Mailings for Customers

For each customer, you can configure a number of mailings. The mailing body is based on a notification template that may contain placeholders and can be modified easily. You can assign a report that will generate a document to be sent as a mailing attachment. A customer's mailing settings are used for mass processing documents and for emailing a particular invoice or memo. Template-based emails can be used, for example, to notify customer contacts about expiration of their credit cards. When the system generates such emails for multiple customers, it replaces placeholders with the particular customer's information, such as card type, partial card number, and expiration date.

In this topic you will read about ways to correspond with a customer, predefined mailings offered by MYOB Advanced, their components and workflow.

Mailing Components

A mailing is made up of the following:

• Identifier: The mailing identifier—Mailing ID—is used to configure a mailing workflow that uses automation steps. MYOB Advanced provides a default mailing workflow for predefined mailings. For details on managing workflow automation, see Automation Maintenance.
• Body: A notification template can be assigned to any mailing to serve as the email body. The body consists of text that can be personalized while the email is generated with the help of placeholders used in the template. These placeholders are replaced with information from the customer record. You can modify a notification template to comply with your company policies. For details on managing notification templates, see Email Templates.
• Attachment: For a mailing, you can select a report that will generate a document to be sent as an attachment. A report holds data from the system constructed in the required format. MYOB Advanced provides default reports to generate invoices, memos, statements and dunning letters. A report may also provide text for the mailing body. You can select the attachment format from the list of supported formats. For details on modifying reports, see MYOB Advanced Report Designer Guide.
  Note:

  • You need to specify either a notification template or a report for a mailing. If a notification template is not specified, the text for the email body is taken from the report settings.
  • You can attach multiple reports in the same format or different formats to one mailing. For details, see Workflow Customization by Means of Automation Steps.
  • If the email body contains no specific text and the HTML format is selected in the email settings of the report, the report is inserted in the email body in the HTML format instead of being attached to the email.

Mailing Workflow

The mailing workflow consists of the following steps:

1. Mailing configuration: You can set up mailings for a group of customers by using Customer Classes (AR201000) form or for a specific customer, by using the Customers (AR303000) form. You can configure the list of mailings and recipients, as well as notification template and attachment settings. Customer class provides the default settings for the included customers, but these default settings can be overridden to make the mailing configuration more specific. Mailings modified for specific customer (on the Customers form) are marked as overridden (the Overridden check box is selected). If you change mailings configuration in a customer class, these changes affect mailings of all customers of this class, except those that were modified specifically for a customer (overridden).
2. Mailing mass processing configuration: You can control whether invoices and statements are available for mass emailing. For details, see To Set Up Mass Processing of Mailings.
3. Document preparation and preview: Generally, you prepare the email and the attached document, if any, and then preview them on the Emails Pending Processing form. If mass-emailing is being done, the preparation of statements may be a time-consuming process; thus, mass preparation and preview of statements are separated.
4. Email sending: By default, the system doesn't perform the actual sending of the emails right away. Prepared emails are gathered in the queue shown on the Emails Pending Processing form; use this form when you're ready to actually send them. For details on email management, see Managing Emails.
   Note: This is the default email workflow; consult your system administrator to find out whether it has been modified.

Predefined Mailings for Customers

You can view the list of predefined mailings and add new ones by using the Mailing & Printing tab of the Accounts Receivable Preferences (AR101000) form. Here you can configure the basic settings of each mailing, these settings will be used by default when you add a mailing to a customer class or a customer.

When you create a new customer class all mailings (predefined and manually created) are added to new customer class by default. Also, if sales orders are used, the mailings listed on the Sales Orders Preferences (SO101000) form are added to a new customer class. You can modify this list, leaving those that you need for customers of this class.