Feature Request: Block Vendors from Shopify Bill Pay

Productivity
1

Shopify Billy Pay is a great time-saver when it’s working properly. I love that it will auto-import bills and let me know when there are bills waiting that I need to schedule a payment for.

The problem is that every email I get that includes a dollar amount gets imported into Bill Pay. I turned the entire auto-import feature off, but that, of course, hobbles its usefulness.

Instead, we simply need to be able to checkmark an imported “bill” and have a menu option to “block Bill Pay from downloading bills from this email address.” For example, it’s constantly downloading Shopify bills, which we pay directly from our bank, not through Bill Pay. I have to go in daily and delete those, which is counter-intuitive to its time-saving goal.

2

@Eleda_Towle Good request, and worth knowing Shopify already documents this as expected behaviour, which is useful ammunition for you. On the Gmail sync page they say the import might occasionally pull in something irrelevant, or an email that resembles an invoice but isnt. So the false positives arent a bug awaiting a fix, theyre inherent to scanning an inbox, which is exactly why a blocklist is the right thing to ask for.

https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/finance/shopify-bill-pay/setting-up-shopify-bill-pay

One question first, because the workaround depends on it. Are you on the Gmail inbox connection, or the dedicated Bill Pay email address? Your description sounds like the Gmail one, but theyre two separate import routes and the answer changes.

If it is the Gmail connection, theres something you can do today rather than leaving auto import switched off entirely.

The Gmail sync scans your whole inbox and pulls anything that looks like an invoice, which is why it feels like everything unless I delete it. The Bill Pay email address works the other way round, nothing arrives unless its sent there. So disconnect the Gmail sync, take your Bill Pay address, and give it directly to the vendors you actually pay through Bill Pay. Their invoices land automatically, and Shopifys own bills never turn up because Shopify was never given that address.

Thats effectively the blocklist you want, just built as an allowlist instead.

https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/finance/shopify-bill-pay/payments/adding-bills

If contacting every vendor is too much, you could instead set a Gmail filter that forwards mail from your real vendors to that Bill Pay address. One honest warning though. Gmail makes you verify a forwarding address first, and it does that by emailing a confirmation link to the destination. The Bill Pay inbox isnt a normal mailbox you can open, so that verification may not be retrievable. Worth a try, but dont be surprised if it stalls there, in which case handing the address to vendors directly is the version that reliably works.

Either way you get the auto import back without the daily clean up.

3

Hi,

The allowlist approach above is the right call — one addition that keeps the automation even for vendors you can’t retrain to use the new address:

Set up a Gmail filter that matches your real vendors (from:vendor1.com OR from:vendor2.com…) and auto-forwards just those to your Bill Pay dedicated address. You’ll need to verify the forwarding address once in Gmail settings, but after that it’s an allowlist that works without asking any vendor to change where they send invoices. Everything else in your inbox stays invisible to Bill Pay, so the daily cleanup disappears while imports keep flowing.

Slightly annoying to set up (Gmail filters cap the OR list, so group by domain not full address), but it’s a one-time job.

4

Thanks for the suggestions. While this would work, it’s a time-consuming workaround to set up and maintain as vendors change. For this reason, I hope Shopify will build a Block List into the program. It’s far easier to tell Shopify’s Bill Pay to not import from this address again than it is to keep adding/editing filters in GMail.

5

Thanks for the suggestions. While this would work, it’s a time-consuming workaround to set up and maintain as vendors change… Not a one-time job, since we’d need to remember to do this for every new vendor. For this reason, I hope Shopify will build a Block List into the program. It’s far easier to tell Shopify’s Bill Pay to not import from this address again than it is to keep adding/editing filters in GMail.

6

That’s totally fair — the allowlist filter is a band-aid, not the feature you actually want, and you’re right that maintaining it every time a vendor changes defeats the purpose. A native block/allow list inside Bill Pay is the correct fix.

Two things that might help in the meantime, since Shopify feature requests can take a while:

  1. If you use Gmail’s “+” addressing (e.g. yourname+billpay@gmail.com) as the dedicated address and only hand that out to real vendors, anything sent to your plain address never reaches Bill Pay at all — no per-vendor rule to maintain, just one setup.
  2. Make sure this thread is posted in the Shopify ideas/feedback board (not only the community forum) — that’s the channel the Bill Pay product team actually reviews for prioritising native features, and votes there carry weight.

Either way, +1 from me on the native blocklist — it’s the kind of small control that should just exist.

7

yeah, an ignore/block sender rule seems like the obvious fix here. the problem isn’t really the auto-import itself, it’s that there’s no easy way to teach Bill Pay that a particular sender isn’t a supplier bill.

being able to select an imported bill and choose something like “never import from this sender” would make the feature much more usable. ideally it could also have a small blocked-senders list in the settings so you can undo it later without having to turn the whole auto-import system off.

10

Fair, and I think youre right. An allowlist that has to be maintained by hand is worse than a blocklist that gets set once, especially since the senders you want to block barely change while your vendor list does.

Hope this gets picked up.

11

Thanks for the tips and the kind words. Where do I find the Shopify ideas/feedback board? Their AI “support” suggested coming to the Community Forum and posting with the header “Feature Request.” I want to make sure it gets where they’ll see it and consider it.

12

I could set up a different email address and send it to all my vendors, but then all their communication to me would go to that address. I would have to monitor both inboxes or forward one into the other… A ton of setup and maintenance to “fix” someone else’s program. So I DO appreciate the tips, but I don’t want Shopify to think “well, they have a workaround,” and skip adding this to their requests list.

Other than that, Bill Pay is working great for me. We’re a mom and pop business, so it helps keep everything organized and allows me to schedule payments to arrive just a few days before they’re due, allowing us to keep our money longer, while saving me time by scheduling multiple payments in one session and not having to keep track of them individually. For that, the 50-cent fee is worth it. If they start raising to a dollar or more, though, I’d be out. Budgets are tight for small businesses, with everyone nickel-and-diming you for every small feature.

14

You’re not missing the board—the current Community index does not show a dedicated public Shopify feature-voting board. The official route I can verify is Shopify Help Center → Chat with a human after selecting your store:

I’d ask the advisor to log this specifically as Shopify Bill Pay product feedback, and include this thread plus the exact requirement:

  • “Never import from this sender” on an imported bill
  • a settings list to review or unblock senders
  • no change to bills arriving through the dedicated Bill Pay address
  • impact: daily false-positive deletion or disabling Gmail auto-import

That keeps the request about a native blocklist, not a workaround. This thread is useful public evidence, but I would not assume a separate “ideas board” exists unless Shopify Support gives you a current direct link.