You don’t need a printer, stationery, stamps or a visit to the post office to get your important business post delivered. It can all be done online with a few clicks and we’ll show you how easy it is.
Given the current state of the world, you may find that you are either working remotely, working at home or about to find yourself in such a position. Don’t let this affect important documents or critical letters. Gone are the days where you have to send a document to the printer, get up, pick up the pieces of paper, fold them, put them in an envelope, stamp the envelope and take it to the post office. Now it’s all online and it can all be automated.
While much of your documentation and mail can be sent through email, there are sometimes situations where physical mail is required or clients who prefer paper records. Be it invoices or statements, legal documentation, health records or letters, our online post tool can save you time and keep your mail running while working remotely.
Whatever you mail, it just got smarter — skip the hassle of printing, folding, dealing with temperamental seeming toner cartridges, finding a post office. Find out how you can make online post work for your business.
How Online Post Works
At ClickSend, we have a fully automated print centre which can handle all of your letter printing (and custom postcard) needs.
💻 Send your letters to ClickSend (very easy)
You can send your letters to the ClickSend print centre in three ways. By uploading your document directly into the ClickSend online dashboard. Or from your computer’s print options by downloading the free ClickSend print-to-post driver. Or your documents can be sent automatically by integrating ClickSend into your company software using our API or via services like Zapier. More on these in a bit….
📄 We get them printed (in the best possible way)
Once your documents are received at ClickSend they are printed out on high tech, world-class printers, that are constantly monitored for quality and efficiency, on the best quality paper.
✉️ Then folded, stuffed, sealed and stamped (automatically)
We automatically scan the document for name and address then our machines fold your documents, place them in stamped envelopes and drop them into a container.
📮 And they’re off being delivered (before you can change a printer cartridge)
A courier picks up the containers of letters and takes them to the post office for dispatch. Simple.
How to Set Up Your Business with Online Post
Now we’ll look at in more detail at the three different ways you can send mail from your computer straight to your recipient’s postbox; via our dashboard, print-to-post driver or API/integration.
Firstly, if you don’t have a ClickSend account it takes a few clicks to sign up and you get some free credit to test everything on our dashboard; that’s SMS, Email, Voice, Online Fax and of course Online Post. Open, or sign in to your account here.
Scroll or swipe to see our simple 2-step sign up process.
Once you’re on our dashboard just click the Post option in the left nav and it’s time to get your document to us.
Sending your documents to ClickSend
Upload in our dashboard
There are two ways you can upload your document — Quick Letter and Send Letter.
Quick Letter
In Quick Letter, you simply drag and drop your letter into the dashboard and we automatically detect the recipient’s name and address.
When signed into the dashboard, choose Post from the left-hand navigation menu and ‘Quick Letter’. Drop-in your document and in a few clicks your letter is with us, ready for printing and mailing.
Send Letter
In Send Letter you can send a letter to your whole contact list — we automatically add their name and address to the letter.
Note: ensure when you have created your contact list that you included the recipient’s address in the upload. If you want to know more about Contact Lists and everything ClickSend visit https://help.clicksend.com/.
Choose your contact list and your reply address, then you can choose to upload a document or create a document within our dashboard.
If choosing to upload, make sure that the document is the correct size and portrait orientation. Here’s more information on how to format your letters.
Once your document has been uploaded choose your ink (greyscale or colour) and whether you want them printed both sides. You can tick the priority box for your mail to be sent sooner.
Then simply hit send and sit back while we take the effort out of mailing documents.
Using our Free Print-to-Post driver
Our print-to-post driver allows your computer to talk to our printer, without having to upload documents through the dashboard. Once installed, you can click print on any document (Word, PDF etc) and our online printer will be visible as a printer option for you to get printing, which actually means get to printed and posted!
Downloading the driver is easy. Go to https://dashboard.clicksend.com/#/post/settings/printer-driver within the dashboard.
This can also be found by clicking your profile picture in the top right corner, selecting ‘messaging settings’, then clicking the ‘Post’ tab followed by the ‘Printer Driver’ tab below.
Swipe or scroll to see how to access and download our free Print-to-Post drivers.
Downloading the ClickSend Print-to-Post driver
Once you’ve chosen to download the Windows or Mac version open the installer and follow the prompts.
Once the driver has been installed ‘ClickSend Post’ should appear as a printer option whenever you choose to print:
Integrating ClickSend Post into your software
For those that may not know what ‘integration’ is it is when you have a piece of third-party software connected (integrated) to existing software you or your company use. For instance, you could use an accounting software package and need to send hard copy invoices and statements at month-end. You have ClickSend Post integrated into your accounting software and every time an invoice is raised in it, it automatically goes to ClickSend Post and is delivered to the recipient’s address. Integrations save huge amounts of time on what are repetitive tasks.
Integrations can be built in several ways the two most popular are connecting directly using APIs or via third party integration software.
Post API
An API (Application Programming Interface) is a bit of software you build that allows your application to communicate with another application. ClickSend has its own API you can access via our Developer Portal and allows you to build Posty functionality (and more) directly into your website/web application. Technical knowledge is required for API level integration but we already integrate directly with lots of software, some you may already be using! Check our integrations marketplace to see: https://integrations.clicksend.com/
Or you can build the integration yourself by downloading our sample post API code to confirm it is compatible with your system. Our post API can integrate into your existing code and make the printing and posting of your documents totally automated and super, super easy.
Third-party integration software
The other and most popular way is using products like IFTTT and Zapier, which are nifty pieces of software that get applications communicating with each other with limited technical knowledge required. You sign up to them online and in a few clicks can have your software connected with the world’s most popular CRMs, accounting, eCommerce, social, productivity, business, development, and email applications.
You can sign up for a free account and connect your ClickSend account with hundreds of different applications.
Here are some of our most popular integrations:
- Send invoices, orders or account statements as they are created or fall due, or confirm payments have been made, through integrating with your accounts software like Xero or Stripe.
- Connect your CRM to send letters to your clients whenever they place an online order.
- Send letters based on your calendar — post documents after meetings and have them triggered by your Calendly, Google Calendar or other scheduling tool.
These are just a few examples, but any document that is sent based on a trigger or user behaviour, can be automated. Check out our integrations to see whether your current tools can be linked up, giving you several ways to shave time off your document sending.
Also, with these integrations you can trigger other actions like send SMS, send MMS, create contact, send postcard, send fax or even send a text-to-speech voice call.
Bonus: Print Secure Letters with Our Security Features
Did you know that we also offer the following letter security features?
- Concealed PIN
- Security envelope
- Concealed security squares
For more information on how to use these features, check out our letter security page.
Remote work or new working from home arrangements don’t have to negatively affect your printing processes. Use this time to set up your online print to post service and wonder why you had not done it sooner. Sign up for your free trial to see how easy it is for yourself, or chat to one of our friendly customer support members via 24/7 live chat about which options are best for your remote business. To chat, just click the face in the bottom right corner of your screen.
