. The standard template has no attachment of its own, because the Send button on an invoice normally generates the PDF. Without this step, the accountant receives the email with no PDF attached.
7. If you like, edit the subject and body so they read as a copy for the accountant. The standard body opens with "Dear" and the customer's name.
8. Save the template.

Step 2: create the automation rule

1. Open the Settings app, then go to Technical > Automation > Automation Rules and click New.
2. Name the rule, for example "Email posted invoices to accountant".
3. Set Model to Journal Entry. Odoo stores customer invoices, credit notes and vendor bills all as journal entries, so this is the model that holds invoices.
4. Set Trigger to "State is set to" and choose Posted as the value.
5. Look at Apply on, the condition a record must meet for the rule to run. Odoo fills it with Status = Posted. Keep that condition and add a second one, Type = Customer Invoice. Without it, the rule also fires on vendor bills and manual journal entries.
6. On the Actions To Do tab, add an action of type Send Email, select your new template as the Email Template, and choose an option in Send Email As (explained below).
7. Save the action, then save the rule.

Set the trigger before you edit Apply on. Odoo rebuilds the Apply on condition from the trigger, so changing the trigger afterwards replaces the condition you added.

Choosing between Email, Message and Note

In Odoo 19, Send Email As has three options. Odoo selects Message by default when you create the action, so make this choice deliberately. Two terms help here: the chatter is the messaging history shown on each invoice, and a follower is a contact who is notified of new messages on that record.

• Email sends the email to the template's recipients only. It does not appear in the invoice's chatter, and the accountant is not added as a follower.
• Message posts the email in the invoice's chatter and notifies all of its followers. It also turns on Subscribe Recipients, so the accountant becomes a follower of every invoice the rule touches and receives every later message on those invoices.
• Note posts it as an internal note, meant for internal users, and also subscribes the recipients.

For an external accountant, Email is usually the right choice: they get each invoice once and nothing else. Choose Message only if you want the accountant included in the conversation on each invoice.

Check that it worked

1. For the test, put an address you can read in the template's To (Emails) field in place of the accountant's.
2. Open the Invoicing app (called Accounting when the Accounting app is installed) and go to Customers > Invoices. Create an invoice for a test customer whose email is a second address you can read, and click Confirm.
3. Success looks like this: the To (Emails) address receives the email with the PDF attached, and the test customer's address receives nothing from the rule.
4. If the test customer received it instead, Default Recipients is still ticked on the template.
5. Put the accountant's address back in To (Emails) and save.

Pitfalls and version differences

• A wrong recipient looks like success. If Default Recipients stays ticked, the rule still fires and the email still goes out, but to the customer. Nothing on screen warns you. A template created from inside the action also starts with the box ticked.
• Credit notes are a separate type. Type = Customer Invoice excludes them. If your accountant needs credit notes too, add Customer Credit Note to the condition or build a second rule.
• Posting again sends again. The rule fires each time the status changes to Posted, so an invoice that is reset to draft and confirmed again is emailed to the accountant a second time.
• "Send invoices automatically" is a different feature. This scheduled action, a job Odoo runs daily in the background, only processes invoices someone has already sent in bulk from the invoice list, delivering them per each customer's Invoice sending preference. It does not copy anyone else.
• Odoo 20 simplifies the action. The action type is called Send Message, Send Email As is gone, and the template is always posted as a message in the chatter, so followers are notified, but recipients are not subscribed. Default Recipients works the same, so Step 1 does not change. These differences were checked in the Odoo 20 source code, not run.

Steps verified on Odoo 19. Menus and labels can differ on other versions.

Common questions

Can Odoo send a copy of every customer invoice to my accountant automatically?

Yes. In Odoo 19, an automation rule on posted customer invoices can send an email from a copy of the invoice email template addressed to your accountant. The only extra module needed is Automation Rules, which is part of standard Odoo.

Why does my Odoo automation rule email the customer instead of the accountant?

The email template still has Default Recipients ticked. While it is ticked, Odoo sends to the invoice's customer and does not use the To (Emails) field, which only appears once the box is unticked.

Does the automated invoice email include the invoice PDF?

Not with the standard "Invoice: Sending" template, which has no attachment of its own. Add Invoice PDF under Dynamic Reports on the Options tab of your copy of the template.

Will the accountant become a follower of every invoice?

In Odoo 19 that happens if the rule's Send Email As option is set to Message or Note, because both turn on Subscribe Recipients. Choose Email to send the invoice without adding the accountant as a follower.

Is Odoo's 'Send invoices automatically' scheduled action the same thing?

No. It processes invoices that were sent in bulk from the invoice list and delivers them according to each customer's Invoice sending preference. It does not send copies to a third party such as an accountant.