Who this is for. AP Helpdesk Analysts, Specialists and Managers, and ProcureToPay Managers and Agents. The Mailbox opens for every AP role, on an agent running either function. See the Roles and Access.
Most mail out of the Mailbox is written by the agent. Sometimes it is not: a vendor needs something the agent has no answer for, or a thread needs a human reply before the agent can carry on.
There are two ways to write. Compose starts a new message to anyone. Reply and Forward continue a thread that already exists. This article covers both, and what the vendor sees when either is sent.
Before you send
A message sent from here goes out from the agent’s address, not yours. To the vendor it is indistinguishable from anything else the agent has sent them, and their reply comes back into this Mailbox rather than to you.
Two things follow. Write as the AP function rather than as yourself, and check whether the agent has already answered before you write, because a second reply on the same point reads badly at the vendor’s end.
Where the agent has written a draft and is waiting for release, releasing that draft is usually better than composing over the top of it. See Review the AI Decision.
Compose a new message
Show the folder panel with the icon to the left of Inbox.
Select Compose, above the folder list. The New Email window opens.
Figure 1. The New Email window.
Table 1. The New Email window.
Field or control |
Notes |
|---|---|
To |
The recipient. |
Cc and Bcc |
Optional. |
Subject |
Optional, but a message without one is harder for the vendor to find later and harder for the agent to thread. |
Editor toolbar |
Undo and redo, typeface and size, bold, italic and underline, text color, a link control and alignment. The ellipsis holds the rest. New messages start in Arial at 10pt. |
Attach local files |
Attaches a file from your machine. |
Send |
Sends the message. |
Close |
The cross at the top right closes the window. |
Fill in the recipient and the subject, write the message, and attach anything it needs.
Select Send.
The sent message appears in Sent.
Reply and forward
Reply and Forward sit at the foot of an open message in the By Threads view, and reply icons sit in the message header. The Email Thread panel carries its own Reply.
These open a composer under the message rather than a separate window.
Figure 2. The reply composer, with the recipient and subject already filled in.
What is filled in for you:
The recipient, shown as a chip. The cross on the chip removes it, so a reply can be redirected without starting again.
The subject, prefixed
Re:.The original message, quoted below the space you type in, introduced by the date and the sender’s address.
Leave the quoted text in place. It is what lets the vendor, and the agent, keep the exchange together as one thread.
Reply all addresses everyone on the original. On vendor mail that often includes people who do not need the answer, so use it deliberately rather than by habit.
Drafts
The Drafts folder holds replies the agent has written and not sent, with a count beside the folder name. These are the messages carrying the Draft Ready status in the By Incoming Messages view.
Filtering that view on Draft Ready is the quickest way to work through them, because it shows the agent’s reasoning alongside each draft rather than the draft on its own.