Fax Cover Sheet Template

Introduction

Business communication has required the use of Fax transmissions for decades. Despite strong competition from a whole host of new internet routed information transmission options, Fax correspondence continues to be a reliable favourite for most corporate and local businesses.It is important to have a basic understanding of business etiquette when utilizing these means of communication. For instance a Fax cover sheet is highly recommended when engaging in official correspondence or transferring business information through a Tele-fax. While it isn’t compulsory, a cover sheet elevates ordinary documents and makes them look neat and professional.

What is a Fax?

A Fax refers to the telephonic transference of scanned print outs of information in the form of text or images. The information is scanned with the help of a Tele-copier or fax machine and conveyed through telephone lines via audio frequencies. These are received and processed by another fax machine which converts the audio frequencies into comprehensible text or images and produces a printed copy.

What is a Fax Cover Sheet?

A Fax cover sheet is a single sheet that functions as a “Fax envelope”. It is meant to contain basic details about the sender and the intended recipient and may be the first scanned item or the last.Cover sheets for business purposes tend to be fairly basic and easy to compile. However there are also a variety of design templates available online in case you prefer to personalize your cover sheet. Whatever design you choose, ensure that it fits your purpose. For official material it is best to keep your cover sheet simple, uncluttered and professional.

How to fill out a Fax Cover Sheet

A standard Fax cover sheet should include the following details:

• Name of the intended Recipient
• Recipient’s official designation
• Recipient’s contact number
• Name of the Sender
• Sender’s official designation
• Sender’s Fax number
• Sender’s contact number
• Subject
• Total number of pages transmitted
• Urgency
• Company letter head
• Requirements for a response or acknowledgement

Not all details included in the aforementioned list are mandatory, however they are certainly recommended for business communications. You may tweak the contents of your cover sheet depending on your line of business and the nature of your correspondence as this is just is just a basic structure to give you an idea of How to fill out a fax cover sheet.

How to use a blank Fax Cover Sheet template?

If you have any trouble coming up with a basic format and layout for your cover sheet, you can download a Blank fax cover sheet and use it as a template to fulfill your purpose. All you need to do is download the template, fill in your relevant details, print it out and scan it along with the rest of your document.

What is the purpose of a Fax Cover Sheet?

• The primary purpose of a Fax cover sheet, like that of an envelope is to ensure easy identification and reception.

• It clearly includes the name and contact details of both the sender and the recipient which ensures that your fax gets delivered to the person that it is intended for. This is essential when transmitting information to large offices with Fax servers or small businesses with multiple individuals sharing one fax machine.

• Contact details and official designation ensures that your fax gets delivered to correct floor and department even if your recipient shares his name with half the office.

• If your cover sheet contains important details like the subject and RSVP requirements, there is no room for confusion. The recipient will know exactly what the fax is about and what to do with it.

• Other information like the number of pages in the document will help the recipient know if he has received the entire batch.

• It is a good idea to mark urgent faxes so that they reach the intended recipient as fast as possible.

• A fax cover sheet may also give your material some security. Faxes are less likely to get lost or forgotten if they are clearly addressed to somebody. Further a clear cover sheet saves time as the person receiving the fax does not have to go through the substance of the fax in order to guess who the material is intended for.

• All the sender’s details on the cover sheet are included as a courtesy to the recipient. The official letterhead makes your correspondence look professional. It ensures that your material is taken seriously. Further your designation and contact details give the recipient the opportunity to revert directly to you with any queries or responses.

What is a confidential Fax Cover Sheet?

One of the biggest perks of a cover sheet for a fax is the fact that it shields the contents of your fax from prying eyes, for instance if it is lying unattended in a fax machine or on somebody’s desk. A fax that is accompanied by a cover sheet is far less likely to accidentally be read or received by anybody apart from the intended recipient.Just like you can mark a fax on the basis or its urgency, you may also mark it as “confidential” if you wish to relay sensitive information via a fax machine. While a cover letter is no guarantor of confidentiality, a fax like that will most probably be treated with more care than usual and delivered straight to the recipient. If it is received directly by the recipient it also ensures that he remembers to handle the contents of the fax discreetly.While you may simply mark an ordinary Fax cover sheet as “confidential”, you may also use our Confidential fax cover sheet template to save yourself the trouble of designing it to different specifications.

What is a personal Fax Cover Sheet?

