E-mailing from a record and knowing it went
How staff e-mail a lead, opportunity or client contact from its record in Achekam, what 'Sent' really means, and the one older form to avoid.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
A prospect rings the partner, irritated: they were promised a fee proposal last week and nothing arrived. The manager who was meant to send it is sure it went. The CRM said so. Nobody can say where it went, or whether it left the building at all.
Firms rely on e-mail for almost every step of winning and serving clients, and most of them have learned to distrust their own records of it. The fix is not complicated. Send from the record, so the message is kept with the lead or client, and understand exactly what the status beside it means.
The record e-mail composer
From a lead, an opportunity, a client contact or Client 360, staff can compose an e-mail, attach documents and send it, and the message is kept on that record. Staff can also see every client contact across the firm in one list and e-mail a contact from it.
Sending from the record rather than from a personal mailbox has three advantages:
- The history stays with the client or lead. A colleague picking up the relationship can read what was said without asking for forwarded e-mails.
- Nothing depends on one person's inbox. When a staff member leaves or is away, the correspondence does not leave with them.
- The status is visible to everyone. The question "did it go?" can be answered by anyone who opens the record.
Make sending from the record the firm's default for anything a prospect or client might later dispute: proposals, fee discussions, requests for information, deadline reminders.
AI presets that a person edits
The composer can draft from a preset. Staff choose a preset, ask AI for a first draft, then edit it and send it themselves. Nothing goes out until a person presses send.
Treat the draft as a starting point:
- Check every fact. Names, dates, services, fees, deadlines. A draft can be fluent and wrong.
- Remove anything you would not say. A draft sometimes promises more warmly than the firm intends.
- Add what only you know. The detail from the phone call, the client's preferred way of working.
Achekam's AI engine refuses any task whose type is giving an opinion, reaching a conclusion, approving or signing, and by default it removes South African ID numbers before text is sent to an AI vendor. For covering e-mails on client requests and signing envelopes there is a similar arrangement: AI can draft the covering e-mail, a person must read and send it, and the message is recorded as AI-drafted.
Attachments and the record
Attachments go with the message and are kept on the record with it. That makes the record a reliable answer to "which version of the proposal did we send?", a question that otherwise takes an afternoon of searching sent folders.
Two habits help:
- Name attachments so they can be recognised later, with the client, the document and a version or date.
- Attach the final version only. If a draft goes by mistake, send the correct one from the same record with a short explanation, so the history shows both.
'Sent' means the provider accepted it
This is the most important line in the article. In the record composer, "Sent" means only that the mail provider accepted the message. It does not mean the message reached the recipient's inbox, escaped their spam filter, or was read.
That honesty is deliberate, and it is the correct standard. Once a message has been handed to the mail provider, delivery depends on systems the firm does not control. So for anything that matters:
| The message is... | What to do |
|---|---|
| Routine | "Sent" is enough |
| Time-sensitive | Ask the recipient to confirm receipt |
| A proposal or engagement document | Follow up by phone if there is no response |
| Disputed later | Show the record, and the recipient's confirmation if you have one |
Client requests sent through the RFI console are tracked differently: each request shows a timeline of e-mails, opens, clicks, uploads and answers, and is flagged "Delivery failed" when the mail provider refused it or none is set up. Opens are detected with a tracking image, so they are only an indication. Do not expect the same timeline on an ordinary record e-mail.
Whether an e-mail has legal effect is a separate question from whether it was delivered. In South Africa, the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act gives legal recognition to electronic communications, transactions and electronic signatures; Nigerian and Kenyan law have their own provisions. For anything with legal consequences, such as a notice under an engagement letter, take advice on how it must be given rather than relying on a "Sent" status.
The pipeline card's older form
One place in the CRM still behaves differently. The e-mail button on a sales pipeline card uses an older form that shows "Email Dispatched Successfully" even when the server did not send the message. The lead and opportunity pages use the composer that reports honestly.
Until that card is replaced, the practical rule is simple: do not e-mail from the pipeline card. Open the lead or opportunity and send from its page. Tell every new member of staff this on their first day with the CRM, because the older form's message is convincing, and it is exactly the kind of false reassurance that produces the angry phone call at the top of this article.
How e-mails, requests and other contact build up into one history per client is covered in the client communication record. For automated e-mails that stop when a lead replies, see follow-up sequences that stop when a lead replies.
Check this week which staff still e-mail from pipeline cards, and move them to the record pages before the next proposal goes out.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
