UNIT 6: ONLINE BUSINESS CORRESPONDENCE
Introductory activity
Mr. Mugenzi is a businessman who buys goods from China. Those goods
consist of machineries, clothing items and foodstuff. As his business
activities are many, he is sometimes required to spend a lot of time in China
while inquiring from different sellers and completing all the formalities
necessary for his goods to be shipped to Rwanda. On average, for everyyear he spends more than 100 days in China.
1) Analyse this situation and explain how it hinders Mr. Mugenzi’s
business
2) If Mugenzi flies to China at least 50 times, estimate the price ofairfare he spends
Explain what Mugenzi would do to reduce the number of days spent inChina but get all the goods he wants
6.0. Introduction
Business correspondence is a process by which parties in a business exchange
information in a written format for the purpose of business activities. This
information exchange can take place between organizations, between customers
or between customers and organizations.
Business correspondence can be done for the purpose of inquiring from the
selling institution for necessary information needed by a customer, receiving
information from the selling institution about the goods the customer sought
information, ordering goods, sending an invoice, response on the goodsreceived.
Online business correspondence is the one which is done using online means
of communication mainly the internet. The most common online business
correspondence is through emails but selling institutions may have theircustomized channel of communication.
6.1. Emails
Activity 6.1
1) Explain how sending and receiving mails via post offices operates
2) Contrary to post offices, mails can be sent and received using computers.
a) Explain how a person can send and receive an email using a computer
b) Give at least 2 examples of emails service providers
3) You are a sales manager in one important factory in Rwanda, explainhow using emails will make your work easy.
6.1.1. Understanding email
E-Mail refers to a system of exchanging messages electronically over a computer
network between two or more email service users. These users must have e-mail
addresses which are hosted by an email service provider like Gmail, Yahoo Mail,
etc. An email service provider has a big server on which users who have emails
have dedicated space in which their email will be saved. It is like a Post Office
where every customer has a box in which all his/her mails are dropped andwithdrawn.
The email client comes in two forms, a web-based version like Gmail, where
users must log in through their browser to access their emails, or a client-based
version such as Outlook, where users install software to access emails from
their local computer. For emails to arrive at the correct destination there areprotocols which handle this task.
• Email format
The following is a sample format of an e-mail address :username@hostcomputer.domainname
Explanation :
– username: It identifies the owner of the e-mail address.
– @ (“at” sign): Separates the username from the rest of the address parts.
– hostcomputer: The name of the remote server on which the e-mail
account is hosted. For example gmail, yahoo, and hotmail among others.
– .(dot): Separates the domain name from the other part of the e-mail address.
– Domain name : It identifies the type of institution offering the services.
For example, nkeza@gmail.com, nkeza is the username, gmail is the hostcomputer and .com is the domain name for a commercial organization.
6.1.2. Creation of emails
In general to create an email the user will have to first write the email service
provider address in the browser’s address bar then fills the provided forms in
which personal information are filled. When one form is well filled, the user isallowed to move to the next step until the email is created.
a. Creating a Gmail account email
Gmail is an email service provider belonging to google. To create an email
account on gmail follow these steps :
i) Open the gmail application software using a web browser by writing gmail.
com in the browser’s address barii) In the windows that appears click on Create account
i) In the next window that appears, fill details including your names, the email
account to create and the password to be used for the new email account.
Once done with all those details click on Next
ii) Continue to the next windows in which details namely your phone number,
recovery email address, date of birth and gender will be filled. After filling
those details click on Next.
As the creation of an email is near completion, you may be required to confirmyour email by entering a google code sent to the provided phone number.
a) Rules to follow while choosing a password
– Passwords are case sensitive.
– Always use a combination of characters that are easily to remember.
– Avoid using characters that can be guessed.
– Passwords are always encrypted for security purposes.
