Making a first impression is an important part of the sales process, but continuing that impression can be instrumental in building a strong relationship with your customer.
Using a tool like Freshbooks to manage your business accounting can be a great way to maximize your time and your bottom line, but you can also add WebMerge to automatically populate professional looking documents like contracts, quotes, letters and more.
In this example, we’re going to show you how to automatically populate a welcome letter when we add a new client to Freshbooks. We’ll then mail this letter (yes, real mail) to our client via Lob. Talk about an impression!
To get started, we’re going to setup the template for our letter using a Word document. Inside Word, we’re going to add our repeating information for the letter (logo, contact info, etc) then for the spots that we want to customize with our client’s information, we’re going to use merge fields that look like {$FirstName}, {$Address}, etc.
Here’s what our letter template looks like:
Once we have our template ready, we need to upload it to WebMerge. From the Documents page in WebMerge, click the New Document button and enter a name. On the next step, pick Office Document as the document type then pick the file from your computer.
After you’ve uploaded your template, you’ll be taken to the Settings tab where you can modify various options like the type of file that is generated and the name of the file. For this example, we’re going to generate a PDF and include the name of our client in the PDF file name so we can easily track in Lob.
Next, we’re going to setup the Delivery of our document so that it is automatically sent over to Lob for printing and mailing. Under the Deliver tab, click the New Delivery button and select Lob from the list. After you enter your Lob API Key, you’ll need to enter the merge fields for your client’s address.
If you don’t have merge fields in your doc for a certain address setting, simply type in a new merge field in the box like {$City}.
Once you have saved your Lob delivery, we are done with the setup process inside WebMerge and we’re ready to integrate with Freshbooks. To help with the integration, we’re going to use our friends over at Zapier.
Inside Zapier, we’re going to setup a New Zap. For the Trigger, we’re going to choose Freshbooks as the app, then New Client as the trigger.
Once you authenticate your Freshbooks account, Zapier is going to load a client to make sure that everything is working correctly.
Next, we’re going to setup the Action of our Zap. For the app, choose WebMerge, then Create Document Merge as the action.
After you’ve authenticated your WebMerge account, Zapier is going to load a list of the documents in your account. Go ahead and pick the letter that you just setup and Zapier will load a list of the merge fields in your document.
For each of the merge fields, you need to pick the corresponding fields from Freshbooks. This tells Zapier how to send your data over to WebMerge so that it is populated in the correct spot on your template.
Once you have matched up all of your merge fields, you can save your Zap then turn it On. We’re ready for a test! Login to Freshbooks and add a new client. Zapier will detect this new client and send the information over to WebMerge. Your letter will be generated and sent over to Lob for mailing.
Here’s what our merged letter looked like ready to mail!
Congrats, you’re all finished! You can now instantly populate all kinds of documents with data from Freshbooks. Can you think of any other ways you can use WebMerge to simplify your paperwork process?
Using a tool like Freshbooks to manage your business accounting can be a great way to maximize your time and your bottom line, but you can also add WebMerge to automatically populate professional looking documents like contracts, quotes, letters and more.
In this example, we’re going to show you how to automatically populate a welcome letter when we add a new client to Freshbooks. We’ll then mail this letter (yes, real mail) to our client via Lob. Talk about an impression!
To get started, we’re going to setup the template for our letter using a Word document. Inside Word, we’re going to add our repeating information for the letter (logo, contact info, etc) then for the spots that we want to customize with our client’s information, we’re going to use merge fields that look like {$FirstName}, {$Address}, etc.
Here’s what our letter template looks like:
Once we have our template ready, we need to upload it to WebMerge. From the Documents page in WebMerge, click the New Document button and enter a name. On the next step, pick Office Document as the document type then pick the file from your computer.
After you’ve uploaded your template, you’ll be taken to the Settings tab where you can modify various options like the type of file that is generated and the name of the file. For this example, we’re going to generate a PDF and include the name of our client in the PDF file name so we can easily track in Lob.
Next, we’re going to setup the Delivery of our document so that it is automatically sent over to Lob for printing and mailing. Under the Deliver tab, click the New Delivery button and select Lob from the list. After you enter your Lob API Key, you’ll need to enter the merge fields for your client’s address.
If you don’t have merge fields in your doc for a certain address setting, simply type in a new merge field in the box like {$City}.
Once you have saved your Lob delivery, we are done with the setup process inside WebMerge and we’re ready to integrate with Freshbooks. To help with the integration, we’re going to use our friends over at Zapier.
Inside Zapier, we’re going to setup a New Zap. For the Trigger, we’re going to choose Freshbooks as the app, then New Client as the trigger.
Once you authenticate your Freshbooks account, Zapier is going to load a client to make sure that everything is working correctly.
Next, we’re going to setup the Action of our Zap. For the app, choose WebMerge, then Create Document Merge as the action.
After you’ve authenticated your WebMerge account, Zapier is going to load a list of the documents in your account. Go ahead and pick the letter that you just setup and Zapier will load a list of the merge fields in your document.
For each of the merge fields, you need to pick the corresponding fields from Freshbooks. This tells Zapier how to send your data over to WebMerge so that it is populated in the correct spot on your template.
Once you have matched up all of your merge fields, you can save your Zap then turn it On. We’re ready for a test! Login to Freshbooks and add a new client. Zapier will detect this new client and send the information over to WebMerge. Your letter will be generated and sent over to Lob for mailing.
Here’s what our merged letter looked like ready to mail!
Congrats, you’re all finished! You can now instantly populate all kinds of documents with data from Freshbooks. Can you think of any other ways you can use WebMerge to simplify your paperwork process?
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