Set Up Email

Out of the box, every email Paperwork sends for you comes from Dsposal’s email address, so your customer sees Dsposal as the sender. This page puts your own domain on the "from" line and sets the wording of your quote email, so that your first real quote on step 11 goes out from your business.

Before you start

• You are an organisation Owner. Settings is open to organisation Owners only. Anyone else sees "Only organisation Owners can manage settings." See Set up your organisation and team.
• You own a domain and can change its DNS records, or you know the person who can. This is usually your company website's domain. The sending domain has to be one you control, because you prove it by adding records to it.
• Your company profile and core settings are done. Your logo and letterhead print on the PDFs that the emails carry, not on the email itself. See Add your company profile and logo and Choose your core settings.

Open Settings under Admin in the Paperwork sidebar and click the Email tab. Unlike the first four tabs, Email has no Save changes button. Each part saves as you use it.

See where your emails come from today

At the top of the Email tab, a banner tells you the current state. Before you add a domain it says "Right now, every email — quotes, invoices and the rest — is sent from Dsposal’s email address. Add and verify your own domain below to send from your business instead."

Add and verify a sending domain

Add the domain

Click Add domain, type the domain in Domain (for example example.com) and click Add. Paperwork sets it up with Azure, which can take up to a minute. Keep the window open.

Add the DNS records

A DNS records window lists each record by Type, Name, Value and TTL, with a copy button beside each. Add every record at your domain registrar or DNS host. If someone else looks after your DNS, send them this list. You can reopen it at any time with View DNS.

Wait, then check the status

DNS changes take 15–30 minutes. Click Check status. When it succeeds you will see Domain verified, and the badge beside the domain changes to Verified. The other badges are Pending, Verifying and Failed.

If you see "This domain is already registered", the domain has already been added. "Enter a valid domain name" means what was typed is not a proper domain. To stop using a domain, click Remove and confirm Remove domain. You would need to verify it again to bring it back.

Add your from addresses

Once a domain is verified, From addresses appears. These are the addresses your emails can come from. Paperwork creates one for you with a Default badge: donotreply on your domain, shown as "Do not reply". It cannot be removed.

Click Add address

If you have more than one verified domain, choose the Domain first.

Enter the mailbox and display name

Mailbox is the part before the @, for example accounts. Display name is what the recipient sees, for example Acme Accounts. Use letters, numbers, dots, hyphens and underscores in the mailbox. Click Add.

A sensible start is one address for quotes (such as sales) and one for invoices (such as accounts). You can add more later.

Choose who each type of email comes from

Default sender per document has a row for each type of email: Sales (quotes), Job, Invoice, Credit note, Purchase order and Portal invitation. Pick an address in each row. It saves immediately and shows Saved.

Nothing is assigned for you. Verifying a domain does not change any row until you choose an address for it, and rows left on Sends from Dsposal’s email address keep sending from Dsposal. A note on the tab counts how many types are still doing that.

This sets the From address only. The reply-to can be different, and you choose it on the page where you send the document. The Email window for a quote has From, Reply-to, To, Subject and Message fields.

Write the default quote email

At the bottom of the tab, Quote email templates sets the default Subject and Message used when someone emails a quote. Leave a field blank to use Dsposal's built-in wording, whose subject is Quote {{QuoteNumber}} from {{OrgName}}.

You can use these placeholders, exactly as written:

• {{CustomerName}}
• {{QuoteNumber}}
• {{QuoteExpiryDate}}
• {{Total}}
• {{SenderName}}
• {{OrgName}}

Click Save templates. You will see Quote email templates saved.

Invoice and credit note emails have their own template, on the Invoicing & Finance tab. You looked at it on step 4.

If you skip this

• No verified domain — everything keeps sending from Dsposal's address. Nothing breaks, but your customers receive your quotes and invoices from an address that is not yours.
• A domain added but not verified — exactly the same as having no domain. The sender rows stay locked.
• A verified domain but no default sender chosen — every type of email still goes from Dsposal's address. Verifying a domain does not choose anything for you.
• No quote template — Dsposal's built-in subject and message are used, which are perfectly serviceable.
• A misspelt placeholder — it is replaced with nothing, so the customer sees a gap in the sentence.

Check it worked

• On the Email tab, the banner now says "Emails now send from your own domain. Set who each one comes from below." and the domain shows Verified.
• Under Default sender per document, each type you care about shows your address rather than Sends from Dsposal’s email address.
• If you wrote a quote template, the Quote email templates saved message appeared. You will see the template in action when you email your first quote on step 11.

What to do next

Step 11, Run your first real job, takes one real piece of work from quote to invoice and checks each stage against the setup you have just finished.

• Email settings — every field on the Email tab
• Finance settings — the invoice email template and its placeholders
• Sales — emailing a quote
• Set up the customer portal — portal invitations use the Portal invitation sender