– Use a combination of capital and small letters, numbers and special
characters to create a strong password
– Advantages of emails
i) It allows sending of one mail to many recipients at the same time.
ii) It is cheaper compared to traditional mails which are handled by post
offices
iii) It is fast and efficient as it allows instant sending and receiving of mails from
iv) Anywhere in the world.
v) E-mails can be saved for future retrieval in another computer.
vi) It is easier to reply and forward mails.
vii) Allows sending and receiving of any form of information.
viii) Disadvantages of emails
ix) Use of email requires computer literacy.
x) E-mails are not accessible to everyone due to internet connectivity
problems.
xi) (iii) There are security concerns. Hackers are able to gain authorised
access to users’
xii) Accounts and, for example, solicit for money.xiii) Allows spread of viruses such as hoax.
Application activity 6 .1
1) Create email accounts. The email account you create should
contain your name or part of your name
2) Search the Internet for information on the effects of the emails on
global economy
3) Explain the meaning of the parts in this email address:murwanashyaka@gmail.com
1.2.Sending and receiving email
Activity 6.2
Observe the images below and answer the questions
1) What are the methods being used in images A and B to send or
receive a mail?
2) Among the two methods which one is more efficient? Explain.3) Describe how withdrawing a mail as shown in image B is done?
Email accounts allow the sending and receiving of emails. These emails are sent
and received using a computer using a computer. For a user to receive or send anemail he/she has first to login in order to have access to the email functionalities.
1.1.1.Gmail environmentOnce the email account holder logs in, the window below will be displayed :
The gmail window environment has different tabs including Compose, Inbox,
Sent, Drafts, Spam and Trash. In order to have access to the options providedby those tabs click on them. The use of each tab is summarized below :
Sending emails and attaching files
To send an email first click on Compose found in the Gmail window then follow
the following steps :
1. In the window that appeared, go in the “To” text area and write the
recipient email,
2. If there are other people who will receive copies, click in “Cc” text area
and write the email which will receive a copy
3. If there is an email to receive a blind copy Click in “Bcc” text area and
write that email. When the Blind copy option is used, the list of all the
recipients is hidden from the other recipients of the mail.
4. Write the subject of the email to be sent by clicking in the “Subject” text area
5. Write the text for the email
6. If there is a file or folder to be attached and sent with the text, click on the
Attachment icon and browse the file to be attached
7. Click on the Send buttonThe steps above described are shown in the window below :
1.1.1. Receiving emails and downloading attachment
Upon signing in, the user’s inbox is automatically opened. The messages are
displayed in three columns showing the name of the sender, the subject and theDate/Time when the email was sent.
To read a message, click on the Subject. Once the message is read the user can
decide download the available attachment by just double clicking on it. In the
email received, the user can also select one of the following options available onthe message window : Reply, Reply to All, Forward and Delete among others.
– Reply : This option is selected if the user desires to respond to the
read mail.
– Reply to All : This option is selected if the user desires to respond to
all the addresses listed in the Cc, Bcc and To box. Both Cc and Bcc
forward a copy of the message to everyone listed as a recipient. The
difference between Cc or Carbon Copy and Bcc (Blind Carbon Copy)
is that, with the latter, the recipients do not get to know each other.
Note that the Reply to All option is not available when an email is
received by just one person (email)– Forward : This option is selected if the user desires to send the same
message to other e-mail addresses.
– Delete : This option is selected if the user desires to erase the mail.
Note that deleting the message only sends it to the Trash folder. The user
can retrieve the message from this folder if so desired. To permanentlydelete the message, empty the trash folder.
1.1.2. Advantages of online communication using emails
From what can be done using emails, it is obvious that online communication
using emails has many advantages. Those advantages are outlined below :
• Flexible access to participate whenever and whereverconvenient
Communication using emails can allow participants to communicate wherever
and whenever they are and the price of this communication is not dependent on
the distance and time. A person can send an email during the night, can send
an email when he/she is in a foreign country while this may not be possible for
some old communication means.
• Real time and quick response
If two parties are using the required devices, communication can be done in the
real time and the response can be immediate. This is not possible for example in
the Post Office system where a mail envelope has to pass through many carriers
until it is dropped in the recipient box.
• Cost Effective
When communication is done through emails, no cost is required for travelling
from one city to another or one country to another. All to be done is just sign upand create your account. It saves both money and time.
