Do you need to draft a letter of transmittal to send out along with a report? If yes, then you will need to know what the correct format for a letter of transmittal is. In this article, we tell you how to draft a letter of transmittal.
What is a letter of transmittal? In the simplest of terms, a letter of transmittal serves as an introductory letter to another document that is sent along with it. This secondary document could be a report, a draft, a proposal, or any other such document. With a letter of transmittal you are informing the addressee what information the secondary document contains without giving out all the important details. It also serves to inform the addressee the purpose of sending out the secondary document.
If the letter of transmittal contains mention of an important detail, then it is rest assured that the reader will not miss out on receiving the important information that it contains. With a letter of transmittal that is send out as an accompaniment to an electronic document, it may also have information like the password to the document. Most importantly a letter of transmittal serves as a letter of introduction to the secondary document. It allows the letter writer to give due credit to people who helped on the project. While writing a letter of transmittal remember to not include any information that is overtly technical. Try to keep the information as simple and easy to understand as possible. Always remember to send out a letter of transmittal along with the document that it introduces and never beforehand. While you need to mention that the letter is an accompaniment to a report or draft, do not physically attach the two documents to each other.
Format for Letter of Transmittal
Now that you know what are the things to keep in mind while writing a letter of transmittal, let us take a look at the correct format for a letter of transmittal that you should follow while drafting such a letter. A letter of transmittal is a formal letter and it is important that the letter be precise, to-the-point, and correctly drafted. Before sending out such a letter, it is important that you double check it for any spelling, grammatical, or punctuation errors.
| Your Name Name of Your Organization Address Date Name of Client Ref: Mention briefly in one sentence, the reason for writing the letter. Salutation/Greetings, In the first paragraph, you will need to include the name of the report of title for which this letter is an accompaniment. Also needed to be included will be the purpose of the report, the target audience for the report, the name of the authorizer, the date on which the report was authorized, the objectives met by writing the report, and any other detail that needs to be included about the report in question. In the second paragraph, as the letter writer, you will be expected to give the addressee the details of the project which include the methods that you have used, the results that you have obtained, any findings that you achieved as a by-product, and the conclusion that you have reached from the main results. It is in this paragraph that you will also need to include mention of any recommendations that you want to make. In conclusive paragraph, you will need to include acknowledgments for any help that you received during the course of the project. Also include an offer for assistance if needed to understand the report in detail. It may also be imperative to mention that if need be, you would be interested in carrying out further work on the same topic. Ensure that you mention your contact details and give them out along with the letter with any other personal comments that you would like to make. Thanking you, Valediction |
Hopefully, with the help of this format, you should have no problem drafting a proper letter. As with any formal letter, the language used in a letter matters a lot and it is important that you use the correct format while drafting such a letter.