How to Control a Form Letter

V

vpandora

#1
I have been asked to control a letter that is sent to vendors offering different forms of electronic payment.

All of our documents are controlled electronically on a shared network drive.

What I struggle with:

  1. Is it appropriate to have a document number and revision letter in the footer of a business letter?
  2. How do I show changes?
We currently use headers and footers to show revision status and identify with document numbers, and changes are typically paraphrased in a revision history section, shown in red font, or both. I don't think the vendor needs to know (or cares) when we revise the wording of a form letter.

What to do??
 
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Coury Ferguson

Moderator here to help
Staff member
Super Moderator
#2
Re: How to control a form letter?

I have been asked to control a letter that is sent to vendors offering different forms of electronic payment.

All of our documents are controlled electronically on a shared network drive.

What I struggle with:

  1. Is it appropriate to have a document number and revision letter in the footer of a business letter?
  2. How do I show changes?
We currently use headers and footers to show revision status and identify with document numbers, and changes are typically paraphrased in a revision history section, shown in red font, or both. I don't think the vendor needs to know (or cares) when we revise the wording of a form letter.

What to do??
In my opinion, a Revision letter would be the better choice.
 
K

Ka Pilo

#3
Re: How to control a form letter?

I have been asked to control a letter that is sent to vendors offering different forms of electronic payment.

All of our documents are controlled electronically on a shared network drive.

What I struggle with:

  1. Is it appropriate to have a document number and revision letter in the footer of a business letter?
  2. How do I show changes?
We currently use headers and footers to show revision status and identify with document numbers, and changes are typically paraphrased in a revision history section, shown in red font, or both. I don't think the vendor needs to know (or cares) when we revise the wording of a form letter.

What to do??
I think you need to distinguish between information and document first.
 

somashekar

Staff member
Super Moderator
#4
I have been asked to control a letter that is sent to vendors offering different forms of electronic payment.

All of our documents are controlled electronically on a shared network drive.

What I struggle with:

  1. Is it appropriate to have a document number and revision letter in the footer of a business letter?
  2. How do I show changes?
We currently use headers and footers to show revision status and identify with document numbers, and changes are typically paraphrased in a revision history section, shown in red font, or both. I don't think the vendor needs to know (or cares) when we revise the wording of a form letter.

What to do??
Dear vpandora ...
Welcome to the forum.
Can we understand who has asked you to control a letter and why ?
Your sending of a letter to vendors communicating something is a correspondance which later will be a record for you if you so desire. You can have your responsible manager of purchase take all the freedom to make an official correspondance, and he can have his own letter number reference and date as he feels comfortable.
Why are you tying down yourself, with a form number and revision for a correspondance.
 

ScottK

Not out of the crisis
Staff member
Super Moderator
#5
Re: How to control a form letter?

In my opinion, a Revision letter would be the better choice.
I have done controlled letters in the past.
What I did was make the letter a "form".
In my system "forms" only required a document number and revision.
The revision history was kept on a document change record - another "form" generated for all document revisions.

Is it appropriate to have control number on a letter? Sure. I see them all the time from customers and suppliers when they send us a revision to a policy or something similar.
 

ScottK

Not out of the crisis
Staff member
Super Moderator
#6
Why are you tying down yourself, with a form number and revision for a correspondance.
There are a lot of reasons for this...

for example my last company had a RoHS/REACH policy form letter that would go out to new customers or on request.
By putting it into the document control system, anyone who needs to send it can access it and what it stated remains consistent because it is controlled.
 

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#7
I have been asked to control a letter that is sent to vendors offering different forms of electronic payment.

All of our documents are controlled electronically on a shared network drive.

What I struggle with:

  1. Is it appropriate to have a document number and revision letter in the footer of a business letter?
  2. How do I show changes?
We currently use headers and footers to show revision status and identify with document numbers, and changes are typically paraphrased in a revision history section, shown in red font, or both. I don't think the vendor needs to know (or cares) when we revise the wording of a form letter.

What to do??
In my experience, most forms, especially ones with information subject to change and materially affect the response of folks completing the form, have usually included the date of the most recent revision of the form in the footer at the bottom of the page:
"Form x1234Rev3(12-2010)"

Such a date provides a clue to users whether the revision in front of them is current. Some organizations may periodically "affirm" a revision, adding the new date of the affirmation, but the revision level does not change.

Normally, if the body of the letter is in 12 point font, the footer is in font about 2/3 the size, so: 12 point text, 8 point footer.

Most documents I have seen have the footer in sans serif font, regardless of the font of the text.

As I recall, there is an SAE Standard for numbering revisions which calls for using numbers, not letters, for indicating the revision level. If it's important to you, tell me and I will dig out the Standard and provide the citation. The reality is, the Standard is voluntary and no one need follow it in revisioning documents.
 

SteelMaiden

Super Moderator
Super Moderator
#8
Just to throw something else out there...you do realize that you do not have to number documents, right? a simple revision date is enough to establish "this" version as being different from previously dated versions. As far as being able to tell what changed, you can summarize changes in a spreadsheet, database or other document, you can save a copy of each version as an obsolete document and compare them, or whatever works for your company.
 

ScottK

Not out of the crisis
Staff member
Super Moderator
#9
Just to throw something else out there...you do realize that you do not have to number documents, right? a simple revision date is enough to establish "this" version as being different from previously dated versions. As far as being able to tell what changed, you can summarize changes in a spreadsheet, database or other document, you can save a copy of each version as an obsolete document and compare them, or whatever works for your company.
quite true.
this would make sense if the system in question is not set up to handle forms like mine have been.
 

SteelMaiden

Super Moderator
Super Moderator
#10
quite true.
this would make sense if the system in question is not set up to handle forms like mine have been.
Yeah, mine is a sharepoint system and everything is programmed to be automagic. but I remember the days before all the cool toys came out.:lol:
 
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