Application activity 6.2
1) Exchange emails with your colleagues asking them about your lessons
2) While writing an email what is the use of the tools Cc and Bcc
3) State at least 2 disadvantages that come with the use of emails.4) What are 3 advantages of email over traditional mail?
1.1.Search engines
Activity 6.3
Observe the screenshot below got as a result for the search conducted
by a Senior 4 student in Accounting who searched from the internet forinformation about Balance Sheet.
Answer the questions below:
1) What is the topic entered by the student in the search box?
2) Did the student find the information about Balance Sheet that he/she
wanted? If No explain why it was not found.
3) Write in the google search box the keywords Balance Sheet.in
finance. Describe the accuracy of the information you get.
4) Now write the keywords Balance Sheet in finance inside quotation marks.
5) Compare the results found in question 3 and 4 by filling the table below:
Search Engines are programs that help the user look for and identify items
that corresponds to keywords or phrases specified from the World Wide
Web. Examples include Yahoo, Google, Bing and Ask among others which are
accessed respectively using the URLs yahoo.com, google.com, bing.com and
ask.com. As an accountant search engine are important when searching fromthe internet information related to goods and services to buy, new clients, etc.
1.1.1.Strategies to find specific information using search engine
When conducting a search using a search engine one can get millions of search
results and find that none of those results is related to what should be expected.
What is need is therefore the ability to refine the search to get exactly what is
needed. Some search engines also help find less results compared to others
so change a search engine in order to get more accurate results. Below thestrategies for better search results are developed.
a) Simplify the Search Terms
Some engines include Stop words in their searches. These are frequently used
words such as prepositions (in, of, on), conjunctions (and, but) and articles (a,
the), which means that the search results have more pages of search results than
needed. It is always good to eliminate stop words from the internet searches.
However, if the search is aimed at searching for a specific title or name thatincludes them, they should then be included in the search term.
a) Use Quotation Marks
Enclosing a search term within quotation marks prompts the search engine to
search for that specific word or phrase. If the term is a single word, using quotation
marks will unnecessary variations which increase the number of search results.
For example, if searching for the word director, the researcher likely receives a
lot of results for direct, direction, directions, and so on. Typing “director” with
quotation marks, ensure that only results for that word are displayed.
If the search term is a phrase, the search will be for that specific phrase, rather
than for all the component words as individual items. For example, if searching
for the phrase director of
human resources, without quotation marks, the search returns results based
on all of the words in the phrase. Thus, surrounding the term with quotationmarks, will generate results that feature this specific phrase.
a) Remove unhelpful words
The use of a hyphen, small dash or minus sign immediately before a word
excludes it from a search. For example, typing in marketing -digital will exclude
digital from the search engine, making it easier to find the information searched
for. Typing marketing -digital -social would allow researcher to get rid of bothmarketing and social terms.
b) Refine the search using operators
Other characters, known as operators allow to narrow down the internet
search in more precise ways. A few of those are explored here below:
• Wildcard searches: Use wild card character to represent any other
word to search for. In this case use the * symbol to represent any other
word. For example, searching for *man in the world returns results for
the richest man in the world, the tallest man in the world, the oldest man
in the world, and so on. Wildcard searches are also useful for examplewhen researcher do not know the full text to search for.
• Combination searches: This is a technic by which the searcher
combines search terms using boolean operators AND, OR, NOT,
NEAR. These operators enable user to search for two or more terms
simultaneously and is most useful when those terms are very similar.
For example, typing selling OR retailing, will return pages where either
of the terms is used, without both needing
to be present. The AND operator ensures that the searcher receives only search
results that include two or more terms. Apart from these operators one can alsouse NEAR
• Search in a specific Site: Typing the URL of the website that the
searcher wishes to search and a search term limit the search to a
single website. For example, typing in the search box: reb.rw” Director
General” will return all the pages from reb.rw that contain the term
“Director General”
• Advanced search techniques using tilde sign (~)
When the tilde operator is placed in front of a keyword, it also searches for
words that are synonyms of that keyword. The searcher can use the tilde
operator (~) to get Google or other search engines to expand the search with
related keywords. This is helpful when one does not know the entire searchquery to use.
