how to write financial narrative report

How to Write a Great Financial Report? Tips and Best Practices

To make informed financial decisions in your company, you first have to be, well, informed.

Understanding the financial activity of your company sets the foundation for identifying good business opportunities and making the right decisions to ensure future growth.

By tracking, organizing, and analyzing financial performances, you will have a clearer picture of where the money is going and where it’s coming from. No wonder finance is one of the most monitored and reported operations, according to Databox’s State of Business Reporting .

To stay on top of numbers, companies use financial reports.

Financial reports are formal documents that capture all the significant financial activities within a business in a specific period.

While these reports are extremely useful for you and your key stakeholders, you won’t be the only one reaping the fruits. Financial statements are also examined by potential investors and banks since they provide them with enough insight to determine whether they want to invest in your business.

In this article, we are going to walk you through what financial reports are, why they are significant and show you a step-by-step guide that will take your financial reports and business reporting as a whole, to the next level.

What Is a Financial Report?

What is the purpose of financial reporting, what are the types of financial reporting, how to write a financial report, finance report examples.

• Improve Financial Reporting with Databox

Financial reports are official company documents that showcase all the financial activities and performances of your business over a specific period. Usually, they are created on a quarterly or yearly basis.

Every business is legally obliged to use financial reporting to display its current financial status and organize financial data.

The documents are available for public view which means that potential banks and investors will most likely analyze them before they decide to work with you and invest in your business.

They are also important for tracking future profitability estimates, business growth, and overall financial health.

At bottom, financial reports provide you with insight into how much money you have, how much did you spend, and where it is coming from. Based on the data within the report, you can make informed business decisions and create plans for future spending.

The key things a financial report should include are:

• Cash flow data
• Asset and liability evaluation
• Shareholder equity analysis
• Profitability measurements

Related : Quarterly Business Review: How to Write One and How to Present It Successfully

Financial reports are used to track, analyze, and display your company’s cash flow .

Understanding how your business is performing from a financial standpoint can seem like an impossible task without these reports.

However, financial reports aren’t used only because they are practical; you are legally required to include them.

Here are some of the main ways in which financial reports can help your business:

Communicate essential data

Monitors income and expenses, supports financial analysis and decision-making.

• Simplify your taxes

Having an insight into the current financial situation of your business is important to each high-ranking member of the company (stakeholders, executives, investors, and partners).

You will use this financial data to create budget plans and monitor the company’s overall performance. When you establish an open communication and transparency policy within your business, you are more likely to attract new investors and enhance funding.

The information communicated in financial statements is what investors rely on when they are assessing risks, profitability, and future returns.

One way to gain the trust of investors is to showcase how your financial performance stacks up against your peers. For example, by joining this benchmark group , you can better understand your gross profit margin performance and see how metrics like income, gross profit, net income, net operating increase, etc compare against businesses like yours.

For example, you can discover that the median gross profit a month for B2B, B2C, SaaS and eCommerce is 73.79K . If you perform better than the median, this might be a good incentive for your investors to increase your funding.

*Important note: Databox Benchmark Groups show median values. The median is calculated by taking the “middle” value, the value for which half of the observations are larger and half are smaller. The average is calculated by adding up all of the individual values and dividing this total by the number of observations. While both are measures of central tendency, when there is a possibility of extreme values, the median is generally the better measure to use.

Benchmark Your Performance Against Hundreds of Companies Just Like Yours

Viewing benchmark data can be enlightening, but seeing where your company’s efforts rank against those benchmarks can be game-changing. 

Browse Databox’s open Benchmark Groups and join ones relevant to your business to get free and instant performance benchmarks. 

Financial reporting involves tracking incomes and expenses for a specific time period. To establish efficient debt management and budget allocation, you will need an insight into the most important spending areas .

By tracking income and expenses , you will also understand current liabilities and assets. Analyzing financial documentation will provide you with a bigger picture regarding the key metrics such as debt-to-asset ratios that investors use to calculate potential profitability.

All of this is information is crucial for staying ahead of your competitors.

Related : How to Write a Great Business Expense Report: A Step-By-Step Guide with Examples

The performance analysis in financial reports is what you rely on to make better business decisions.

Considering the different data that financial reports include, you can check out real-time information regarding historical performances, key spending areas, and use them to create accurate financial forecasts.

