Emails

The Emails screen brings your client mail into the product, tagged against the client it belongs to. The point is not to replace your mail app — it is that a message about a filing sits next to the filing, and anybody at the firm can see it.

Before you start

• The module must be enabled for your firm, and mailbox sync is part of the higher plan. If Emails is not in your menu, check Billing & Subscription.
• A connected mailbox. Connect Gmail or Outlook under Settings, then Integrations.
• Client contacts with email addresses, which is how mail is matched to a client.

Read and reply

1. Open Emails from the left menu.
2. Use the filters along the top: All, Clients, Untagged, Other. Clients is the one that matters — mail from people you act for.
3. Click a conversation to open it. It opens in the panel on the right, with the message filling the panel and everything else — who it is from, who it belongs to, its files — in a strip above it.
4. Reply from the buttons along the bottom of the panel. The reply goes from your connected mailbox, so the client sees your normal address.

Say who a conversation belongs to

Every action for a conversation lives in one place: the top right of the reading panel. Nothing sits inside the message itself.

• Tag to client — pick the client this conversation is about. Once tagged, the client's name shows at the top left of the panel on every message in the conversation.
• Add as lead — the sender is a prospect, not a client yet. This creates the lead from their details.
• Add as business — the sender is a client you have not added yet. This creates the business from their details.
• Not a client — the crossed-out person icon just after those buttons. Use it for newsletters and vendors, and the conversation stops being counted as untagged.

The star, archive and snooze icons sit at the end of the same row, immediately after the tagging buttons, so deciding who a conversation belongs to and filing it are the same movement. Once a conversation is tagged the tagging buttons drop away and only the star, archive and snooze icons remain.

Until a conversation is tagged it will not appear on any client record, and its attachments cannot be filed.

Files in a conversation

Attachments are listed above the message, and they cover the whole conversation, not just the message you have open. A client who sent the challans last week and "any update?" today still shows the challans — the line above the list tells you how many came from earlier in the conversation.

1. Click a file name to open it in the viewer.
2. Click File to <client> beside a file to save it against that client's documents.
3. When there is more than one file, File all to <client> saves the lot in one click.

Filing needs the conversation tagged to a client first — until then the button reads Tag to file this. In the conversation list, a paperclip with no number means the files are on an earlier message of that conversation.

Let it draft the reply

On a client email, ask for a reply draft. It reads the message and what the system knows about that client, and writes a first version for you to edit. It is a starting point, not a send button — read it before it goes.

Send to many clients at once

1. Click Bulk email.
2. Choose who it goes to — by client category, or by picking businesses.
3. Write the subject and the message.
4. Review the recipient count, then send.

Categories are the reason to tag clients: "everybody who does GST" becomes one send rather than a copy-paste exercise.

Turn an email into work

Where a client's mail is actually a job — "please file this by Friday" — create a task from it. The task keeps the link back to the message, so whoever picks it up can read what was asked.

What the system does on its own

• Mail syncs on its own throughout the day; older mail is filled in behind you.
• Messages are matched to clients by the sender's address and sorted into Clients or Other.
• Attachments are kept against the client, and older attachments stay linked to your mail server rather than being duplicated, so storage lasts longer.
• Logos and pasted pictures inside a message are saved with it, so a signature or a screenshot still shows months later. Older mail that predates this is repaired in the background, a batch at a time.
• Rules you set — sort by sender, file into a category — run as mail arrives.

What you cannot do (and what to do instead)

• Not everyone can send bulk email. It is limited to firm administrators. Ask one to send it, or have your role changed.
• You cannot bulk send without choosing an audience. Pick at least one category or business — there is no send-to-everybody.
• You cannot file an attachment from an untagged conversation. Tag it to a client first; the button tells you so.
• You cannot get a reply draft for internal mail. Drafts are only offered on client email, where the system knows the context.
• You cannot summarise an email with no text. A message that is only an attachment has nothing to read.
• You cannot un-send. Check the recipient count on a bulk send before pressing it.

Common questions

My mail is not appearing.

Check the mailbox is connected under Settings, then Integrations. Sync runs regularly rather than instantly.

A client's email landed in Other.

They wrote from an address not on their contact record. Add that address to the contact and future mail is matched.

The tagging buttons are not inside the email any more.

They moved to the top right of the reading panel, alongside the star, so every action for the conversation is in one row. Nothing was removed.

The list shows a paperclip but the newest message has no file.

The file is on an earlier message of the same conversation. Open it — the attachment list above the message covers every message in the conversation.

Pictures in an older email show as empty boxes.

Those are logos and pasted images from the sender's signature. Mail synced before this was handled did not keep them, and they are being repaired in the background — the message reads normally in the meantime, and nothing is lost from it. New mail is unaffected.

Does the client see this was sent from PracticeStacks?

No. Replies go through your own connected mailbox.