Application activity 6.3
Using the different search technics you have learned, search for the
following by making sure that you get more accurate results:
1) How taxes are collected in East Africa2) Causes of economic crises
6.4. Online sales and purchase process
Activity 6.4
Mushoramari wants to start a new business in which he will be selling car
spare parts to clients around the country. He wants to use emails in most
communications to replace physically meeting his clients so as to reduce
some costs to clients.
Explain how the sale and purchase process will be conducted in regard tothese concepts: inquiry, quotation.
Online sale is the use of internet and other electronic means to sell goods and
services to clients who are not physically present at the selling agent. For these sales
to be possible sellers use web sites, search engines, social media, e-mail and other
electronic means to request or provide information from sellers.
Online sale goes together with online purchase. Online purchase allows consumers to directly buygoods or services from a seller using the same channel as in online sale.
Online sales and purchase goes in a certain process in order to ensure that
when the seller and buyer conclude their deal both are satisfied. An online sale
and purchace using email can be conducted by following the process outlines
below:
A) Inquiry
Exercice 1: Role play
Inquiry is a process by which a person asks and gets information from someone
having more knowledge therefore resolving doubt. While doing an online
purchase inquiry can be conducted from the seller in order to know the kind of
products sold. In this phase, the buyer who may have a big idea of the product
to buy will ask for additional information like the product specification, price,
possibilities of a discount, packaging options, delivery methods and duration,
etc. After the buyer and the seller have agreed on the product, the seller sendsquotation to the buyer.
You are an investor specialized in hospitality specifically hotels and you want to
buy plates for one of your hotels in Rwanda. Write to an industrialist involved
in manufacturing asking him/her about plates you want to buy. Use your Gmailaccount to do this.
A) Quotation
A quotation is a document that a seller provides to a buyer to offer goods or
services at a stated price, under specified conditions. Quotations are used to let
a potential buyer know how much goods or services will cost before they decide
to buy. A quotation should include among other the price, an expiration date,your company details and your customer’s details.
A quotation also represents the brand identity and professionalism. If it looks
not attractive and not well-structured, the potential buyers will assume that the
business is not well run while if this quotation is well presented this can be asign of attention to details and the value of service provided.
Qualities of a good quotation
For a quotation to be an incentive for buying, it should meet the following :
– Visual content : Images convey easily a message than words. It is
therefore good to make the service more visual by including reference
images, videos and graphs that best reflect the process and the results.
Visuals will help to paint a clearer picture of what will be working on
and enable to demonstrate all unique features of product/service in a
clear fashion.
– Design and format : It is good to have quotations which are in an
attractive design. To be attractive, these quotations should also haveappropriate and attractive colors.
Exercise 2: Role play
1. You are the hotelier in Exercise 1 and you have got satisfying information
from the industrialist manufacturer. Now write to him/her requesting for aquotation for the plates you want to buy.
2. You are the industrialist manufacturer. Send to the hotelier the requestedquotation using your Gmail account.
3. You are an investor specialized in hospitality specifically hotels and
you want to buy plates for one of your hotels in Rwanda. Write to an
industrialist involved in manufacturing asking him/her about plates youwant to buy. Use your Gmail account to do this.
A) Order
Writing an order for goods and service is done when the customer has been
satisfied with the information provided in the quotation. An order should amongothers include a list of items required with the quantities.
Exercise 3: Role play
a) You are the hotelier (in Exercise 1 and 2). Write an order of the plates
you want to buy.
b) You are the Industrialist, respond to the customer from which you have
received the order.
a) Invoice
An invoice is a commercial document issued by the seller to the client about a
sell transaction. This document shows the products, quantities and the price
that were agreed on between the seller and the buyer.
Exercise 4: Role play
1) You are the industrialist manufacturer who received an order (in Exercise
3). Write an invoice to your customer.
A) Goods delivery note
A goods delivery note accompanies the goods sent to the buyer. It shows a list
of the products and the quantity of the goods included in the delivery.
Exercise 5: Role play
You are the industrialist who sent the goods that were ordered by the hotelier.