Fax cover sheets are commonly used for official faxes. However cover sheets need not be restricted to business communication. You may use a unique cover sheet to make your personal faxes innovative and distinctive. If you are unable to come up with your own design try our Personal fax cover sheet template to help get you started.For personal faxes and correspondence you may include a fax cover letter that adds value to the document you are sending by way of an intimation of its contents or a simple ice breaker.A personal fax cover sheet can reflect your personality or the nature of the information you are sending. So feel free to be fun, quirky and expressive. To make your cover sheet truly unique you may even include a handwritten cover letter as the top sheet for your fax.

How to use a Fax Cover Sheet Template

If you get stuck trying to create your own Fax cover sheet, use our templates. We have a whole host of template options available to suit your every need. You may download a Blank fax cover sheet template and fill in your details as you go along, or opt for more structured and specific templates like a Personal fax sheet template or a Confidential fax sheet template. Just download, fill it out according to your requirement and print.

Benefits of using a template

• Our ready to use templates are neat, user friendly and easy to download.
• They are available in MS Word, MS Excel and PDF formats and designed specifically to meet business standards.
• If you don’t want to download it and use it directly, you may consult it to give yourself a basic idea of what your cover sheet should ideally look like.
• You may use it for both guidance and inspiration. Some cover sheet templates can even be edited. So you can use the basic template as a skeleton for your cover sheet and then personalize it to your tastes.

Tips and Guidelines

Having established the importance and the benefits of using a fax cover sheet, we can now move on to finding or designing the perfect Fax cover sheet to suit your individual needs.

Be confident in your abilities

• Coversheets are usually very basic and require little effort to put together.
• If you are a perfectionist with a weakness for exact line spacing, minimalist formats and elegant borders you had better leave it to the professionals.
• There are various companies that design a variety of Fax cover sheet templates to suit your every need.

Pay attention to details

• If you are designing your own cover sheet don’t forget to format it in a way that makes it look polished and complete.
• Unformatted cover sheets look incomplete, haphazard and untidy.
• Even if you have remembered to incorporate all important details into you cover sheet, without the formatting the text and images look askew while the line spacing and borders seem terribly suspect.

Use work appropriate designs for official purposes

• Exercise restraint when designing a Fax cover sheet for professional purposes like sending in copies of professional documents or resumes.
• In a professional set up it is always best to err on the side of caution. Less is more.
• Use clean lines and ensure your cover sheet is neat and informative.
• Do not clutter it with unnecessary information, intricate designs, quirky fonts or bold colors.
• You have to strike a careful balance with a professional cover sheet. You do not want it to look blank, unformatted and unfinished; nor do you want it to look overdone in a way that detracts from its purpose.
• You will not go wrong as long as you keep it tasteful but strictly utility oriented.

Innovate

• Keep in mind your line of work and the nature of the content you are transmitting.
• An executive from a Fashion Label, a Production House or Bakery may exercise more freedom in the kind of cover sheets she uses than paralegal or a banker.

Optimize your Fax Cover Sheet

• Companies can also customize cover sheets to their advantage by using it to share company details like a domain name, a website or to subtly incorporate a theme to enhance the recall value of their brand or their products. Something as insignificant as a colour scheme can be extremely effective.
• Companies often work distinctive letterheads into the format of their cover sheets which make their faxes unusual and instantly recognizable.

Have fun with personal Fax Cover Sheets

• A lot of these rules and guidelines do not apply to personal fax cover sheets which may be customized exactly to the specifications of the sender.
• However personal faxes may sometimes be used to transfer official documents. So remember to design a content appropriate cover letter for your faxes.
• Further, despite the casual or personal nature of your faxes do not go overboard with your cover sheets even when you have the freedom to. Though it may seem like it, a pretty designed cover sheet is not the equivalent of a fancy envelope that you hand over to your friend. It still has to serve its purpose.
• Ensure your pretty designs don’t defeat the purpose of the cover sheet in the first place by making it difficult to identify the important details in it.
• Even a fancy cover sheet needs to be legible in order to ensure that it reaches the correct recipient.
• If you’re expecting a response, be sure to double check the sender’s details to ascertain that they’re both accurate and clearly legible.

With these guidelines in mind you should have no trouble choosing or designing the perfect cover sheet to fulfill your purposes. This should also give you a clear understanding of How to fill out a fax cover sheet. Don’t forget to use our templates to help you create a neat and professional Fax cover sheets for your every requirement.