[SOLVED] Do I Need DMARC?

[Appletax]

Solution: yes, to deal with possible email spoofing and so you're messages are less likely to wind up in the spam folder.

------
Do I need to set this up? I use a custom email via Zoho with my GoDaddy domain and use it sparsely.

See this:

 

[nlinecomputers]

Yes. Modern email if you don’t want your stuff marked as spam needs SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. It’s not hard to setup.

 

[Appletax]

Yes. Modern email if you don’t want your stuff marked as spam needs SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. It’s not hard to setup.

Hopefully this works well:

Action to be taken when the DMARC validation fails: Do nothing to the emails (phase 1, recommended)

Aggregate notification email address: user@mydomain.com

Forensic notification email address: user@mydomain.com

Policy percentage: 100 (the default)

Alignment for SPF: Relaxed

Alignment for DKIM: Relaxed

Generate and then I got the values needed for GoDaddy domain manager.

Only have 1 custom email (user@mydomain.com) - so, I am not sending aggregate or forensic notification emails to a different email (e.g. admin@mydomain.com (am I supposed to?)

Validation step: DMARC Record is pointed for this domain

 

[nlinecomputers]

Is Zoho the ONLY source of email for your domain? You don’t have newsletters, invoices, tickets. ANYTHING that comes out using your domain name from a source other than the Zoho MX servers?

 

[Appletax]

Is Zoho the ONLY source of email for your domain? You don’t have newsletters, invoices, tickets. ANYTHING that comes out using your domain name from a source other than the Zoho MX servers?

Yes.

I bought Zoho Mail Lite for 1 user. I don't have any other users (they'd cost extra) as I have no use for them.

I do not make newsletters or tickets. Just a small, solo home-based PC repair tech.

I just use it for the occasional message to a client.

Previously, I used Google G-Suite since 2010 to this year and only had the 1 email.

Never messed with DKIM or DMARC. I think I just had to manually set the MX records.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Then you can bump up the security if you are getting reports of spammers spoofing your domain name. The number of email addresses is irrelevant. It’s the domain name that is being referenced here. For example I have newsletters sent by MailChimp, my tickets and invoices come from mHelpdesk, and my RMM software emails reports and alerts. So my SPF record has three different email servers listed, I have two sets of DKIM records and my DMARC tells you that you should quarantine email that doesn’t pass SPF and DKIM checks because any other source can’t be me and must be spam.

 

[Appletax]

Then you can bump up the security if you are getting reports of spammers spoofing your domain name. The number of email addresses is irrelevant. It’s the domain name that is being referenced here. For example I have newsletters sent by MailChimp, my tickets and invoices come from mHelpdesk, and my RMM software emails reports and alerts. So my SPF record has three different email servers listed, I have two sets of DKIM records and my DMARC tells you that you should quarantine email that doesn’t pass SPF and DKIM checks because any other source can’t be me and must be spam.

Interesting stuff! I have never had issues with my email being spoofed. My phone number on the other hand... I had to block my own phone number because it was calling me lol.

Out of curiosity, is there a way to see the invoices produced by mHelpDesk? I use a Word document I made based on an invoice from the Technibble Computer Business Kit.

Cool, mHelpDesk caters to PC techs: https://www.mhelpdesk.com/computer-repair-software/

 

[britechguy]

I use a Word document

That's what I've been using, too, but have decided to change to Excel. It's much simpler to let Excel "do the math" and what gets printed out for the client (or, if they want electronic copy, I save to PDF) is indistinguishable from the Word document.

If I were running this business as a way of making a living, my accounting/bookkeeping would need to be much more automated than it is at present. Luckily, I'm at the age where this will never be something I'll care about. Work is now a side gig, and that's the way I like it.

 

[Appletax]

That's what I've been using, too, but have decided to change to Excel. It's much simpler to let Excel "do the math" and what gets printed out for the client (or, if they want electronic copy, I save to PDF) is indistinguishable from the Word document.

If I were running this business as a way of making a living, my accounting/bookkeeping would need to be much more automated than it is at present. Luckily, I'm at the age where this will never be something I'll care about. Work is now a side gig, and that's the way I like it.

Nice.

Are you willing to share with us your Word and Excel templates? Free of any of your business info, of course.

Always looking to improve the invoice. Probably wouldn't use an Excel invoice as I don't have lots of things to add up, usually, and I like to add notes on the 2nd page of the invoice.

Here's my invoice:

Main Invoice

MediaFire is a simple to use free service that lets you put all your photos, documents, music, and video in a single place so you can access them anywhere and share them everywhere.

www.mediafire.com

 

[britechguy]

Are you willing to share with us your Word and Excel templates?

Example Invoice – MS-Word DOTX document template

Example Invoice – MS-Excel XLTX workbook template

Just double click on either and you'll have a brand spankin' new blank one for filling out each and every time. The Excel invoice is very simple in that I don't have to do tax calculations, etc. It could easily be "tarted up" for individual needs.

I don't do a separate notes page, these just go in several lines below the charges in the table part of the invoice itself.

 

[Markverhyden]

In my experience not having all 3 of those, DKIM, DMARC, and SPF, can get your email blocked. In other words the receiving email server will check for those records. If they don't exist some will block it even if it's legit.