Now send the goods delivery note to the customer.
Application activity 6.4
Divide in two groups and play the role of buyer and seller then:
1) Imagine you are an owner of a company that sell planes
2) As customer and buyer interact so as to show all the process
involving inquiry, quotation, order, invoice, Goods delivery note
You may use internet to get information to help you do this role play.
6.5. E-commerce
Activity 1.1
Kamikazi wants to buy a Management Accounting book. She visited many
libraries in the country but she could not find the title she wanted. She
decided to search for the book using google.com but she could not also
find it. Finally, she realized that the book is available online on amazon.com
and the price is at 15$. She therefore decided to buy it from amazon.comwhich is located in US.
1) What is the common name for that selling and buying business done online?
2) Discuss the process Kamikazi will go through in order to buy that
book and have it delivered to her
3) Brainstorm the other local and global e-commerce platforms that can beused to buy goods and services online
6.5.1. Introduction to E-commerce
E-Commerce or Electronic Commerce also known as e-Business, is the buying
and selling of goods, products, or services over the internet using electronicmeans of payment like credit cards.
The history of e-commerce dates back to the invention of the very old notion
of “sell and buy”, electricity, cables, computers, modems, and the Internet.
E-commerce became possible in 1991 when the Internet was opened forcommercial use.
At first, the term e-commerce meant the process of execution of commercial
transactions electronically which gives an opportunity for users to exchange
business information and do electronic transactions. The ability to use these
technologies appeared in the late 1970s and allowed business companies andorganizations to send commercial documentation electronically.
6.5.2. E-commerce models
Electronic commerce can be classified into four main categories. The basis for
this simple classification is the parties that are involved in the transactions. Thefour basic electronic commerce models are:
a) Business to Business
In a business to business model companies are doing business with each other.
The final consumer is not involved. So, the Online transactions only involve themanufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, etc.
b) Business to Consumer
Here the company will sell their goods and/or services directly to the consumer.
The consumer can browse their websites and look at products, pictures, read
reviews. Then, they place their order and the company ships the goods directly to them.
c) Consumer to Consumer
Consumers are in direct contact with each other. No company is involved. It
helps people sell their personal goods and assets directly to an interested person.
d) Consumer to BusinessThe consumer provides goods or services to the company.
6.5.3. Online shopping malls
Around the world and in Rwanda there are different companies which sell goods
online. Some of them are Alibaba, Amazon, Kikuuu, Vuba Vuba. For every online
shopping mall buying goods is done in this way:
– The client creates an account on the online shopping mall. This account
will allow the client to be uniquely identified in the mall’s online system.
In order to create an account, open a web browser and enter the
address of the mall in the address bar of that browser and follow the
directives found on that platform,
– The client with an account uses his/her account credentials to login in
the system. The credentials most of the time consist of user name and
password,
– Now that the client has logged in the system, she/he chooses the
goods to buy. In the mall’s system, goods are shown with their names,
images and prices. The price to pay add up as the client selects more
goods to buy.
– The client chooses the payment methods like MTN Mobile Money, Tigo
Cash. There are also other payment methods which can be used like
credit/debit cards, bank transfers, etc
a) Local online shopping malls
Kikuu is one of the e-commerce platforms available in Rwanda with which one
can buy available goods and have them delivered to his/her preferred location
in Kigali. When a client wants to buy from Kikuu he/she visit the platform kikuu.com or rw.kikuu.com whose screen is displayed below:
Vuba vuba is an online shopping mall which is specialized in the selling of food,
supermarket goods and party groceries delivery service with Vuba vuba. This
platform is accessed through the link vubavuba.rw. However this platform is
used on telephone and their corresponding apps are downloadable throughGoogle Play or App Store.
a) Other online shopping malls
Application activity 6.5
1) What is e-commerce
2) With an example explain business to consumer e-commerce model
3) State e-payment methods that are used when buying goods and
services online.
4) Discuss the major benefits of E-commerce over traditional commerce?
