- Open Messages and press New message, then search for the client. Or press Message on a client's page, or the Message tile on your phone's Create sheet (it opens the same search box).
- Type and send.
- With texting on, your message is a text from your business number and their reply lands in the same thread.
- Without texting, it goes to their client portal plus an email. A company not on the Voice plan sees a one-line note about that at the top of the inbox.
- Clients can also write to you from the Messages tab in their portal.
- Unread messages show as a red number on Messages (in the sidebar, or in More on a phone) and on the phone's + button. Opening a conversation takes its messages off the count.
- The separate Text button on jobs and client pages opens your own phone's messaging app instead. It's free and sends from your personal number.
Photos and videos
- Press Attach a photo (the picture button beside the message box) and pick one or more photos or short videos. They wait as thumbnails above the box — nothing is sent yet.
- On a computer you can also drag files onto the conversation and drop them, or paste a screenshot or copied picture with Ctrl+V (⌘V on a Mac). They land in the same spot.
- Type under them if you like, then press Send. Each file goes out as its own message, in order, and your words go with the first one. The × on a thumbnail takes it back out. Up to 10 per send; only photos and videos can be sent.
- With texting on, it goes out as a picture text from your business number. Phone carriers limit those to about 1 MB, so photos are shrunk on your device first and videos have to be short. Without texting, it lands in their client portal.
- Photos and videos they text you show up in the thread too.
- Photos and videos stay in the thread for a week. After that the message shows that the photo has expired, so save anything you want to keep.
A text from a number you don't know
It lands in Messages under the number itself, like an unknown caller on your phone. It is not in Clients or on the Leads board yet. Open the thread and the card at the top asks who it is: type a first name and press Save as a Lead (onto the Leads board — in Contacted if you have already replied, otherwise New), a Client, or a business Contact. Or press Add to existing, pick someone you already have, and the conversation moves to them and this becomes their number on file (the button says which number it replaces). The same card appears when you start a thread by typing a number. A text from a short code (a 5- or 6-digit sender: a verification code, a bank alert) lands here too, but that thread is read-only — nothing you send can reach an automated sender, so there is no reply box, Call button or save card.