---
title: "How do I forward invoices to my Cleo Pay inbox?"
description: "An admin turns on Forward invoices to drafts in Settings > Inbound Email. That gives your business an address ending in @i.cleo-pay.com. Forward vendor invoices there, or have vendors send them there, and each one becomes a draft bill for you to review."
url: https://cleo-pay.com/help/forward-invoices-to-your-cleo-pay-inbox
category: "Bills and approvals"
audience: [business]
updated: 2026-10-22
support: support@cleo-pay.com
---

# How do I forward invoices to my Cleo Pay inbox?

> An admin turns on Forward invoices to drafts in Settings > Inbound Email. That gives your business an address ending in @i.cleo-pay.com. Forward vendor invoices there, or have vendors send them there, and each one becomes a draft bill for you to review.

Your business can have its own Cleo Pay email address that ends in @i.cleo-pay.com. Forward a vendor's invoice email to it, or ask vendors to send invoices there directly, and Cleo Pay reads the attached invoice and creates a draft bill. You check the draft, then accept it. An admin turns this on in **Settings** > **Inbound Email**.

## Turn it on and find your address

1. Sign in at app.cleo-pay.com as an admin and click **Settings**.
2. Click **Inbound Email**.
3. Turn on **Forward invoices to drafts**.
4. Your address appears under **Your forwarding address**. Click the copy icon to copy it.

Cleo Pay picks the first part of the address from your business name. You can change it later (see below). Only admins can turn forwarding on or off or change the address.

## What happens when an invoice arrives

Cleo Pay reads each attachment. It handles PDF, PNG, JPEG, GIF and WebP files. When it finds an invoice, it creates a draft bill, attaches the file and tries to match the vendor to one of your contacts. One email with invoices from several vendors becomes several bills.

New bills from email show up in the **Draft** tab on the **Pay** page. Open one, check the fields, and click **Accept**. If you don't want it, click **Reject**.

The **Inbound Email** page lists every email that came in, with its status:

| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Pending | The email arrived and is waiting to be read |
| Processing | Cleo Pay is reading the attachments |
| Payable created | A draft bill was created |
| Skipped | Cleo Pay didn't make a bill. Click the email to see why |
| Failed | Something went wrong while reading it |

## Mail from people who aren't your contacts

Cleo Pay reads every email sent to your address, whoever sent it. If the vendor on the invoice doesn't match any of your contacts, the bill stays a draft with no vendor. When you click **Accept**, you'll see "Vendor not mapped". Pick the right vendor from **Select a vendor...**, then click **Accept Invoice**. See [Add or invite a vendor](https://cleo-pay.com/help/add-or-invite-a-vendor).

If the person who forwarded the email is on your team, the bill shows them as the one who added it. If not, it shows your account's owner.

## Skip drafts for complete invoices

Once forwarding is on, admins also see **Skip drafts when the invoice is complete**. With it on, a bill goes straight to approval when Cleo Pay has matched the vendor and read an amount of at least $1. Anything incomplete, and anything that looks like a duplicate, stays in **Draft** for you to check. See [How bill approvals work](https://cleo-pay.com/help/how-bill-approvals-work) and [Duplicate bill warnings](https://cleo-pay.com/help/duplicate-bill-warnings).

## Limits

| Limit | Value |
|---|---|
| Attachments per email | 10 |
| Emails per day | 100 (the count resets at midnight UTC) |

Cleo Pay skips an email with no attachments, an email with more than 10 attachments, and anything past 100 in a day. It doesn't read invoices typed into the body of an email, so make sure the invoice is attached as a file. You'll see the reason on the email's row in **Inbound Email**, for example "No attachments found in email" or "Too many attachments in email". If an email was skipped, send the invoice again within the limits or add it by hand. See [Add a bill](https://cleo-pay.com/help/add-a-bill).

## Change your address

Admins can change the part of the address before the @.

1. In **Settings** > **Inbound Email**, click the pencil icon next to your address.
2. Type the new name. Cleo Pay tells you if it's "Available", "Already taken" or a "Reserved word".
3. Click the check mark to save, then click **Confirm**.

The new name has to follow these rules:

- 3 to 32 characters.
- Lowercase letters, numbers, hyphens, dots and underscores only. It has to start and end with a letter or number.
- It can't be a reserved word. That includes common mailbox names like billing, invoices, payments and support, and names of banks and other payment companies.

Your old address keeps working for 30 days after a change. The first time a vendor sends to the old address in that window, they get an automatic reply with the subject "Your forwarding address has changed" that gives them the new one. After 30 days the old address stops working.

You can't change the address again while the old one is still in its 30 days. You also can't change it more than 3 times in 90 days.

## If it doesn't work

If an email never shows up on the **Inbound Email** page, check that it went to the exact address shown there. If it shows Failed, or a draft came out wrong, email support@cleo-pay.com with your forwarding address, the sender's address and the time you sent it.