Preparing your Annual Report

TEN TOP TIPS for preparing your Annual report for 2020

June is the time to start thinking about your annual report preparation. This can often be quite a busy and stressful time. Your annual report is a mandatory multi-purpose document that can often be under-utilised as a key branding opportunity.

For Danielle Tiller, Managing Director of Sage Ventures Executive Business Support, it is a really exciting time. “The mid-year lead up to reporting period starting with the preparation of the annual report and then leading onto the AGM is always one our favourite busy times in the calendar”. “I personally just love the flow of the whole process”. 

When preparing the Annual Report for an organisation, you will find you will be managing complex stakeholders, large volumes of data and information, whilst ensuring legal requirements are met. The final outcome should be a polished and professional report. Keep in mind, this is a great opportunity to deliver positive information to your shareholders and the market, showcasing the milestones achieved over the past 12 month period and preparing them for the year ahead. 

 Outlined below are some of our top tips for ensuring your annual report gets out on time.

1) The Annual Reporting Schedule

For publicly listed companies, your timeline will be planned based on the end date ahead of your Annual General Meeting. From here, you work backwards from this date to plan your content, financials, concept design, layout design, proofreading, printing and delivery. Preparing a schedule that is shared with your Company Secretary, team/departments, management and chosen designer will keep everyone on track.   Be sure to allow some slippage time.  I’ll also schedule key delivery times in the diary.

 2) Engage your Annual Report designer

Next step is engaging your annual report designer, preferably a reputable company that understands the complexity and structure for reporting. They will have an understanding of the reporting requirements especially when it comes to public listed companies. This ensures they understand the process for the Annual Report. They will start by providing you with a selection of design concepts based on the brief you provide. Designers will also by recommending print methods and timelines for your project plan. In most cases, they will be able to coordinate the print production. We have a great designer specialising in public listed companies if you’d like a referral.

3) Know your print quantities

Too many times, we have come across clients who have over-ordered print copies. With today’s delivery mode options for annual reports now available online via website or e-delivery, there is great savings to be made reducing print copies. Just be sure you have basic stock available for the office for your records, handouts at AGM’s or at meetings. If you are printing a large volume (over 500), you are best to allow yourself the extra time to get the documents printed and delivered. 

4) Preparing and pulling together your content

If you are managing the project, it is critical you gather together content from all stakeholders and consolidate into a clear document. Generally you will prepare all written content in a Word document. Your financial information will most likely be prepared in a separate Excel spreadsheet.  We would usually prepare a structure of the content in the order the information is required to flow. Remember, you know your organisation, your designer may not! Clearly outlining your vision for the end product will help your designer bring your vision to life.

5) Think about version control

When there are multiple stakeholders involved, version control can be a challenge. Scribbled hand-written notes from one person, email edits from another, conflicting opinions and a sea of documents flying around doesn’t just lead to big headaches for you, it also presents a big risk for your organisation that incomplete or incorrect information slips through the cracks.

As project manager, it is best practice for you to be the manager of the centralised edit document, resolve any conflicts and use mark-up mode to track changes from all stakeholders in the one document. For collaboration, a cloud based share file is a great way to keep everything in one place and it allows multiple people to track their changes at the same time via the cloud.

 6) Proofing

Generally designers will be laying out your Annual Report in InDesign or another design program and supplying a proof to you as a PDF to review.

Using your PDF mark-up mode will allow you provide edits as required. For large sections of text replacements, supply page and paragraph references and supply to text in an unformatted word or text mode. Your designer will love you if you can collate and review all edits before supplying them and it will save time and your budget when it comes to edit rounds. Remember, your designer will give you an allocation of edits in the quote. Multiple edits will push up your budget. This lead’s on to our next important point.. budget blow out!

 7) Avoid budget blow out

The main area where we often hear clients have had bad experience and heard the dreaded words “out of scope” usually comes with the rounds of edits. This can be avoided by managing and collating all stakeholders edits before supplying edits back to the designer. We all know the first round is unlikely to be perfect, but the effective management of edits and sending them through to the designer in bulk, not dribs and drabs, will go a long way to preventing budget blow out. 

 8) Protect sensitive information

As you are preparing your company’s Annual Report, a lot of highly sensitive information is likely to be handled by different people within your organisation, as well as external service providers. Consider getting your chosen design company and printer to sign a non-disclosure statement. We are lucky in that our preferred designer specialises in preparing annual reports for public listed companies, and have an in-depth knowledge of Corporate Governance. Most decent design studios and agencies should have confidentiality clauses in their employment contracts to cover this off however.

 9) Image Library

Some company’s like to utilise their annual report as a marketing opportunity. This could be in the form of a big and glossy report with several images and infographics. Start to pull your library of images together early and be sure they are high resolution and in a print quality your designer can easily utilise. Again, organising your documents in a share folder will assist with collating all your information in one place and easily accessed by all.

10) Final Release of your Annual Report

Be sure you have your designer provide the online version of your annual report early and prior to the release date. This will ensure time to have your online interactive annual report loaded onto your website.  So, when you’re putting together your online Annual Report remember these two things:

1. Ensure you are provided an easy-to-navigate, accessible HTML Annual Report that is easy to read.
2. Since Annual Reports are scanned quickly – often less than a few minutes at a time – make sure your report has impact and relevance. And that it can be viewed across a number of platforms, such as tablets and mobile devices.

In summary, the annual report comprises information about the company and it is the primary source of information about a company’s activities and strategies.

A final word:  Be sure to partner closely with your CFO or Company Secretary so as to be in compliance of the ASX Listing Rules.

Would you like assistance preparing your next Annual Report?

Do you have any questions or want some more information about designing your Annual Report? Please contact our team via email at [email protected]. 

We have close partnerships with leaders and experts working with ASX-listed companies for their print collateral, online corporate resources, communications and investor relations.

Sage Ventures are expert c-suite executive support specialists. We understand the complexities of public listed companies, enabling us to slot in seamlessly to assist your project needs whether it is an AGM, IPO, Road Show, Investor Conference or general gap filling. We work 1:1 with your business as an extension of your team. 

Engage us for a day, a week, contracted engagement or project. We are flexible to your needs.  Sage Simplicity. www.sageventures.com.au