Triage inbound email

Find conversations that need you, make sender and attachment decisions, and understand shared read state and status.

Find the message that needs review

The Inbox groups email into conversations. Use the tabs above the message list:

All lists every conversation. A blocked conversation with nothing else waiting appears only under Blocked.
Unread lists conversations with new incoming mail that no one has opened yet, and conversations someone marked unread.
Needs Action lists conversations waiting for a sender or attachment decision, and conversations where your team’s latest reply from Clerked wasn’t delivered. Suggested replies and problems Clerked is handling don’t appear here.
Suggested replies lists conversations where Clark suggested a reply for you to review. It appears when vendor email is turned on for your company. Your own unfinished replies stay in their conversation.
Sent lists conversations with email sent from Clerked or copied from your AP mailbox. It appears once there is at least one.
Blocked lists conversations with blocked mail.

Select the search icon beside the title to search by sender, subject, or message details. While you search, the numbers on the tabs count the conversations that match in each tab, and when the tab you’re on has no match it names the tabs that do, such as 2 in All. Open Filter to select one or several AP inboxes, choose Needs my action, or filter by fields available for your company. Applied filters appear below the tabs and can be removed individually; while Needs my action applies, it shows there highlighted, and selecting it again turns it off. Use Views beside Filter to save your current filters as a personal view or reopen one.

If your email visibility is limited to assigned work, Showing emails assigned to you appears beside the Inbox title. When nothing is assigned to you, the list says Nothing is waiting on you. Emails appear here when they’re routed to you. A link to an email that was deleted, doesn’t exist, or isn’t shared with you opens the Inbox with This email doesn’t exist or isn’t shared with you. in place of the conversation.

Clerked Inbox workspace showing a supplier conversation waiting for a sender decision — The message list, conversation, and attachments stay together so you can decide with full context.

Unread is shared by everyone with access to a conversation. When you open a conversation yourself, it is marked read for the whole team, and Opened by shows who has read it. If your role can only view the inbox, opening a conversation leaves it unread for the people who handle it. Landing on the Inbox doesn’t open anything, and a conversation shown while you work through Tasks stays unread.

In Unread, the conversation you opened stays in the list until you select another one or leave, so you keep your place. If you can work on email, the mark-as-read button beside the title marks every conversation matching your current filters as read, and a conversation’s three-dot menu offers Mark as unread or Mark as read. Read state belongs to the team, so people who can only view the inbox don’t see these controls.

Only new incoming mail makes a conversation unread again. A reply your team sends from Clerked, or a reply copied from your AP mailbox, doesn’t.

Review the conversation

Read the sender and conversation. Under the subject, a one-sentence summary marked with a sparkle says where the conversation stands; select Show more to read the rest of it. A message can end with a Clerked note, marked Only visible to your team: a one-line headline about that email that isn’t part of what the sender wrote. Select the headline to read the rest of the note and any sources it cites. Clerked marks a note important, with a red headline that opens on its own, only when you must read it before acting: changed bank or remittance details, likely phishing, a statement reconciliation, a supplier’s credit hold or supply stop, or an attachment no one can read until someone acts. Other notes stay collapsed; you can choose to open every note in your profile settings. Confirm who sent the message, what they asked for, and whether earlier messages add context. When Clerked asks how to treat a new sender, choose Trust or Block for the exact address or its whole domain. A public email provider such as Gmail offers only the exact address. If Trust or Block is unavailable, it stays visible but disabled, and the banner shows the reason. A yellow sender warning needs no decision: it says the message failed its authentication checks or couldn’t be verified, and processing continues.
Decide what each attachment contains. Open an attachment that needs a decision to review it beside the conversation; Back to email closes the attachment and returns to the email. Choose Not an invoice, This is an invoice, or These are multiple invoices, where your company’s document label can replace “invoice”. Change decision stays available on a decided attachment while Clerked can still cancel the invoices the earlier decision created. If your role can’t make this decision, the choices stay visible but disabled with the reason, and the attachment isn’t counted as waiting on you.
Handle special attachments. A password-protected PDF shows Password needed: enter the PDF password and select Unlock, or choose Can’t process. Clerked doesn’t review the unlocked copy, so its note about the locked file goes away and the attachment asks you to choose what it contains. A document too long for automatic processing shows Needs decision with the limit it exceeded; choose what it contains. A file type your company doesn’t analyze automatically shows Available to process manually; decide only if you need it, because it creates no task.
Review a suggested reply when shown. Clark’s suggestion is optional and creates no task. See Reply to vendor conversations.
Confirm the status changed. After a decision, look for Decision saved, updating this email. The conversation leaves Needs Action once nothing else waits for a person.

When Clerked is handling a problem

Some processing problems are Clerked’s to fix. The attachment shows Processing failed with the message “We couldn’t process this attachment. Our team has been alerted and is looking into it.”, and the conversation shows Failed. You don’t need to do anything: it creates no task, stays out of Needs Action, and remains visible in All. Contact support only if the message is urgent, with the conversation and attachment name.

When the problem is with the email itself rather than one attachment, the conversation shows Failed and its banner says “Something went wrong on our side while processing this email. Our team was alerted automatically and is handling it. You don’t need to do anything.” This also covers an email with no attachments.

An encrypted email is the exception. Clerked can’t read it, so the conversation shows Failed and its banner says “Clerked can’t read encrypted email. Open it in your AP mailbox.” Read the message there. Our team isn’t alerted, because there is nothing for Clerked to fix.

An email larger than Clerked’s size limit can’t be read either. The conversation shows Failed and its banner says “This email is over Clerked’s size limit. Open it in your AP mailbox.” Read it, and any invoices it carries, there.

Understand the status

Each conversation in the list shows the most important of these labels: Not delivered, Review sender, Needs decision, Failed, Blocked, Reply drafted, Waiting, or Processing while Clerked is still working on its mail. Not delivered means the latest reply your team sent from Clerked bounced, was rejected, or was reported as spam, so follow up with the supplier. It creates no task, and a later reply that is delivered clears it. A number such as +1 means more labels apply. A label that repeats the tab you are on is hidden, and successful processing adds no label.

Inside a conversation, a banner explains the current state of each message:

While Clerked works, it names the step, such as Checking this email or Processing the attachments.
This email is waiting or Email processing is paused means work is on hold. The message says who releases the hold; contact Clerked support if you need it resumed.
A sender or attachment decision banner lists what to choose.
This email was blocked, or You blocked emails from a sender or domain, means Clerked stopped the message before processing. A message blocked by a sender rule can be processed again after you trust the sender. A message that impersonates one of your company’s domains or contains malware stays blocked and can’t be processed.