Email & SMS
Firm email and SMS, and bulk campaigns to your client list — all logged to each client.
Overview
Email and SMS live inside OneHQ, next to everything else you know about a client. A message you send goes out under the firm's name, a reply lands where you can see it, and every one of them files itself onto the client's record — so the next person to open that client already knows what's been said.
Nothing to bolt on: SMS is built in, and campaigns pull straight from your real client list rather than a spreadsheet you have to keep in step.
Email comes in two parts, and they do different jobs.
Your Email
Connect your own mailbox and the emails you already exchange with clients file themselves onto the right client record — no forwarding, no copying, no separate inbox to check. It's a read-only sync: OneHQ shows you the mail on the client's timeline, but you reply from your normal mail app, the way you always have. Any attachment that comes in can be saved straight to the client's Files.
Team Email
Team Email is a shared firm inbox that individual and bulk emails go out from, so clients see one consistent address from the practice rather than a different personal address each time. Set it once and every send — a one-off note or a whole campaign — carries the firm's name.
SMS
OneHQ has SMS built in — no separate account to open. Each practice gets its own number, the first 100 messages a month are free, and after that it's about 10c + GST a message. When a client texts back, the reply comes into an inbox inside OneHQ and threads with everything else you've sent them.
Campaigns
A campaign is a bulk email or SMS built from your real client list, so the audience is always current.
Pick who it goes to
Start from a built-in segment — Everyone, Business clients, Employers, BAS, SMSF or ITR — then refine it with filters, or simply tick the clients you want on any list in OneHQ. The recipient count updates as you go, so you always know how many people you're about to reach.
Make it yours
Personalise the message with merge fields that fill in each client's own details, brand it as your firm, and attach a PDF or image. These are the merge fields you can drop into a message:
| Merge field | Resolves to |
|---|---|
{{greeting}} | A ready-made greeting — the client's first name, or the entity's name for a company or trust |
{{first_name}} | The client's first name |
{{surname}} | The client's surname |
{{client_name}} | The client's full name |
{{display_name}} | The name you display for the client |
{{accountant}} | The client's assigned accountant |
{{bookkeeper}} | The client's assigned bookkeeper |
A merge field with no value for a client simply renders as nothing — never as raw {{…}} text in the sent message.
Check, send and see how it did
Before it goes out, the review step names every recipient. A client with no email address on file is shown too, greyed out, so you can spot and fix a gap rather than silently miss someone. An unsubscribe link is handled for you, and once it's sent an email campaign tracks who opened it and which links they clicked. Bulk SMS works the same way.
The client timeline
Everything a client sends or receives files itself onto their record, so opening a client shows the whole conversation in one place — no matter which channel it happened on.
| Entry type | What it captures |
|---|---|
| Emails to and from the client, synced from your connected mailbox | |
| Phone | Phone calls logged with a note |
| Note | A freeform note added by a staff member |
| Signing | Documents sent for signature and signed via OneSign |
| ATO mail | ATO correspondence received and passed on to the client |
| SMS sent | Text messages sent from OneHQ |
| SMS received | Client replies coming back in |
The timeline is searchable and can be filtered by type, so finding one call note or email in a client's whole history takes a moment.
Frequently asked questions
Your Email connects your own mailbox so the emails you exchange with clients file themselves onto their records — it's read-only, so you still reply from your normal mail app. Team Email is a shared firm inbox that individual and bulk emails go out from, so clients always see one address from the practice.
No — SMS is built into OneHQ, with your own number and 100 free messages a month before it's about 10c + GST a message. If you'd rather use an existing ClickSend or Twilio account you can, but nothing's needed to start.
They're shown on the campaign review step, greyed out, so you can see exactly who's missing and go and fix the record — rather than quietly leaving someone out of the send.
Yes. Send it straight away or set a date and time — a scheduled campaign waits in the queue until then, and you can edit or cancel it before it goes out.
Need more help with email or SMS?
Get in touch