Miscellaneous

Custom letters overview

DT Practice enables you to create custom letters that you can send to your clients, contacts, staff, offices, or others. Using the
Custom Formats
 screen, you can format these letters to meet your needs, add a logo or other graphics, and print addresses and other information automatically using information from your database.

Types of letters

When you create a new custom letter, you must select the type of letter: Client, Contact, Firm, Office, or Staff. This selection determines the subset of contacts to whom you can automatically address the letter, and also determines which fields you can select from the Fields pane for inclusion on the letter.
  • A
    Client
     letter can be addressed automatically to your firm’s clients, using the mailing address entered for the client on the Contact Info tab of the Clients setup screen. You can add information from client-related fields to the letter.
  • A
    Contact
     letter can be addressed automatically to any contact: clients, standalone contacts, staff members, and offices, using the mailing address entered for the contact. You can add information from contact-related fields to the letter.
  • A
    Firm
     letter must be addressed manually to its recipients. You can add information from firm-related fields to the letter.
  • An
    Office
     letter can be sent to the primary contacts for each of your firm’s offices, using the mailing addresses entered for the offices on the Contact Info tab of the Office setup screen. You can add information from office-related fields to the letter.
  • A
    Staff
     letter can be addressed automatically to your firm’s staff members, using the mailing address on the Contact Info tab of the Staff setup screen. You can add information from staff-related fields to the letter.
If you choose to email letters to recipients, the letters will be emailed as attachments using the primary email addresses entered on the Contact Info tab on the relevant setup screen.

Creating and modifying letters

In many cases, you will merely need to copy an existing letter format and edit the text of the letter before selecting recipients and printing or emailing. For more information on creating and customizing letters, review the following articles:
  • Creating custom formats
  • Modifying custom formats
note
You can use the Print On Pages attribute in the Properties pane to specify whether the page header should print on all pages of a letter, or not print on pages that feature the report header.
You may also want to search the Practice CS Library portlet for letter formats that you can customize for your firm’s needs.

This article applies to:

  • Product: DT Practice