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Mail - Common Recurring Receipt Ideas

Fred Garvin

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I'm the Treasurer of a club....I've converted my dues charts and attendance charts to Pages, so I'm digital on the iPad there.

When folks pay their dues, I mark them off on the chart, and also have a 2-Part receipt book....give them the original and I keep the copy.

I'd like to email them a receipt, and keep a cc in an iCloud folder.....

I can't really see a way in iPad Mail to do a "form" email....where all I do is quickly fill in the person's email and amount, and hit send....you know? It would take too long to compose an email for each and every person.....it would take an hour for everyone to pay dues each month....

Any ideas?
 

twerppoet

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If you are already generating the receipt as a Pages document, and only one receipt per document, then you can send the receipts as a PDF via mail. Just use the Send a Copy option under the share icon (box with up arrow) then choose the PDF option.

To have your own archived copy I see two fairly easy options. One is to copy yourself in the email, and archive it in a folder when you receive it. If you do this with your iCloud account's email address, then technically it's archived in iCloud. This is somewhat searchable, and will be available on any computer or device that can access that email account. {this will not work with POP3 accounts which can not create or use extra folders on the iPad}

The other option is to copy the email to another online service. Evernote would be the obvious choice. When you get an Evernote account it comes with an email address you can use to send stuff to it. There are other tricks you can use to make it even more automatic and searchable. A basic, free, account is probably all you would need for this.

As a bonus, it would be a good way to keep meeting notes and other records for the club. You can even share different notebooks with the other officers, keeping everyone on the same page.

Here's some ideas on using Evernote accounts. http://www.ipadforums.net/ipad-apps/105051-evernote-how-do-you-use-tips-tricks.html


Or you could make an email template/form and do much the same to share it.

If the email is all plain text, you could type it out in an app like Notes, then copy and paste it into Mail as needed. You can even mail directly from Notes, if you like.

If you want to do something fancier you could type the email in another app does Rich Text, or even HTML text. Evernote allows quite a bit of Rich Text Format (RTF), including tables, which might be useful for your purposes. When copied and pasted into an email most of that formatting is retained. You'd have to experiment a bit to see what does and does not work. Done this way you could even create each receipt directly in Evernote (by duplicating a blank) and email them from there. Though this will result in some unnecessary extra text.

There are plenty of other text editor that you can use to create the template. Most will let you email directly from them.


The other option, and probably the best, would be not to use Pages at all. It's not really suited to what you want to do. Numbers is better for tracking purposes. As for the receipts, I've found that I can select, copy, then Open In to PDF Converter to create a PDF of a single or multiple tables. Or if you only need a template you can email the entire document as a PDF, just like Pages. It would be an ok (though hardly great) way to send the receipts. There is an Invoice template that could probably be simplified to make a decent receipt.


Or you could look into a database app that would probably fit all your needs much better. FormConnect lets you create forms to be filled out. It keeps a record of all forms you create/fill out, and they can be emailed as PDF. An occasionally backup (from the app) would meet your archive needs.


There are probably dozens of ways to approach the problem. These are just the ones that occurred to me, based on apps I already have or am somewhat familiar with through research.
 
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skimonkey

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I'm not sure if you tried anyone of the PDF apps to do this task. Maybe this isn't what you want to do, however, you could create a "form" on Pages and then load it to an app, such as PDF Forms.

Here is an example of what I did to show you what I mean...

On Pages, I created a generic form:


image-3386925711.jpg

I then emailed a copy of it to myself, converting it to a PDF.

Once received, I opened the attachment in the PDF Forms to get this...



image-1444231554.jpg

Here, you can add text and also include a customer signature....


image-4288204783.jpg

Once done, it can be saved then sent later to your members via email.


Or....you could easily take a picture of the receipt on your phone and save it to your email. From there you can then send a copy of it to your club members later on.

Hope that helps.
 
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Fred Garvin

Fred Garvin

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Okay, interesting ideas....

