Steps in Creating an Annual Report

© Jerry Belch

Overview of Project
  • The objective here is to:
    1. Prepare the annual report for our Virtual Enterprise Company
    2. All departments are involved in contributing to the report and need to submit appropriate materials to the administration department before beginning the project
    3. See the Materials To Collect section for details of material that needs to be submitted by each department

    • Tutorial

  • The process will be detailed in the week by week section to the right
  • It is imperative to get the above accomplished within the two weeks before the end of school.

  • Materials to Collect

    1. A copy of your company's business plan.
    2. Your company's mission statement
    3. List of officers
    4. Digital copy of your logo
    5. What are your company colors?
    6. Digital photos of company activities:trade shows, grand openings, open houses, fund raising activities.
    7. Accounting Financial statements for each month: Trial Balance, Income Statement, Balance Sheet.
    8. Review other company financial reports to see the format and what is included in theirs.
    9. Get an outline of highlights during the year from each department.
    10. Obtain from each department manager a report on what was accomplished this year. It should include a looking forward section consisting of a paragraph about the upcoming year.
    11. Impulse Entertainment Annual Report
    12. Sample Organization Charts
    13. Sample Job Descriptions

      Teacher's Responsibility

    14. Create lesson plans using department template forms
    15. Pass out progress logs
    16. Have department managers direct their employees fill out the progress logs for each week
    17. Make sure manager comments and fills out their portion of the progress log and turn them over to CEO who delivers them to the instructor.

    We will build the annual report one step at a time.

    • Step-By-Step Instructions

    Annual Report Week 1

    Using the materials that you have collected, we are going to outline step-by-step instructions.

    1. Day 1: Cover Page
    2. The examples used to make this annual report is for the Lovebytes Computer Dating service.
    3. If you check out the Step By Steps, you will see that there is a business plan and business presentation step by step for this company
    4. I realize that there are many versions of Word and PowerPoint being used by schools.
    5. My goal is to simply show examples of the written report in Microsoft Word and the presentation report in Microsoft PowerPoint
    6. I used the 2007 versions of both.
    7. The first page or slide should be the cover page
    8. It should contain company name, slogan, The title of the document - Annual Report and the date.
    9. Here are two examples for the computer dating service
    10. Cover page example
    11. The next example uses a blank word file
    12. A picture - LoveBytes logo is copied and pasted into the Word document.
    13. Text is then added.
    14. Another cover page example
    15. In addition to a written annual report, you will need to create and electronic presentation of the same report.
    16. Remember this is the cover page. We will save each page as a separate slide for instructional purposes only.
    17. When you do this you will want to make one single presentation.
    18. Cover sheet in PowerPoint

    1. Day 2: Prepare Table of Contents
    2. The table of Contents page shows the reader where to find different parts of the Annual Report.
    3. Even if you do not know what the pages are for each section, by laying out the plan in a table of content format, helps organize the different parts of the plan.
    4. The annual report should total between ten and twelve pages.
    5. Different officers should prepare different sections of the plan
      • Management Department coordinates the overall plan and prepares sections I, IV, VII, VIII and IX
      • Sales and Marketing should prepare section II
      • Accounting prepares and coordinates sections III, V, VI
      • Information Technology Department should prepare the electronic/presentation version of the report and furnish a report as to what has been done by their department this past year.
      • Listed below is a sample table of contents - in a Microsoft Word Document Format and PowerPoint Format
    6. Table of Contents Written
    7. PowerPoint Table of Contents

    Day 3 Chairman of the Board Letter:

    1. The CEO should put this letter together
    2. The letter should reflect the well being of the company.
    3. The letter should be addressed to the stockholders.
    4. In our case, the stockholders are the employees of the company since it is organized as a S-Corporation.
    5. The letter should be either one of two pages and include the following sections.
      • Changing developments- nature of the market.
      • Goals achieved or missed. Financial data plays a very important part here.
      • Future plans
    6. Written letter from CEO
    7. PowerPoint slide: CEO Letter to stockholders

    Day 4 Sales and Marketing

    1. This section should include the product line.
    2. You also need to know how the product was sold
    3. Where it was sold.
    4. When it was sold.
    5. Marketing written letter

    6. Marketing 1 PowerPoint Slide
    7. Marketing 2 PowerPoint Slide
    8. Marketing 3 PowerPoint Slide

      Day 5 Current Year Summary of Financial Figures

      1. The summary of the financial section should contain the following items.
        • Income by the month and year to date
        • Expenses monthly and year to date
        • Monthly net profits and year to date profit
        • What is the company's break even number: units and sales
        • Growth of profits. Look at trade shows open houses and grand openings
        • What are the best selling packages or items in our line.
        • Written summary of financials
        • PowerPoint on summary of financials

      Printer Friendly Version -Week 1

      Annual Report Week 2

      Day 6: Management Discussion and Analysis.

