Save a fortune on postage and printing costs through Sage
How much is it costing you post documents to your customers and suppliers?
With the combined cost of stationery and postage, plus the time spent printing and stuffing envelopes, the cost to your business could be quite significant.
Sage 200 has the built-in ability to setup customers to e-mail their Statements; and setup suppliers to e-mail their Remittances, automatically as part of a batch print.
In fact, since v2010 any output from Sage can be configured for e-mail.
By clicking the E-mail button on Sage print previews, an e-mail can be created with the print attached. With some configuration of the report design, this can be improved to default the appropriate contact e-mail address, subject title and body text.
It can also be split up into multiple e-mails for batch prints, and either sent automatically or put to the Drafts folder for review and amendment before sending.
But before you rush into Sage to start trying things out, consider the following questions:
Do you have contact email addresses setup in Sage?
Before rolling out e-mails from Sage 200, have you got up to date e-mail addresses stored against your contacts?
The more contacts you can set e-mail addresses for the more automated the system becomes, and the less you will need to fall back on printing and posting documents. So it’s worth putting in the effort to get every account setup with a current e-mail address if possible.
Do you have multiple contacts per account?
Unlike letters, which can simply be sent to the ‘Accounts Department’ within a company, it’s vital that e-mails go to the correct address in the organisation or they may get lost.
Even if you have e-mail addresses setup on your accounts, you might find that they are not appropriate for your document – e.g. you only store the buyer’s e-mail address on the supplier account for e-mailing Purchase Orders, but you also need to e-mail Remittances to someone else in the Accounts department.
Sage 200 can be setup to handle multiple contacts and e-mail addresses, but some additional configuration may be required to ensure each document goes to the appropriate address.
How will you be sending your emails?
You can also tell Sage how to send your e-mails – e.g. Outlook, SMTP or other MAPI client. It’s worth considering which method you will use, as this may have consequences, such as whether you can retrieve sent messages from the “Sent Items” folder in your mail client.
Will your contacts accept your Sage documents to be delivered by email?
Don’t assume that your customers will be happy to accept you sending their Sales Invoices by e-mail, this isn’t always the case. Always warn your contacts in advance of your intention to start e-mailing their documents, and give them the option to opt out.
