Now this is something that’s more or less the text from prior periods. The accounting principles do not change this often or on such a scale that you’d have to rewrite the entire section on your report. Once you’ve gotten it all written up you’re safe for a long time. Continue reading →

Now they are the most important things when it comes to preparing an Annual Report! Those four statements – balance sheet, income statement, statement of cash flows and statement of changes in equity – are the real face of your company’s performance. They tell the story of how the year went; everything else is just a comment and describing events in more detail. When displaying those statements, it’s like stating a result or a fact. The management report and notes to financial statements are explaining what and why exactly happened. Accounting principles are the “how” things happened. Continue reading →

An Annual Report is quite literally a report about your company’s financial year. The word “annual” refers to a year and “report” to an overview.

In its essence the Annual Report serves quite a few purposes. First and foremost it’s a general overview of the financial year and an answer to the question “How it went?” Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

The obvious answer would be “right after the financial year has been closed in the accounting”, however there’s little bit more to it. It’s not just the accounts and even then, the Annual Report doesn’t prepare itself. You need to put in your time! And make sure you’ve got all information that’s to be presented within one. Continue reading →

Every time I hear someone arguing that using the checklist is a waste of time I end up finding silly mistakes or simple things forgotten within an Annual Report. They are the bits that could have easily been avoided with using the checklist. Why people don’t use them? The reason is simple. They think, with being experienced and all that they already know everything that should be within an Annual Report and what may go wrong and so they don’t need the checklist to remind them. Fact of the matter is we’re all humans and make mistakes. The checklist is not a shameful thing to be using, it’s smart. Continue reading →

Normally when preparing an Annual Report for another consecutive financial year you’d take your prior year’s report as a template, change numbers within tables and hopefully for the most part also inside texts. If not much has changed you get your report done very easy and quickly. Even if some text parts need to be changed or edited, it doesn’t take up much time. Continue reading →