An Annual Report is a compilation of your company’s financial year, its results and all the accompanying details.

First things first, you should have the accounts for the reporting period ready. Do note that it’s not just the balance sheet and income statement, but also:

• Statement of cash flows;
• Statement of changes in equity;
• More detailed notes to those financial statements with detailed movement ledgers where applicable.

Now, when the accounts are ready, all numerical movement presented, it’s time to write up all the additional information required to be disclosed – interest rates, due dates, additional conditions with agreements and everything else that’s not obvious from numbers, but also information to explain the numbers.

Start off with the balance sheet and line by line think if there’s anything extra that needs to be disclosed. For an example let’s take “cash and cash equivalents”. It’s the cash balances, bank accounts etc., but it’s also the interest rates in case you’ve got deposits. While the deposit balance is included within the detailed table, the interest rate is something that you need to look either from the agreement or ask from the bank. And you continue from there to receivables, prepayments, inventory etc. Remember that you don’t need extra information necessarily to every note, but just make sure you’ve got the information ready if you do. And once you’re done with the balance sheet move onto the income statement and so on.

If you want to learn more about Annual Report, please check out our Office ToDo UNI.