Sales Related Emailing

Created by Migration Bot, Modified on Fri, 23 Oct at 2:30 PM by Migration Bot

Originally written by John Hardwick, last updated May 02, 2025, on the Swan Retail knowledge base (FRS).

Part of: Management Reports

This document is based on SwanFRS release version 1211

SwanFRS can be configured to email the client when a sales order is acknowledged, customer payments are received, or by when instigated by the operator.

Overview

The ability to send sales order acknowledgements is only available to users with Crystal^® version 11 (or higher). If your system operates on an earlier version of Crystal^® it will be necessary to purchase an upgrade.

This process uses mail forwarding and is designed for operation via an exchange server. Swan reserve the right to charge for configuration to any other mail system.

Configuration

Application Parameters

The following parameters need setting to enable email purchase ordering.

CASH_REC_EMAIL_DEFAULT	Tick to set the email receipt flag when processing a secondary payment for a customer. This will automatically generate an email to the client with details of payments once confirmed. Unticking informs SwanFRS that the issuing of a electronic (PDF) payment receipt will be operator instigated.
CASH_REC_EMAIL_TEXT	Specify the ‘plain text’ message to be used when SwanFRS issues a payment receipt via email.
MAIL_SENDER	Specify an email address which will be used to send miscellaneous sales related emails. This should be a valid email address, for example Sales_team@retailername.com
MAIL_SENDER_CASH	Specify an email address which will be used to send Payment receipt emails. This should be a valid email address, for example Payments @retailername.com
MAIL_SENDER_SO	Specify an email address which will be used to send Sales Order Acknowledgement emails. This should be a valid email address, for example Sales_team@retailername.com
SMTP_MAIL	This reference is provided by Swan when configuring email forwarding.
SMTP_PORT	This is a number, provided by Swan when configuring email forwarding. If the email service used changes, this port and the SMTP_MAIL may require changing.
SO_EMAIL_TEXT	This field is designed to hold the narrative or body of the email sent to suppliers with the sales order acknowledgement (PDF) attached.

Operation

Customers

The system will only offer the option to email the customer if the customer has an email address recorded.

The Preferred Alert Method radio button (displayed below the red highlight box in the example above) is used for order alerting / milestones and does not need to be selected to email the customer for transactional activities such as payments and order acknowledgements

Sales Order Creation

There are no changes to the way the sales order is created or processed within FRS.

Once the order has at least one order line and a customer with an email address, the system will offer the Accept and Send option on the side panel.

For sales orders linked to customers without email address, the system will only offer an Accept option on the side panel.

The same options are available should the order be saved as a quotation, Save As Quote may be used to produce a printed version of if the client has an email address the Save As Quote and Send offers the option to email the quotation to the customer.

To accept the order, thus moving from amend mode to accepted mode, the operator may choose one of the two (... and Send) options shown on the side panel. (Prior to accepting the order, the system performs several checks to minimise the potential risk to the retailer, assuming the order passes these checks the order is accepted.)

Accept Order / Save As Quote - Clicking will produce an order acknowledgement and display it to the screen, whereby the operator may elect to send the output to a printer.
Accept and Send / Save As Quote and Send - This button is only available for customers with an email address. Once clicked, rather than generating the order acknowledgement and showing it to the screen, the system generates a PDF, attaches it to an email and sends the output to the customer via the mail system. The output replicates the ‘customer's copy’ of the sales order acknowledgement. No branch copy is produced. A record of the email is made within the sales order’s notes

Accept and Send Functionality

Clicking Accept and Send produces an email, which via your exchange server sends a PDF version of the order acknowledgement to the customer's specified email address.

The process of sending the email generates a note on the sales order (proof of issue). This can be seen by clicking the NOTES button below the order date in the order header section as shown below

The order notes screen presents a history or diary of contacts with the customer re the sales order and will be like the display shown below –

Clicking on the Subject field, the screen will show the detail of the note immediately below the list of events (notes)

In the example above, the ‘email sent’ record has been selected. This shows the date, time, and operator responsible for creating the note along with a message indicating the email was sent.

Failure to send emails will also be recorded in this section, therefore it is good policy to check the order notes immediately after accepting the order to ensure the email was generated.

There is no record of read receipt. This section proves the email was sent, not received or read.

The email issued by the system will be like that shown below –

The email narrative will be that set within the SO_EMAIL_TEXT application parameter.

Clicking the attachment (sent as a PDF) will detail the sales order acknowledgement.

Once the order has been accepted, it is possible to resend the email by clicking the Resend option on the side panel.

If the order is amended / revised, the menu option will display Accept and Send.

Emails are sent from the email address specified in the MAIL_SENDER_SO application parameter.

Audit Report

This report details the issuing of emails because of clicking the Accept and Send option on the side panel where the customer is configured to accept emails.

See Sales Related Emailing for details

Secondary Payments

When taking a secondary payment against a sales order or processing an ‘unallocated payment’ against a customer’s account where an email address has been recorded, the process allows the operator to specify if the payment receipt is to be emailed to the customer.

If the customer has an email address and the CASH_REC_EMAIL_DEFAULT is ticked, the Email Receipt checkbox will be ticked on the payments page.

The operator may choose to change this setting as required, subject to the customer having a default email address set and SwanFRS being configured to allowed email forwarding.

Once accepted, SwanFRS will email a copy of the cash receipt as a PDF attachment to a plain text email with the body details as specified in the CASH_REC_EMAIL_TEXT application parameter.

Emails are sent from the email address specified in the MAIL_SENDER_CASH application parameter.

Freestanding Messages

When viewing the customer’s account where the customer has an email address specified and there is at least one freestanding notification (alert) set, it is possible to email the customer via the EMAIL CUSTOMER button visible in the top central area screen.