Financial management reports can cover anything from income statements, profit and loss summaries, and tax filings to retained earnings. Regardless of what you plan to cover in the next report, your business will need an efficient system that goes beyond presenting these details in an organized manner. You want to also improve the decision-making and responsiveness that arises from the report. You want stakeholders to act according to your findings and view the information provided as useful in the long run.

Financial reports are a good indicator of the health of a company. You need to not only show how each financial aspect performed but also what has helped drive these forces, such as sales or marketing. Specific information such as revenue from your operations or how you can improve your company’s total assets can be sought after at the end of your plan. 

How then can you improve the company’s reporting to ensure a clear, efficient, and effective presentation? Check out these three ways to improve your financial management reporting.

1. Have a Goal in Mind.

A report that tries to cover everything ends up discussing nothing. Before you head into drafting that financial management report, think first with an end in mind. You can go over a few questions to draw out a specific answer. Do you simply want to express your company’s overall revenue and expenses? Do you need to budget the expenses in the coming year? Do you need to see how the business financially grew based on its key drivers? These are just some of the questions you can consider when planning a report on the upcoming goals and plans for your business. From there, you can articulate an umbrella goal that will clarify and specify what your report hopes to achieve.

2. Maximize Visuals.

A financial report with images and charts helps your readers visually summarize and explain financial data. You want to give your business stakeholders clear and easy-to-comprehend visuals you want to present. Utilize infographics, pie charts, and other illustrations that can summarize the important points. Make sure the text and the visuals work hand in hand to tell the story of your data. Having a story in mind ensures that the goal of the report is maintained as you take the reader through the report’s information.

Make sure all elements work together so the report is readable. Stick to a color palette and use it consistently across the different pages. Otherwise, all the effort you made in ensuring consistency in the data and different information will be useless if they all don’t look good together.

3. Keep Everything Clear and Simple.

You’ll end up alienating your CEO or managers if the data and strategies presented are hard to follow and understand. Apart from using a color palette, keep in mind the basic design principles that will make sure the information reads clearly every time. Use white space to balance elements, stick to colors that are easy on the eyes, and make sure to use readable fonts.

The language should also avoid anything that remotely resembles corporate language and management speak. This just drowns out your message and makes your report’s goal less apparent. You want every word and the sentence completed to be clear, honest, and straightforward. Avoid resorting to jargon, keep the language simple, but never talk down to your reader.

For small businesses, creating a comprehensive financial management report can be time-consuming and eat into the hours they can spend on growing the company. Outsourcing provides a cost-efficient solution that enables managers to focus on their business and still have expert teamwork on the management report that covers bank statements, profit and loss summaries, tax filings, and other crucial information. 

Companies like Infinit-O can build you a dedicated team of market and financial analysts to complete a clear, straightforward, and goal-oriented management report on your finances. The outsourced team will spend the time you don’t have, ensuring that stakeholders have all the information they need in order to make the right business decisions to move their company forward. This leaves you to focus on your core tasks such as producing the right products or services, delighting your customers, and increasing your revenue. 

Infinit-O is the trusted customer-centric and sustainable leader in Business Process Optimization to Small and Medium businesses in the Financial Services, Healthcare and Technology sectors by delivering continuous improvement through technology, data and people.