Annual Report Template
Corporations, small businesses and nonprofits use the annual report template to give shareholders and other key stakeholders information about the organization’s activities and financial performance in the previous year. The goal of this report is to give stakeholders a comprehensive overview about the organziation’s mission, year-end highlights, projects, financial information and industry highlights.
- Provide investors and shareholders with a thoughtful and visually appealing annual report design to share information on key milestones and the company’s financial information.
- Highlight your company’s key achievements and goals for the coming year.
- Introduce key team members who joined during the previous year.
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How to create an annual report with Xtensio
- Click and start editing, no account or credit card required.
Follow along with the instructional annual report design details. Add charts, graphs, images, and videos to customize the annual report template and make it your own. Drag & drop. Resize. Customize the report format however you need. It’s the easiest editor ever.
- Customize everything in the annual report template to match your brand.
Define your style guide. Add your (or your client’s) brand fonts and colors. You can even pull colors directly from a website to easily brand your annual reports and more.
- Work on your annual report details together on the cloud.
Add colleagues (or clients) to collaborate on the annual report template. Changes automatically save and sync across all devices, in real-time.
- Share a link. Present a slideshow. Embed. Download a PDF/PNG.
The annual report seamlessly adapts to your workflow. No more jumping from tool-to-tool to design different types of deliverables.
- Reuse and repurpose.
Save your own custom annual report design templates. Or copy and merge into other documents.
Easily create, manage and share impressive, professional documents for every part of your business.
Xtensio is much more than your standard annual report builder.
What is an annual report template?
Annual reports are a crucial part of your business and its yearly operations. The annual report is a financial document that businesses provide to shareholders, potential investors, employees and analysts as a source of information about the past year’s performance and financial well-being.
Generally, the first half of an annual report is devoted to company information, industry trends, and other important business news, while the second half usually contains financial data. Sometimes companies use the annual report as a marketing tool or a reminder to shareholder of its business achievements.
What information should be included in an annual report?
Annual reports provide a fundamental overview of the business during the previous year. Typically, the annual report contains categories such as a letter from the company CEO, data regarding the business’s finances and information about business activities.
Message from CEO and business profile
This is your cover page. Talk about your company’s mission and vision. How would you describe your company as a whole? What were the major goals for the previous year? How about your vision looking towards the future?
Year-end highlights
Highlight key business growth using numbers, clients’ names, partnerships, etc. Did you introduce new products or services this year? Or any new marketing campaigns or initiatives? It’s also a good idea to give an overview of any awards, accomplishments or major lists you were included in this year in this section of the annual report template.
Financial overview
This is what your shareholders really care about in the annual report. Showcasing your company’s financial statements allows current and future investors, shareholders, employees and other business stakeholders to determine how well the company has performed in the past, its ability to pay off debts and its plans for growth. You could include financial statements such as:
- Balance sheet.
- Cash flow statement.
- Income statement.
- Customer growth statement.
Industry highlights
Create an overview of where your market stands by outlining a few of your competitors. Where does the market stand? What did your competitors do well last year? Where did they fall short? Introduce key leadership team members
Putting a face to your company is important, especially if you’re using your annual reports as a marketing initiative to gain new interest from investors. Add a high quality cover photo for each team member and describe how each team member plans to help reach your company vision.
How do you write an annual report?
Annual reports are important elements of a brand’s transparency and accountability. These reports communicate the values and goals of your brand and align shareholders on future growth goals. That being said, you should create annual reports that easily speak to a broad audience since these reports can be shared across current and potential investors, shareholders, employees and even consumers.
Here are a few tips for creating an annual report design.
- Create highly visual and narrative-driven annual reports.
- Keep the color palette, fonts and images used in the annual report inline with your brand identity.
- Determine a key message that resonates through every part of your annual report.
- Map out your content – or use an annual report design template to help you structure your content.
The annual report is part of these toolboxes:
Check out related templates, examples and resources.
More templates related to annual report:
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The goal of this report is to give stakeholders a comprehensive overview about the organization’s mission, year-end highlights, projects, financials and industry highlights.
You should include any and all information about what your company has accomplished in the previous year – this could include awards and recognitions, important projects, financial health, industry highlights, etc.
The living annual report template allows you to instantly sync your entire team throughout the process. The document can easily be updated throughout the year to add information, awards and projects as they progress. You can add collaborators to work in real-time. And you can share the customizable link to keep internal and external colleagues up-to-date as the project progresses.
Yes! You can invite as many people as you’d like to collaborate on your annual report, ensuring your whole team is aligned. As a platform, Xtensio helps improve the way your team works. Here’s more on real-time collaboration.
When you’re ready to share your annual report with the management team, shareholders and other key stakeholders, choose between presenting it as a full-screen digital slideshow, sending it as a responsive web link or exporting it as a PDF or PNG. Learn more about the different ways to share your folios in this tutorial video.
We do! There are a number of different templates, examples and resources to guide you through defining and implementing your business. Check out our Investor Relations toolbox and our Strategy toolbox to find more tools and resources.
