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Annual report basics

Annual reports are first and foremost about holding yourself to account to the people who fund you or have a stake in your work.

Here are a few guidelines...

1. Be robust: Annual reports are about accountability. They're not marketing documents. Your reputation will be enhanced if you acknowledge the challenges you are facing and clearly explain what you are doing to address those challenges - in other words, by genuine warts-and-all reporting.

2. Structure reports so readers can actually understand your work: It should be possible to understand each of your organisation's activities within a single section - what it is, its budget, and the relevant performance measures. Readers shouldn't have to flick to separate sections and piece the story together for themselves.

3. In longer reports, make the introduction a genuine summary: Readers who don't know about your organisation should be able to understand its purpose, structure, the work it does, and its overall performance for the year within the first dozen or so pages.

4. Avoid bureaucratese: Keep writing simple, concise, and tangible - see 6 principles of effective writing.

5. Make the document scannable: Nobody's going to read an annual report from cover to cover; use headings, text design, breakouts etc to get your main points across to readers who are quickly scanning through.

Find out more

The Global Reporting Initiative is the international standard on sustainability reporting. It's also helpful for standard annual reports.

The NZ State Services Commission has guidelines on annual reports and statements of intent for New Zealand public sector organisations. The Crown Company Monitoring and Advisory Unit has guidelines for crown research institutes.

The NZ Institute of Chartered Accountants runs annual report awards. The ones we're involved are consistent award-winners.