How do I import a letter template into Mail Merge?

When using the TaxCalc software, you may already have pre-established templates that you use for contacting you clients via email or post. This article will run through how to import your pre-existing templates and also modify the content to pre-populate data available.

If you have pre-existing templates that need importing into TaxCalc, please complete the below steps:

1. Open Practice Manager from the home screen.
2. Select Communications > Mail Merge Templates from the left-hand menu.
3. Click on Create template.
   1. The reason you would need to do this is to be able to embed the tokens required for automatic creation. If you do not need any tokens present on the letter, please ignore this phase and scroll down to the section below (after step 13).
4. You will need to ensure you select the Tax Year applicable in your scenario and then choose a mailing list
   1. If you don't have a mailing list, you will need to create one to include the applicable client/s. You can choose to add All Clients, Specific clients or Advanced client selection (Data mine).
5. Once the Mailing List has been selected, a preview will be presented of the chosen clients. If you are happy with the selection, please click on Choose to proceed
6. A blank Word document should open for you to enter your standard wording.
7. On the toolbar click on Mailings (if not already applied) > Insert Merge Field and select the fields from Practice Manager that you want to use.
8. Click on Insert.
   • At this point you can cut/copy and paste data from your pre-defined template alongside to the new template
   • Draft your own document and insert the mail fields where required.
9. Save the Word file onto your PC.
10. Go back into TaxCalc and click on Import Template
11. Browse for and select the Word file.
12. Give the template a Name and Description and ensure you choose an appropriate category for the letter to be placed under
13. Click on Save.

Your template will now be ready to use. You can check that it works as expected by highlighting the template and clicking on Run mail merge with the same mailing list.

To upload your own template into Mail Merge without the use of any tokens, follow these steps:

1. Go to Practice Manager from the home screen.
2. Select Communications > Mail Merge Templates from the left-hand menu.
3. Select Import
4. Browse to the word document stored on your machine
5. Click OK
6. Give the template a Name and Description and ensure you choose an appropriate category.
7. Click Save

Your template will now be ready to use. You can check that it works as expected by highlighting the template and clicking on Run mail merge and applying a mailing list.