Letters are formal documents used to establish communication or to formally acknowledge the transmittal of information. Typically, you'll use letters when communicating with people outside your company.

For example, formal projects often begin with a letter of transmittal addressed to a specific reader formally delivering the contents of the report.

Although more formal, letters are considered more personable because of the specifics of the greeting, the tone and the signature line.

Traditionally, people used letters for:

• requests or inquiry
• claims
• adjustments
• orders
• sales
• credit
• collections
• goodwill
• announcements
• records of agreement
• follow-ups to telephone conversations
• transmittal of other technical documents and
• job applications

However, people often now use memos or email for many of these tasks.