I'll revisit Evernote....I looked at it once a long time ago, but I think I got rid of it because of the subscription model...I think....it's been a while.

My attendance and dues charts are simple tables....each cell gets an "x"......originally created in Word so easily exported to Pages....anything more complex would have been done in Excel/Numbers. I'm only concerned with "here tonight" and "dues paid"......

What I did tonight:

Created an email with general information in it....dues paid, how much. I sent it to myself with the subject: January Dues Receipt.

When someone paid dues, I simply replied to the email, added them to it from Contacts (I have everyone in Contacts), put their name in the subject line (January Dues Receipt - John) and sent it.

They get the email, I also get the email and move it to an iCloud folder. When I look in the folder I have a bunch of emails with the same subject but different names. Easy sorting and searching.

Simple....not too elegant though....something pretty would be nicer.....

iPad Air 32Gb Wi-Fi; 17" MacBook Pro; 24" iMac; iPhone 4; iPod Nano 6th Gen; iPod Shuffle; Apple TV 2
 

skimonkey

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Okay, interesting ideas.... I'll revisit Evernote....I looked at it once a long time ago, but I think I got rid of it because of the subscription model...I think....it's been a while. My attendance and dues charts are simple tables....each cell gets an "x"......originally created in Word so easily exported to Pages....anything more complex would have been done in Excel/Numbers. I'm only concerned with "here tonight" and "dues paid"...... What I did tonight: Created an email with general information in it....dues paid, how much. I sent it to myself with the subject: January Dues Receipt. When someone paid dues, I simply replied to the email, added them to it from Contacts (I have everyone in Contacts), put their name in the subject line (January Dues Receipt - John) and sent it. They get the email, I also get the email and move it to an iCloud folder. When I look in the folder I have a bunch of emails with the same subject but different names. Easy sorting and searching. Simple....not too elegant though....something pretty would be nicer..... iPad Air 32Gb Wi-Fi; 17" MacBook Pro; 24" iMac; iPhone 4; iPod Nano 6th Gen; iPod Shuffle; Apple TV 2

Sometimes it's better to keep it simple rather then focusing on the pretty issue! If it works for you I'd stick with it! :)
 

twerppoet

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Okay, interesting ideas....

I'll revisit Evernote....I looked at it once a long time ago, but I think I got rid of it because of the subscription model...I think....it's been a while.

My attendance and dues charts are simple tables....each cell gets an "x"......originally created in Word so easily exported to Pages....anything more complex would have been done in Excel/Numbers. I'm only concerned with "here tonight" and "dues paid"......

What I did tonight:

Created an email with general information in it....dues paid, how much. I sent it to myself with the subject: January Dues Receipt.

When someone paid dues, I simply replied to the email, added them to it from Contacts (I have everyone in Contacts), put their name in the subject line (January Dues Receipt - John) and sent it.

They get the email, I also get the email and move it to an iCloud folder. When I look in the folder I have a bunch of emails with the same subject but different names. Easy sorting and searching.

Simple....not too elegant though....something pretty would be nicer.....

iPad Air 32Gb Wi-Fi; 17" MacBook Pro; 24" iMac; iPhone 4; iPod Nano 6th Gen; iPod Shuffle; Apple TV 2


Hey, if it works, that's all you need.

If you decide to use Evernote the workflow would be almost the same, but you'd have something easier to search, index, and archive (if needed). Unless your membership is huge the free Evernote account should be more than enough.

It is also somewhat prettier, though not much.

Though, I warn you, the service tends to grow on you, and at some point you may decide a premium account is worth the money. ;)


{ I see our emoji have been restored on the website :D }
 
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Fred Garvin

Fred Garvin

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It worked....and really impressed everyone.....with the charts on the iPad and an emailed receipt....LOL....it felt good but really, in its simplicity I didn't feel all that "accomplished" I guess you'd say....

iPad Air 32Gb Wi-Fi; 17" MacBook Pro; 24" iMac; iPhone 4; iPod Nano 6th Gen; iPod Shuffle; Apple TV 2
 

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