Any externally-directed, written communication or correspondence between two business partners or owners is regarded as a business letter, if the correspondence is addressed to a specific recipient or group of recipients. The standard requirements for business letters apply to other things too:
- Offers
- Order and inquiry confirmations
- Acknowledgements of receipt
- Bills
- Receipts
- Price lists
- Order forms
- Advertising letter to the addressee named in the address field
The external form of the letter is irrelevant.
If you are writing a business letter (rather than a fax or e-mail, for example), then there are certain content requirements, depending on the type of company. These requirements make it possible for business partners to inform themselves in advance about the essential circumstances of their correspondent when it comes to burgeoning business relationships. The following applies: If a document is being used to establish initial written contact between business partners in an individual case, it should contain all the relevant information. For example, a company registration number offers the recipient of a business letter the opportunity to obtain information about the company from the local chamber of commerce.
The following categories of requirements are excluded from business letters:
- Internal correspondence between offices, departments, branches, or subsidiaries in the same company
- Written communications to an indeterminate group of recipients or recipients determined by group characteristics – for example, direct mail or advertising material
- Written notifications that are created using forms as part of an existing business relationships – for example, delivery notes, shipping notices, or pick-up notifications
These documents are not regarded as business letters.
Business letters are used for written communication between two business partners and usually contain a business transaction. This means it can be between businessmen (business-to-business, B2B for short), or between businessmen and private individuals (business-to-consumer, B2C for short). Business letters should be clearly distinguished from private letters, which serve the exchange of personal information between private individuals.