6.6. E-procurement, E-tax and E-payment
Activity 6.6
Do a research and explain how procurement, tax collection and fee payment
were done in Rwanda in the years 1980.
1) What were the disadvantages of that system?
2) Briefly explain how procurement, collection of taxes and fee paymentis done nowadays.
6.6.1. E-procurement
• Definition
E-procurement is the buying and selling of goods and services using internet
through dedicated web applications. E procurement is designed to centralize
and automate interactions between organizations, customers and other parties
in the procurement so as to increase the speed and efficiency of this process
(procurement).
• The benefits of e procurement include :
– Automation of tasks which otherwise would be laborious. Those tasks
are like document management for purchase orders, evaluating and
selecting suppliers, storing supplier contracts, etc
– The procuring process becomes less centralized meaning that both the
client and the procuring entity can view the status of the procurement
anywhere and anytime
– Reduces the risk of corruption and document loss as every action done
in the procurement system is recorded. It is not possible for example to
remove a submitted file and pretend that it was not submitted but this
can be done in a paperbased procurement.
• Procurement web application in Rwanda
As many sectors are being computerized, procurement was not left behind. That
is why there is in place a system umucyo.gov.rw which is used in procurement
in order to make it quick and easy. The features of this system can be accessed
when the user is not logged but personified features are accessed when the
user is logged. When not logged one can have access to the list of procurementplan both in the current financial year and the old financial years.
6.6.2. E-tax
In Rwanda, taxes are collected by Rwanda Revenue Authority while there are
also taxes collected at the local level. These taxes are collected using the RRA
website which is linked to an application to allow tax declaration. There is also a
Rwanda Trade Portal (rwandatrade.rw/) which is used to calculate import duties
and taxes. This application is connected to the Rwanda custom database whichmakes it calculate accurately the taxes to be paid.
6.6.3. E- payment--
E-payment is a way of carrying out transactions or paying for goods and
services using an electronic medium without using the traditional way of
payment involving cash or check. This payment can be between people,
between people and institutions, between institutions.
Inside the country the e-payment between people can be done using
MTN Mobile Money, Airtel Money or Tigo Cash. The e-payment from
institutions to people can be done using different application which
allows a depositing of money from the institution account to the people’s
accounts. For example the payment of salaries to public servants is doneusing MINECOFIN system.
• Exercise:
Do a research on how public institutions pay their staff using e-payment means.
Your findings should include: the name of the system, the process of paymentand how to prevent fraud in the payments.
• Characteristics of an e-payment system
As E-payments systems are used for managing the payment of money, no error
is allowed. The main characteristics of an epayment system in order to prevent
errors to the maximum are the following :
– Security: Because e-payment systems involve actual money, it is more
likely that criminals will attack these systems. Therefore these system
must be protected against any cyber attack.
– Reliability: As more services adopt e-payment, all the life in a
country will depend on the e-payment systems. Therefore any problem
encountered by that system will greatly impact the whole country. This
explains why e-payment systems should be always available and should
not fail.
– Scalability: The internet is growing rapidly and people migrating from
the old way of payment to e-payment increase rapidly. An e-paymentsystem must be able to accommodate an increase in number of people
using it and must not crash, be unavailable or lose its performance
because the number of transactions has increased. Therefore an
e-payment system must support the addition of infrastructure withoutstopping the service.
– Anonymity : There are transactions for which the identity of the parties
to the transaction should be protected. An e-payment system shouldtherefore allow this anonymity when it is needed.
Application activity 6.6
Visit the web applications that are used for procurement, tax calculation,
e-payment.
3) What is the feature found in the e-procurement application?
4) Describe what you can do when using the e-tax application. What are
its advantages compared to when there was not a web application to do it?
5) Do a research and enumerate services in Rwanda which are paid
using e-payment systems. For each service show the system used.
End of unit assessment 6
1. Give examples of services that can be paid electronically in Rwanda
2. Differentiate credit card and debit card?
3. Discuss techniques you would use to get accurate search results
when searching using a search engine
4. Discuss the advantages of using emails in carrying out communication
Differentiate Cc and BCc as two options which are provided while
writing emails.6. Explain the different e-commerce models