Implementing detailed financial analysis and using developed data models can help any business better evaluate current activities and make future business growth decisions.

You will be able to recognize trends, potential problems, and stay on top of your financial performances in real-time. This sets the foundation for quick and accurate economic decisions.

The main purpose of financial reports is to make sure your business is in compliance with the law and regulations of government agencies.

Regulatory institutions examine every document that evaluates the financial activities of your company. This is why making accurate financial documentation is crucial for the well-being of your business.

Aside from accuracy, you will also have to follow certain deadlines that these institutions set. This sometimes causes pressure in accounting departments to create complex financial reports quickly and accurately, which is why regular bookkeeping is immensely important.

In the US, private and public companies have to be compliant with the GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles), while international companies mostly report under the IRFS (International Reporting Financial Standards).

Both of these organizations provide some standard guidelines but there are a few differences you will have to pay attention to when creating your financial statements.

Simplify your taxes  

No matter how big or small your business is, doing taxes can be a stressful task.

By creating accurate financial reports, you can make tax calculation a lot easier since you will minimize any chances of error and save time by including all financial data in one document.

Not only that, since financial reports are a legal requirement, the IRS uses them to evaluate the tax income of each individual company. 

Additionally, with the introduction of Making Tax Digital (MTD) in many countries, including the UK, it is now mandatory for businesses to maintain digital records and submit tax returns digitally. This means that accurate financial reports are more important than ever, as they will be used to populate the required digital tax submissions.

While financial reports all have the same goal, there are a few different types that you should know about.

This isn’t only a matter of compliance or best practice, these reports are key for understanding the different segments of cash flow.

Here are the main types of financial reporting:

Balance Sheet

Cash flow statement, income statement, shareholder equity statement.

A balance sheet is a financial statement that tracks the total amount of assets, liabilities, and shareholder equities within your company. They also provide you with a real-time evaluation of asset liquidity and debt coverage.

Most companies create balance sheets on a quarterly basis and include the data from each quarter in the annual report.

When creating a balance sheet, there is an asset page (includes available cash, equipment value, inventory value, etc.) and a liability page (includes accounts payable, credit card balances, bank loans, etc.) that you need to fulfill.

Once you total these assets and liabilities, you will subtract liabilities from the assets. The amount you get is what is called ‘owner’s equity’.

This is a financial statement that records all the different cash flow activities in the company.

Cash flow statements track cash generated and cash spent amounts in a specific time period. This report is crucial for measuring whether companies generate enough cash to cover their debts. Also, it provides insight into fund operations, investments, and the overall activities that are generating revenue.

This statement is helpful for investors since they can use it to determine whether your business presents a good investment opportunity .

While balance sheets incorporate certain calculations to determine financial values, cash flow statements are consisted of three main elements:

• Operational activities – inventories, wages, tax income, accounts receivable, accounts payable, and cash receipts
• Investment activities – investment earnings use, investment earnings generation, asset sales, issued loans, payments from mergers
• Financing activities – payable dividends, debt payments, debt issuance, cash from investors, and stock repurchases

The income statement records the company’s expenses, revenue, and net loss/income over a specific time period.

Balance sheets focus on the current activities and performances while income sheets track them over a longer period. Businesses tend to track income statements each quarter to gain better insight into the different financial processes that occur.

Income statements include profits and losses , which is why they are also called P&L statements (Profits & Losses).

The main elements included on the income statement are:

• Operating revenue – financial data regarding sales of products or services
• Net and gross revenue – includes the total sales revenue and remaining revenue (after the cost subtraction)
• Primary expenses – these include general costs, administrative costs, depreciation and selling, and COGS (cost of goods sold)
• Secondary expenses – capital loss, asset loss, debt interest, and loan interest
• Nonoperating revenue – this is revenue that comes from accrued interest, it includes investment returns, capital gains, and royalty payments

Even though shareholder’s equity is usually included on the balance sheet, larger companies tend to report these activities on a separate statement.

This statement tracks the amount of money key stakeholders invest in the business. The investments most commonly include company stocks and securities. After dividends are released to stockholders, the retained earnings in the company change.

