LetterAgent
Mail physical letters by just asking your AI assistant.
Home > Guides > Fax cover sheet
A fax cover sheet needs the recipient's name and fax number, your name and contact details, the date, the total page count (counting the cover sheet itself as page one), a subject line saying what the fax is, and a short confidentiality notice at the bottom. That is the whole template. Anything more is decoration; anything less makes the recipient's job harder.
| Field | What to write | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| To | Recipient's name and department | Routes the fax past the front desk to the right person |
| Fax number | The exact number you dialed | Lets the recipient confirm the fax reached the right line |
| From | Your name and company, if any | So the recipient knows who to call back |
| Date | The send date | Matters for deadlines and filing order |
| Pages | Total pages, cover included (e.g. "5 pages including cover") | The recipient can tell immediately if a page went missing |
| Phone | Your callback number | For questions about the documents |
| Re / Subject | One line: account number, claim number, or purpose | Gets the fax filed under the right case instead of a general pile |
| Message | Two or three sentences at most | Say what the enclosed documents are and what you need done |
| Confidentiality notice | "This fax contains confidential information intended only for the named recipient..." | Standard on business and especially medical/legal faxes |
Strictly speaking, no: the fax machine will transmit whatever pages you feed it. Practically speaking, yes, almost always. Faxes arrive at shared machines and shared inboxes, often stacked under other people's transmissions. A cover sheet is the flag that tells whoever picks up the stack whose documents these are and where they go. For a one-page fax to someone who is expecting it, you can skip it. For anything with more than a couple of pages, anything with an account or claim number, and anything sent to a department rather than a person, include one.
There is one more reason, and it is about you, not the recipient. The cover sheet forces you to write down the destination number, the page count, and the subject before you send. That little bit of ceremony catches the two most common fax mistakes: dialing the wrong number and forgetting a page.
The notice at the bottom of most cover sheets says something like: "The information in this fax is confidential and intended only for the named recipient. If you received it in error, please notify the sender and destroy it." People copy it onto everything, so it is worth knowing what it does and does not do.
What it does: it puts a misdirected recipient on notice, and for medical faxes it is part of the reasonable-safeguards posture that HIPAA expects. What it does not do: it does not make an otherwise insecure transmission secure, and it does not undo the disclosure if a fax lands on the wrong machine. The notice is a backstop, not a strategy. The real protection is dialing the right number, confirming the recipient's fax line, and double-checking before you hit send.
You do not need special software. A simple document with the fields above, saved as a PDF, works with any online fax service and with LetterAgent: describe the fax to your AI assistant, approve the exact quoted price for the verified page count (cover sheet included), and it is sent. If you fax regularly, save your cover sheet as a reusable template with your own details pre-filled, so each new fax only needs the recipient's name, number, subject, and page count filled in.
Ready to fax it? Fax with LetterAgent: describe it to your AI assistant, approve the exact quoted price, and it is sent.
LetterAgent is a working name. Prices include print, postage, and our service fee. US prices in USD, Canadian prices in CAD (Canadian prices exclude applicable sales tax, added at checkout). Currently in private testing.
Need help? Ask your assistant: it can check a job's status any time. If it ever can't handle something: hello@getletteragent.com