Chippy Business - Invoicing: The Messages Page

Until now, every message in Chipply lived inside a store. That works when you're talking about a store, but some things you need to say aren't about one store: "Here's your monthly statement," "You have an invoice that's 15 days past due," or "Here's the link to see and pay what you owe."

The new Messages page, under Assets → Messages in the top navigation, is built for exactly that. Messages here go to your organization contacts, not to store shoppers, and they can go out once or repeat on a schedule.

Who has this?This feature is a part of Chipply One. If you aren't using Chipply One, you won't have this feature.

What's on the page

If you've used the Messages page inside a store, this will feel familiar. It has two tabs.

Tab	What you'll find
Scheduled	Messages that are waiting to go out: one-time messages scheduled for a later date, and recurring messages that keep sending on a schedule. You'll see each message's name, organization, message type, how it sends, recipients, and status. Click a message to edit it, or delete it to stop it.
History	Every message that has gone to your organization contacts, no matter where you sent it from, with the send date, organization, message name, subject, who it went to, and its status.

Looking for an invoice email you sent from a store?

Check here, not the store. Invoices and statements you send from a store's Sales Order Summary, the Accounts Receivable dashboard, or the Organizations page all count as organization messages, so they show up in Assets → Messages → History. They won't appear in that store's own History tab. Messages sent before this update show a blank Message Name.

Creating a message

Go to Assets → Messages and click the + button in the top right. The Message Contacts drawer opens with the message type already set to Message Organization Contacts. That's the only type on this page, since these messages aren't tied to a store.
Choose your organizations. Check All Organizations, or check just the ones you want.
Pull in a template (optional). Use Select from Template to load a saved template, or write the message from scratch. Chipply includes three to start with: Individual Invoice Notification, Account Statement, and Deposit Request. To create your own, see How to Create and Use a Message Template.
Name it (optional). A Message Name makes the message easy to spot on the Scheduled and History tabs, especially for recurring messages.
Pick a trigger. This decides whether the message goes out once or keeps repeating. See Triggers below.
Choose how to send it. Email is selected by default. You can switch to SMS or Both.
Pick your recipients in the To field. Check any mix of:
- Organization Branch Contact(s)
- Organization Billing Contact(s)
- Primary Organization Contact(s)
You can also type in any other email address. Store contacts and store salespeople aren't options here, because the message isn't about a store. If an organization has more than one contact of a type, each one gets their own copy of the email.
Write your subject and email body. Use + Add merge field to drop in merge fields. Only organization and dealer merge fields are available (no store fields). See Merge fields below.
Click Send Now (for a one-time message) or Schedule (for a recurring one). Recurring and scheduled messages show up on the Scheduled tab. Once something sends, you'll see it on History.

Triggers: one-time or recurring

There are four triggers. The first sends once. The other three are tied to invoicing and repeat, the same way an abandoned cart email keeps going out whenever it applies.

Trigger	How it works	Who gets it
Static Date	Sends once, on the date and time you set. Leave it as today to send right away.	Every organization you selected, whether or not they owe you anything.
Monthly on X day	Sends every month. Under Send on, pick 1st of the month, Last of month, or a Specific Day (for example, the 15th), then a time. "Last of month" saves you from counting 28, 30 or 31 days.	Only organizations with an open balance that month.
X days after invoice date	Sends one reminder per invoice, the number of Days after the invoice date that you choose.	Only if that invoice still has a balance due.
Every X days after invoice date	Keeps sending every X days for each invoice, and stops on its own once that invoice is paid.	Only while that invoice still has a balance due.

The open-balance rule (and the blue banner)

When you choose one of the three recurring triggers, a blue banner appears in the Email section: "Only organizations with an open balance will be notified." That means you can set up a reminder for all of your organizations without worrying about it: anyone who has paid everything off is skipped automatically, and starts getting it again if they have a new balance.

A Static Date message doesn't have that filter. It goes to everyone you selected, which is what you want for an announcement. Before you send an invoicing message to every organization at once, check that list one more time.

Include Invoice PDF

The two invoice-based triggers (X days after invoice date and Every X days after invoice date) are always about a specific invoice, so Include Invoice PDF is turned on for you, and you can't turn it off. It works like the store flyer on store messages: instead of a file attachment, the email includes a link that opens the invoice.

Merge fields

fill in details for each organization when the message sends, so one message can go to fifty organizations and still read like you wrote each one by hand. Because these messages aren't about a store, you'll only see dealer and organization fields here. The link fields can only go in the email body. The subject line offers just the name fields.

Merge field	What it adds to the message
Organization AR Payment URL	A link to the organization's Organization Portal. Their billing contact logs in with their email and a security code, then can see their open invoices, open deposit requests, and payment history, and pay online. See The Organization Portal.
Organization Deposit Payment URL	A link to the same Organization Portal, opened right to the deposit requests tab. Use it when you're asking for a deposit so they land exactly where they need to pay.
Customer Statement Link	A link to the organization's customer statement, created fresh when the message sends. The statement is a PDF of everything they currently owe you: your info and theirs, the statement date, the amount due, a list of every open invoice, an aging summary (how long balances have been open), a payment link, and your contact email. It always covers the whole organization, across all of its stores. See Collecting Payment and Tracking What's Owed.
Open Invoices Link	A bulleted list of links, one for each open invoice the organization has. Each link opens that invoice's PDF. If they don't have any open invoices, this shows up blank.
Dealer Name	Your company name.
Organization Name	The organization's name, for example "Greendale High School Athletics."
Primary Org Contact Name	The name of the organization's primary contact.
Billing Org Contact Name	The name of the organization's billing contact.
Org Branch Contact Name	The name of the branch contact.

Match the name to the recipient

The three contact-name fields work best when they match who you're sending to. If the message goes to the billing contact, use Billing Org Contact Name, and each billing contact will see their own name. If you use a name field for a contact type you didn't select in To, Chipply fills in the first contact of that type on the organization instead. That isn't an error, but the name may not be the person reading it.

Which link should I use?

"Here's how to pay": Organization AR Payment URL. It's the one link that always works, and it lets them pay several invoices at once.
"Here's everything you owe, in one document": Customer Statement Link.
"Here are the invoices themselves": Open Invoices Link.
"We need a deposit to get started": Organization Deposit Payment URL.

FAQ

Will a recurring reminder keep emailing someone who already paid?
- No. Recurring triggers only send to organizations with an open balance, and the "every X days" trigger stops for an invoice as soon as it's paid.
Can I message the shoppers or contacts on a store from here?
- No. This page is only for organization contacts. To message a store's shoppers or store contacts, use the Messages page inside that store.
Do I have to start here to message an organization?
- No. You can also message organization contacts from the Organizations page, from inside an organization, from the Accounts Receivable dashboard, and from a store's Sales Order Summary. See How to Message Your Organization Contacts Add link once live. Wherever you send from, the message lands in this page's History tab.
Can I search or filter the History tab?
- Not yet. Search and filters for message history are planned for an upcoming update.