      1. Management discussion and analysis is an unaudited section of the annual report.
      2. Management discusses the company's financial performance over the past year and its current financial position.
      3. Provide an insight the company's future prospects in light of its strategy.
      4. It should disclose its basis for critical accounting estimates.
      5. Written Management Discussion and Analysis
      6. Management Discussion and Analysis - PowerPoint

        Certified Public Accountant Opinion Letter.
      1. This part of the annual report contains a letter written by an independent accountant.
      2. The letter could come from a CPA or a business partner well versed in accounting.
      3. The letter should contain their opinion on the company's financials.
      4. Do your books conform to generally accepted accounting principles?
      5. If the accountant says that your accounting system is subject to interpretation, this is not a good thing.
      6. The accounting system must be a double-entry system. This means that for every account that is debited another is credited.
      7. Written CPA Letter
      8. PowerPoint CPA letter

      Day 7: Financial Statements

      1. Include sales figures for each month
      2. Expenses and profits each month
      3. When preparing an annual report it is good to know what investors are looking for.
      4. This section should contain a year-to-date balance sheet to show the financial condition of the business at the end of your accounting period.
      5. Include a year-to-date income statement, showing revenue and expenses and net profit.
        • I used the template that appears in a link on his page to produce the year to date financial statements.
        • Take the April trial balance - which is the last one for a regular new VE company
        • Enter all assets, liabilities and stockholders equity number under April
        • Enter each revenue and expense, by the month.
        • All numbers should appear in the trial balance below. Check that it is in balance
        • Click on Sheet 2 to see the income statement
        • Click on Sheet 3 to see the balance sheet
        • Copy and paste these documents into your written Annual Report.
        • You will probably have to reduce the size of the font and adjust with the margins for it to fit properly.
      6. Include the earnings occurred. Refer to section 6- Current year summary of financial statements.
      7. Include the company's debt. The loan made from the Virtual Enterprise Center.
      8. Come up with the debt to equity ratio. Divide liabilities by stockholders' equity. Example 46,617/90,106 = .52
      9. A high ratio means that the company borrows a lot of money to spark growth.
      10. Written report on financial statements
      11. PowerPoint presentation on financial statements
      12. Financial Summary Template

      Day 8: Information Technology Report

      1. What were they responsible for: Web Page, Video Commercial, year end video, Internet Advertising.
      2. How was the web page created?
      3. Was a template used to create the site?
      4. Who is hosting the site?
      5. Did it get listed in the Shopping Mall?
      6. Did they compete in the Web page design competition?
      7. Did they compete in video commercial competition?
      8. Information Technology Written Report
      9. PowerPoint Presentation for Information Technology Department
      10. In the PowerPoint presentation we included a movie linked to Screencast.com
      11. The movie was made using Camtasia Studios software. They have they own site where the movie resides.
      12. PowerPoint also lets you insert a movie that you have saved to file if you wish.
      13. Camtasia also lets you have your movie uploaded to UTube.

      Day 9:Report from Human Resources

      1. Your Human Resources Department is responsible for producing a monthly newsletter
      2. An employee manual needs to created for your company outline all the rules that need to be followed.
      3. The Human resources Department is also responsible for professional development workshops.
      4. Company forms need to be updated on a regular basis.
      5. A file should be maintained for each employee for performance evaluations.
      6. Employees of the month is another responsibility
      7. The 401 K plan needs to be in place for all employees as well as health insurance program after three months.
      8. Put on a Time Management workshop.
      9. Update job descriptions and organizational chart
      10. Written Report from Human Resources
      11. Human Resources PowerPoint Presentation

      Day 10:

      1. Put written part together. Merge the Word documents and number the pages
      2. Complete Table of Contents
      3. Combine PowerPoint Slides to make one presentation.
      4. Proofread, spell and grammar check both reports.
      5. Practice oral presentation - many times in front of different groups.
      6. Deliver the oral presentation in front of school personnel and business partners.

        Completed Written Annual Report

        Completed PowerPoint presentation for Annual Report

        Printer Friendly Version - Week 2