Stakeholder equity statement includes these key components:

• Retained earnings after dividends and losses have been subtracted
• Common/preferred stock sales
• Purchased treasury stock
• Generated income (including the income that comes from unrealized capital gains)

Pro Tip: How to Stay on Top of the Financial Health of Your Business

Do you own and manage a small business? Then you know how much of a struggle it can be to stay on top of the financial health of your business on a daily basis. Now you can pull data from QuickBooks and HubSpot’s CRM to track your key business metrics in one convenient dashboard, including:

• Open deals and deal amounts by pipeline stage. Get sales data directly from your HubSpot CRM and track deals, deal amounts, deal stages, and dates from your sales pipeline. 
• Key financial data. Track gross profit margin, open invoices by amount and by customer, paid invoices, expenses, and income from QuickBooks.

Now you can benefit from the experience of our HubSpot CRM and QuickBooks experts, who have put together a plug-and-play Databox template that helps you monitor and analyze your key financial metrics. It’s simple to implement and start using, and best of all, it’s free!

You can easily set it up in just a few clicks – no coding required.

To set up the dashboard, follow these 3 simple steps:

Step 1: Get the template 

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Step 3: Watch your dashboard populate in seconds.

Financial reports help you understand your company’s financial performance, attract potential investors, and are legally required. This is why you have to make sure that they are as accurate as possible.

You want your financial reports to be comprehensive, understandable, and precise.

Even though creating a good financial report can be very complex, we are going to show you a step-by-step guide that will make the whole process much easier.

Follow these steps to create a great financial report:

Step 1 – Make a Sales Forecast

Step 2 – create a budget for expenses, step 3 – create a cash flow statement, step 4 – estimate net profit, step 5 – manage assets and liabilities, step 6 – find the breakeven point.

When making a sales forecast, the first thing you should do is create a spreadsheet that includes your sales performance from the last three years.

Use a specific section for each line of sales and organize columns for each month of year one. For years two and three, organize columns on a quarterly basis.

Create three different blocks – one for pricing, one for unit sales, and the third one for multiplying units by unit cost (to calculate the cost of sales).

Cost of sales is important because it helps you calculate a precise gross margin.

Once you do the math, you can make an accurate sales forecast that is backed up by historic financial data.

PRO TIP: If you are using HubSpot CRM to visualize your sales data, watch the video below to learn how to set up and track your HubSpot CRM data in order to more accurately forecast your sales this month, quarter, and beyond.

Once you have made a sales forecast, you will want to calculate how much it will cost you.

When creating an expense budget, you should include both fixed costs (rent, payroll, etc.) and variable costs (marketing and promotional expenses). Costs such as interest and taxes can’t be completely accurate, so you are going to have to make rough estimates.

For taxes, you can multiply the estimated debt balance by your estimated tax percentage rate.

To estimate interest, multiply your estimated debt balance by an estimated interest rate.

We already mentioned what cash flow statements are and why they are so important for your business. They are typically created based on the sales forecast, balance sheet components, and other estimates.

To make cash flow estimates, companies should use historical financial statements. If your business is relatively new, you should project cash flow statements by breaking them down into 12 months.

Your way of invoicing is also linked to cash flow estimates.

For example, if a customer has the right to pay for your services after 30 days, the cash flow statement will show that you only collected 80% of your invoices within the month (while you need 100% to cover the expenses).

To estimate net profit, you should use the numbers from your sales forecast, expense estimates, and cash flow statement.

You can calculate the net profit by subtracting expenses, interests, and taxes from the gross margin .

This step is extremely important since it serves as a profit and loss statement that helps you create a detailed business forecast for the next three years.

In order to estimate your business’s net worth at the end of a fiscal year, you have to be able to manage assets and liabilities that won’t be shown in the profits and loss statement.

Come up with a rough estimate of how much money you expect to have on hand each month and include accounts receivable, inventory, land, and equipment.

After that, calculate liabilities, debts from outstanding loans, and accounts payable.

You know that you have found a breakeven point if your business expenses are in line with the sales volume.

The three-year income estimation should help you acquire this analysis. In viable businesses, the total revenue should exceed total expenses.

For potential investors, this kind of information is crucial since they want to be reassured that they are investing in a company with steady growth.

Nowadays, most companies use different tools and templates to make their reporting process easier. Using dashboards can help you track the metrics you obtain from the financial management tools that your business integrates.

Databox offers pre-built financial templates that can help you track the most important financial metrics in one place.

