Emailing your clients from a project

When you need to tell a client something, email them from the job. Open the project, go to Client, and the email box is right at the top. It goes out under your business name, replies come back to you, and it lands on the job's record the moment it sends.

Your clients reach you the same way in reverse. Their customer portal shows a Questions? Contact card with your phone and email.

Writing an email

On the project's Client page, the card at the top is Email the homeowner. The composer is already open:

• To is filled in with the client's email. Change it if you need to reach a spouse, a designer or a second decision-maker.
• Subject and Message are yours.
• Hit Send email.

It sends from your business name and the client's replies go to your normal inbox. It also shows up in that contact's email history next to every other email BidCraft has sent them.

Owners and admins can send these. Sales can read the record but not send from it. A client email carries your business name, same as an invoice does.

Everything you've sent this client

Under the composer is a running list of everything that went out to that client for that job, newest first:

• Proposals you sent
• Change orders you sent
• Invoices you sent
• Payments that came in
• Any email you wrote from the composer

Each line says what it was, when it went and how it got there, like "Sent proposal · Jul 12, 2:04p · via email." You don't log anything. These land on the list on their own as you work.

It's the answer to "did I ever actually send them that change order?" One place to look instead of scrolling your sent folder.

[!note] The list starts from when BidCraft started keeping it. Sends from before that aren't shown. We'd rather show a short accurate list than make up history.

What happened to portal messages

BidCraft used to have a chat thread between you and the homeowner inside the portal, plus a Messages page in your menu. Almost nobody used it, and it only emailed the homeowner for the first unread message, so some messages seemed to go nowhere. It's been retired.

What changed:

• The chat thread is gone from the project's Client page. The email composer and the list of what you've sent are still there.
• The Messages tab is gone from the client's portal. Their portal Home now shows your phone and email so they can call or email you.
• Nobody can send a new portal message, from either side.

Your old messages are kept. Open the contact and look for Earlier portal messages on their Overview tab. It's a read-only record and only shows for clients who had a conversation.

Next steps

• The customer portal: what your client sees, including the contact card.
• Contacts and email history: every email BidCraft has sent a client, in full.