Transmit (Sales)

Point of sale documents can be transmitted by either email or fax. Faxing is accomplished either by transmission via email to an online fax service or by using a fax modem connected to a local server (requires that the server be located at one of your company's physical locations (not hosted) and that additional software be installed on the server for fax processing). The EDI tab is not functional and is reserved for future development.

Email

Email transmission may be selected during processing. Email addresses, subject, and notes (body) are automatically set when information exists to populate them. Fields may be auto-filled based on user, branch, system, customer, or job settings as well as changes to certain fields located on the Process (F12) form. The subject and notes defaults may be modified by the user prior to processing. The mail message's subject will include an abbreviated document type ("Inv" for "invoice" in this case), either the account name or job number*, and the customer's PO number (if required). The length of the customer's PO number field has been increased to a maximum of 20-characters (was originally 12).

*Account name is used for job zero (#0) transactions only.

Note: Manual changes to the email addresses, subject, and notes are allowed; however, later changes on the Process form can either reset the subject and notes back to defaults or append to the existing subject or notes. For this reason, make changes to the subject and notes last (just before final processing by clicking the Finish (F12) button).

For invoices, the email can be sent either immediately or later at a time specified by an EOD (End of Day) parameter. Users may use the Email, Fax & Print Queue utility form to check the submission and process status of both emails and faxes. If your default "End of Day" time is after midnight (1:00 AM, for example), the emails won't be transmitted until the next day, so to view them in the queue, put a date range including the next day.

It is possible to assign multiple email addresses to a contact or manually within the "Email To" text area. To do this, separate each individual address with either a comma (,) or semicolon (;). Multiple addresses are split into separate "mail-to" recipients, and all "to" addresses will be visible to the recipient of the Email.

Main Menu > Point of Sale > Sales > Process (F12), Transmit, Email {TAB}

It's important to point out that the application passes a PDF file of the document as an attachment and the information from the Process form to your company's designated SMTP server. This server is responsible for actually sending any email. The SMTP server must be properly configured under the Parameters database (Maintenance > Database > Parameters) by a system administrator and accessible for emailing to function.

Tip: Typically, emails that are more than 10 MB (due to the length or to attachments) can either fail to send or fail to be received due to restrictions of the email provider. It makes sense to evaluate the size of your emails prior to sending them. This includes statements.

Your SMTP server can potentially reject mail messages being sent from what are considered "invalid" addresses, so it is best to only use valid "from" addresses that have been configured on your server. In addition, the recipient's email software or service may reject messages that aren't from an identifiable domain. The software does not validate any email addresses entered, so if a non-existent domain or address is used, it's possible that the email will be rejected either by your email server or the recipient's (or simply flagged as spam).

A Note about Email Settings and Delivery

Email is a fast, easy, and inexpensive way to deliver copies of Point of Sale documents to customers and vendors; however, keep in mind that email delivery is not guaranteed. Even with a valid email address, it's possible that any email message may never reach the intended recipient. In addition, there isn't a foolproof way of confirming delivery without some type of response from, or communication with, the intended recipient.

From the application, it's possible to see if an email was submitted successfully or not to your designated SMTP server, but this is still no guarantee of delivery. An email may have a valid domain, but not be a valid account. Sometimes the recipient's mail server will bounce the message back to the sender, but not always. It is also possible for the mail server host or the recipient's mail application to automatically delete any messages it thinks are spam.

Before you rely on email for important communication, such as billing, we suggest that your company put in place some type of email verification process. This may be as simple as sending one manual test email to the customer and asking them to verify that this is the address to which the statement should be delivered and to reply as confirmation they've received the message. After receiving the confirmation, you can confidently enable email delivery.

In addition, it may be wise to provide customers who choose email delivery with some form of agreement, disclaimer, or statement regarding possible delivery issues. For example, this might inform them that email delivery is not guaranteed and that they are still responsible for paying their bill even if they don't receive a copy of their statement electronically. This statement could even be included in the initial confirmation email along with a message that their reply constitutes agreement with your company’s terms.

Fax

As with email, fax processing is handled outside the application. Users may use the Email, Fax & Print Queue utility form to check the submission and process status of both emails and faxes. For assistance with Fax Setup, please click here for more information.

Process_Invoice_Transmit_Fax

Some fields may be auto-filled based on user or branch defaults or customer contact selection. All information can be modified prior to transmission when necessary. For more information regarding faxing, please see the special topic Fax Use.

Problems Transmitting

Successful emailing and faxing have requirements beyond the control of the application and Support. Problems related to networking, SMTP servers, internet connectivity (or ISP changes), phone lines, the size of the email (over 10 MB), and hardware failures or errors can all cause problems emailing or faxing. These issues are not covered by your company's support plan.