Email addresses - The Book-keepers Forum (UK)

ChrisBolton · Senior Member

Email addresses

VinceH · Expert

That's how I do things, more or less. Even if you still have everything going into the same mailbox, a separate address for each client makes it easy to filter things - especially if you are likely to get stuff from third parties relating to those clients. Some people don't always make the connection and even realise that you may be receiving email relating to more than one separate company, and not put anything in the email which makes it obvious which of your clients they're emailing you about. That email address does the trick.

I go a step further, though, and use separate mailboxes for each main client (with a general one for possible clients, etc). It keeps things even more distinct - but whether that's suitable for you depends on your needs (as well as what facilities you have).

FWIW, I also do something similar at an email address (not mailbox) level for most sites etc I need to sign up to (forums, shopping sites, etc) - so if any of them have a little security issue, and the address is leaked out and starts receiving junk, I know what site got its lock picked.

Leger · Master Book-keeper

Hi Chris

If you use Thunderbird as an email client, you can use rules to separate emails from different clients, putting them into their own folder.

Otherwise a separate email would work just as well.

Hi Vince, long time no see, hope you're keeping well.

VinceH · Expert

Hi John,

In theory, I've been here the whole time - but I tend not to read my RSS feeds very often, so every once and a while for some feeds if the number of unread posts gets too high I just wipe them and start afresh. I think I did read a few things and post something a month or two back. Probably one of the fun threads.

I'm still as busy as ever, but with less work (just a couple of regular clients now, and a couple of less regular bits) and more non-work stuff - the overall reduced workload being largely the covid effect, as you might guess. I have _just_ the right amount in terms of the work/life balance, though obviously reduced work means reduced income, so the bank balance would prefer it if I had more. I can get by, though, as long as there are no further setbacks and changes.

But speaking of changes, my biggest client has recently changed hands, and things generally are changing there (such as an imminent change from Sage to (spit)Xero(/spit). I think I _should_ be okay there for the rest of this year, and into the start of next - but beyond that, it's possible that I'll have to look for more work. If it does come to that, I may even make it a job search, and look for the simplicity of a 9-5 (or ideally to keep that work/life balance, something part time that pays enough).

How are things your end?

(And who else is still around? The RSS feed for this forum doesn't include author details for posts, so I can't see at a glance. Perhaps I should try and keep up with reading posts for a while!)

Edit: The forum mistook my original spits around the name Xero as (invalid) HTML tags and made them vanish, so I've added them again in normal brackets.

-- Edited by VinceH on Friday 12th of March 2021 07:52:12 PM

VinceH · Expert

Forgot to point out: All modern email software should offer filtering options, not just Thunderbird! ;)

Leger · Master Book-keeper

Hi Vince

Glad to hear that you're keeping your head above water and happy with the work/life balance. Hope things remain settled for you, at least in the foreseeable future.

Sadly I got my fingers burnt when I received the Small Business Rates Relief Grant in May last year. A lot of my work is in Doncaster (where I lived for 15 years and have a lot of contacts) and I live in North Yorkshire. I thought it would be a brilliant idea to run my business in Donny and operate out of retail premises. My costs increased 4 fold but my income remained static. I had enough to see me through for 6 months and the aim was to be back at break even point by then. Covid was a major contributor to that failing I think.

The good news is I now have another office back in Ripon at a much reduced cost. I'm currently working on a new website and once that's done I'll start promoting the business. The other good news is that, so far, I've only lost one client, despite a few of my clients being severely impacted.

I have had a look at other email clients, but I've found nothing to come close, apart from Seamonkey, (more browser than email client though) which I think runs on a similar engine.

There's still a few around, although Joanne doesn't post here now (see her occasionally on aweb)

VinceH · Expert

re Thunderbird... yes. My point wasn't to suggest you (or the OP) try another client; it was that you mentioned Thunderbird's filtering abilities as though they were unique to it. Filtering should be a fundamental feature of any good email client.

And yes, SeaMonkey is I believe built from a fork of the Thunderbird source code, which in turn has some Firefox derived source code in its base - so its easy to see how it looks - or could be built to look - more browser like. I've never actually tried it myself, though. TBH, I'm starting to get a bit annoyed at the way Thunderbird is going at times. For example, when it popped up a spelling correction dialogue recently, I tried to move the dialogue to one side to see the context of the mistake it had picked up - but doing so moved the whole write-mail window, preventing me from seeing that context. That's a big user interface fail!

Ouch. I don't like the maths there, so well done on coming up with a better alternative.

On the bright side with the changes my end, switching to Xero (nips to the bathroom for some mouthwash) means I can reduce my use of Windows a little more. So there's that. :)