Memo Templates

A memo is not a short letter and not a long email. It is an internal document written to go into the record, which means two things: the reader will skim it, and somebody may read it a year from now with no memory of the context. Both are solved the same way — put the point in the first line and make the subject line say what changes. These three free memo templates in Microsoft Word come with the standard heading block already set out.

Free memo templates

Each file opens in Microsoft Word with the heading block, subject line and body already laid out. Replace the placeholder text and put your organisation’s name at the top — if you already print on headed paper, the rest of the stationery templates will match what you are using.

Memorandum Template 01Download

Memorandum Template 02Download

Memorandum Template 03Download

Memo, email or letter?

This used to be a question about delivery — a memo went in the internal post, a letter went outside, an email went down the wire. That distinction is gone. Almost every memo written today is sent by email, so email is the envelope, not the format. The question worth asking is different.

The practical test: in six months, will someone need to point at this and say “as set out in the memo of 14 March”? If yes, write a memo and attach it, even if you send it by email. If no, just write the email.

One thing worth checking before you send: who actually needs to be on it. Distribution lists tend to grow by habit until a memo goes to forty people and is read by four, at which point nobody treats a memo as important. If you are not sure who owns the area you are writing about, an organogram settles it faster than asking around.

Put the point in the first line

The single most useful convention in memo writing comes from government rather than business. US Army Regulation 25−50, Preparing and Managing Correspondence, requires “putting the main point at the beginning of the correspondence (bottom line up front)”. The practice has spread well beyond the military — it is now standard advice for policy memos at schools of government, and the US Defense Secretary’s 2017 guidance on correspondence with Congress told staff to give members the bottom line up front.

It is worth understanding why the rule exists, because it is the opposite of how most people were taught to write. School essays build to a conclusion: background, argument, finding. That works when the reader has agreed to read the whole thing. A memo reader has not. They are reading it between two meetings, and they will stop the moment they think they know what it says. If the conclusion is in the last paragraph, they stop before reaching it and act on their guess.

So: recommendation first, then the reasoning that supports it. A memo that opens “I am writing to inform you that following a review of the current arrangements…” has spent its only guaranteed sentence on nothing. One that opens “Expenses over 50 now need a manager’s approval, from 1 January. No action needed before then.” has already worked, even for the reader who stops there.

The subject line does most of the work

A memo subject line should name the change, not the topic. Topics tell the reader what the memo is filed under; changes tell them whether to care. The difference costs nothing to fix.

Note what the strong versions have in common: each one contains either a date, a number or the word “no”. A reader can act on all five without opening the memo, which is the point — the memo exists so that the small number of people who need the detail can get it.

What goes in the heading block

The heading block is the part that makes a memo a memo, and it is fixed by convention rather than preference. Four lines, in this order, above a rule:

1. TO

   The people who must act, by name and role. Not “All staff” unless that is literally true. If several people need it for information only, put them on a separate CC line — the distinction between who must act and who is being kept informed is the most useful thing in the block.

2. FROM

   Your name and your role. The role matters more than the name: it tells the reader whether this is an instruction or a suggestion, which is the first thing they want to know.

3. DATE

   Write it out — 14 March 2026, not 14/03/26. Memos are read in countries that order dates differently, and a memo whose date is ambiguous is useless as a record, which is the main reason to write one.

4. SUBJECT

   One line, naming the change. See the table above. This is the line most likely to be read and the one most often wasted.

Then the body, with no “Dear” and no “Yours sincerely” — those belong to letters. If a memo needs authorising rather than merely sending, the convention is initials beside your name in the FROM line, not a signature at the foot. Where the memo asks people to do something, say who does what and by when; if that list runs past three or four items it has become a plan rather than a memo, and an action plan attached to it will be read where a long paragraph will not.

Write it knowing a stranger may read it

A memo is a record, and records outlive the situation that produced them. The audience you are writing for is the team; the audience you should write for includes whoever opens the file later — a new manager, an auditor, someone handling a complaint, a buyer’s advisers during due diligence. None of them will have the context you have today.

In practice that means three habits. Write out what an abbreviation means the first time. Say what prompted the memo in a sentence, because “as discussed” means nothing to a reader who was not there. And keep speculation about individuals out of it — if something needs saying about a person’s conduct, a memo circulated to a distribution list is the wrong place for it. Where the subject itself is confidential, say so on the face of the document and keep the circulation small; a confidentiality marking is a signal, not a control, and where real protection is needed that comes from a signed non-disclosure agreement rather than a line of text at the top of a page.

The six memos most organisations actually write

The first two are the ones that matter most and are missing from most memo guides.

1. Decision or recommendation memo

   Asks someone to approve a course of action. Open with the recommendation, then the options considered, the cost, the risks and what you need from the reader. This is the memo most often written badly, because people save the recommendation for the end.

2. Policy memo

   Announces a rule and the date it starts. Must say what changes, who it applies to, when it takes effect and what happens to anything already in progress. The last of those is the one people forget, and it generates most of the questions.

3. Announcement or reminder

   Short, dated, no action required beyond noting it. Office closures, deadline changes, new starters. If it needs more than a paragraph it is probably a policy memo.

4. Confirmation memo

   Written after a meeting or call to record what was agreed. Its value is entirely in being written the same day and in naming who agreed to what. Common in construction and professional services.

5. Field or inspection report memo

   Records what was inspected, how, what was found and what follows. Keep the finding at the top and the method below it — the reader wants to know whether there is a problem before they care how you looked for it.

6. Request or proposal memo

   Asks for budget, headcount or a change of approach. Internal only. The moment the reader is outside your organisation this stops being a memo — a formal quotation or a proposal document is what the situation calls for.

Questions people ask about memos