Automatic thank you emails

How to set up the third of our automatic invoice emails, which sends a thank you email to a client who's paid for an invoice in full.

From under Settings, choose Email Templates.

Select the 'New thank you' tab.

Building the message

Use the tags over on the right-hand side to build the content for the To, Subject and Text boxes.

From / To

The From email can be any one of the users who are set up in FreeAgent. You can also tick the box under the From email box to send a copy of this email, and the invoice, to the sender. This is useful if you're a bookkeeper and you need to show the finance manager that you've sent the invoice.

The To email, by default, is your client's contact email that you set up under Contacts, but you can amend this to the billing email for that contact which can also be set up under Contacts. To amend the tag, simply type in an extra _billing into the tag, so that it matches the tag in the list on the right.

If you put "[contact_billing_email],[contact_email]" in the To field, the email will go out assuming that the contact has one or other of the email addresses entered, and if you use the tag [billing_or_contact_email] in the To field, then if you've put in a billing email address that will be used, but if there's no billing email, FreeAgent will use the contact's main email address.

Subject

The Subject field already has the reference tag in it, so the subject of the email will include the reference number of the invoice. You can of course change this if you wish.

Why is there no invoice attached?

Unlike both the other automatic emails, the Thank You email won't have a .pdf copy of the invoice attached. This is because we've assumed that if the client has paid the invoice then they have a copy to keep. You can of course re-send the invoice manually by email at any time.

Attach files

If you wish to attach a file by default to your Thank You emails, you can choose one to send from your Files store, or otherwise upload a new file. Select the Attach Files link to do this.

Remember that this file will be sent every time you send a Thank You email from FreeAgent.

Body text

Build the body text using the tags. There is some sample text for you to use and edit as you wish.

Once you're happy with this email, select Save Thank You Template to keep it. Or select Cancel to close without saving. You need to save the template before you can use it to send thank-you e- mails.

Setting the Thank You email to send

Then as you set up a new invoice, or edit an existing invoice that's in draft, you can tick the third of the three Invoice Emails boxes under Invoice Details. FreeAgent will then automatically send the thank you email to your client once you have marked this invoice as fully paid in FreeAgent. If you’ve set default options for the client you’re invoicing, this option will be updated automatically. Remember to save your changes if you're editing an existing invoice.

When you then look at the invoice, FreeAgent tells you that the thank-you email is enabled.

Can I see which invoices have thank you emails set?

Yes.

Go to Work > Invoicing and filter the list to show invoices "With active thank you emails".

There are two other automatic invoice emails that FreeAgent can send for you; sending a new invoice and reminding a client to pay.