Email Message Editor
How to write an email template: its subject, the email itself with details filled in for each customer, the header and footer, testing it and where it’s used.
Email templates hold the emails you send customers, so you write them once and choose them whenever you message customers. Open one from Settings > Document Templates with the pencil on its row, or with Edit email on its details page. A new one starts with Create Template, then Create from scratch and Email message.
The System Emails
Every business is given the emails Work Planner sends for you: the Price rise email, Payment link email, Direct Debit invite email, Invoice email, Quote email, Payment thank-you email, Statement email, Customer payment reminder email and Job payment reminder email, with the matching texts where there is one. A customer's payment reminder says everything they owe and a job's what's owed on that job, both with the Amount owed detail. Change their wording to suit you. They can’t be deleted, and Restore System version on the details page puts one back to how it started.
Writing the Email
- Subject: The subject line customers see in their inbox. To add a detail, such as the customer’s first name or a job’s due date, click in the subject and use Variables in the toolbar.
- The email: Write it as you would in the Simple editor, with headings, bold and italics, lists, links, pictures and tables. A new email starts with a greeting and a sign-off.
- Variables: In the toolbar, adds details such as First name or Business name where your cursor is, in the email or the subject, whichever you were last typing in. They go in written like {{first_name}}, as ordinary text you can format or move like the words around them, and are filled in with each customer’s own details when the email is sent. Format or delete the whole of one, curly brackets included: a variable with only part of it changed isn’t filled in. Emails about jobs also offer the job’s details, invoice emails the invoice’s, such as Invoice total and Invoice due date, and the Payment thank-you email the payment’s: how much they paid, how they paid and the date they paid.
- Balance with unsubmitted worksheets: the customer’s balance as it will be once their worksheets are submitted: their balance, less each job marked complete on a worksheet that hasn’t been submitted yet, plus anything paid on one. It’s written as {{balance}} is, the amount alone, negative when they owe. Handy for a message sent as soon as a job is marked, before its worksheet is submitted. Amount owed with unsubmitted worksheets is what they’ll owe, never negative, so Please pay {{currency_symbol}}{{amount_due_plus_pending}} asks for the right amount.
- Payment and Direct Debit links: When the email is sent, Work Planner makes each customer’s link through GoCardless, or sends the one they already have. A payment link asks for what the job owes. In the email the link can be clicked.
- Header and Footer: Header puts your logo and business details at the top. Footer puts your business name, phone number and email at the bottom, and is on when you start.
How It’s Sent
The email is sent in a standard email layout: a white column, centred on a light grey background, that reads well on phones and computers. Links and pictures work in customers’ email apps.
Preview and Test
- Preview & test: Shows the email as a customer gets it, subject and all, filled in with one of your own customers or jobs, or with example details. A payment’s details are always an example, as they are only known when a customer pays.
- Email me a test: Sends that email to you, so you can see it in your own inbox.
Saving
- Drafts: Your changes save as a draft a couple of seconds after you stop typing. A draft isn’t sent to anyone until you save the email.
- Save & quit: Makes your email the one that’s sent, then takes you to the template’s details page.
- The menu: Version history lists earlier versions to go back to, Save as template keeps a copy under a new name, and Import and Export move an email between businesses or accounts.
Where Emails Are Used
- Message Customers: Choose an email under Email in the Message Customers Popup. You can change it there for one send without changing the template. The Payment thank-you email is only offered there when it’s sending a receipt for a payment, from Send a receipt once you’ve recorded one with Record payment, or Send receipt on a payment in Transactions, as it needs a payment to fill in. The payment’s receipt goes with it as a PDF. See Payment Receipts. The Statement email is only offered there when it’s sending statements, from Email in the Statement popup, as each customer’s statement goes with it. See Customer Statements.
- Automations: An automation can send one of your emails instead of wording of its own. The Thank a customer for a payment automation starts with your Payment thank-you email, and sends it with the payment’s receipt attached as a PDF. See Creating an Automation.
- Not printed: Email templates aren’t offered for printing or attaching, and can’t be a default.
Related articles
- Message Customers Popup: Sending your emails to customers.
- Customer Statements: Emailing statements with your Statement email.
- Payment Receipts: Sending a payment’s receipt with your Payment thank-you email.
- Text Message Editor: Writing the texts that go with them.
- Simple Editor: The same writing tools, for letters and documents.
- Preview & Test Popup: Checking a template before you use it.
- Email Settings: Who emails come from and where replies go.