With our comprehensive dashboards, you can follow the most significant numbers and later include them in your financial report, making the whole process less time-consuming.

We understand that each business is different, which is why you can also customize the reports in any way you deem fit and at any time.

Here are some of our most popular financial reports that you can try out:

• Quickbooks Profit and Loss Overview Dashboard

Xero Profitability Overview Dashboard

Stripe (mrr & churn) dashboard, profitwell revenue trends dashboard, paypal (account overview) dashboard, quickbooks profit and loss overview dashboard.

To gain valuable insight into the sales and expenses that incur in your business, you can use the QuickBooks Profit and Loss Overview Dashboard .

Make sure you are staying on top of your numbers by tracking monthly, quarterly, and yearly income. Also, this report will help you figure out how profitable your company is and which areas may need to be fixed.

Some of the key metrics you can follow are net profit, income by month, expenses by month, and profit margin.

Xero is one of the most popular accounting systems that companies use to manage their financial positions. However, it can sometimes be hard to organize the large amount of data this tool provides.

This is where the Xero Profitability Overview Dashboard can come in handy. This customizable template will provide you with a comprehensive view of the sales and expenses that go into your Xero system.

Once the time comes for creating a financial report, you can simply integrate the data you gathered in this dashboard.

The key metrics it includes are net profit, income by month, expenses by month, profits, losses, gross profit, and other income.

Use the Stripe Dashboard to monitor your churn rate and track MRR growth in real-time. Also, you can check how many customers your business currently has at any given time.

Once you connect your Stripe account to this template, you will be able to answer these questions:

• How much money did I make through sales today?
• How can I track my MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue)?
• How many active customers do we have?
• How much revenue did I lose from churned customers?

Some of the metrics you can visualize are churn rate goal, customer churn rate, gross volume, revenue churn, and customers.

Profitwell Revenue Trends Dashboard allows you to monitor all the incoming sources of revenue for your SaaS business and keep track of the important churn metrics.

You can use this free template to see how fast your business is growing. The SaaS metrics will all be located in one comprehensive dashboard and you can visualize all the data with only one click.

Also, you can compare revenue from upgrades and downgrades and investigate your churn ratio revenue.

The PayPal Account Overview Dashboard is extremely useful for bigger companies who want to have a clear overview of their payments, refunds, sales, and other key metrics that your business relies on.

Connecting your PayPal account to the template can be done in a matter of minutes and you will get the answers to questions such as:

• How can I track gross sales?
• What is the best way to calculate net sales?
• How much did I spend on PayPal fees in the previous month?
• How can I check my PayPal account balance?
• How much money was returned through refunds last month?

Streamline Financial Reporting with Databox

Since the financial reports you create will be examined by both government agencies and potential investors, you will want to make sure that they are top-notch.

However, the reporting process can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming and you will face a lot of pressure trying to create the perfect report.

Databox can help relieve this stress and enhance your financial reporting skills.

No matter if you create these financial statements quarterly or annually, you will end up with a handful of data to analyze. With financial reporting software such as Databox, this analysis process will become both simpler and quicker.

With our customizable dashboards, you can visualize all the most important data and gather it in one place. Aside from being visually pleasing, your reports will also be much more engaging and minimize any chances of error since the information will be imported directly from your financial management tools.

To satisfy both your company’s key stakeholders and potential partners, you can sign up here for a free trial and put your financial reporting on autopilot.

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How to Write a Financial Report

Last Updated: February 4, 2023 References Approved

This article was co-authored by Michael R. Lewis . Michael R. Lewis is a retired corporate executive, entrepreneur, and investment advisor in Texas. He has over 40 years of experience in business and finance, including as a Vice President for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas. He has a BBA in Industrial Management from the University of Texas at Austin. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. In this case, 83% of readers who voted found the article helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 375,652 times.

A financial report is an informational document about the financial health of a company or organization, which includes a balance sheet, an income statement and a statement of cash flows. Financial reports are often reviewed and analyzed by business managers, boards of directors, investors, financial analysts and government agencies. Reports must be prepared and disseminated in a timely manner, and they must be accurate and clear. Although creating a financial report may seem daunting, the accounting required is not all that difficult.

Preparing to Write

• To determine the period of time your financial report should cover, review the governing documents of your organization, such as the bylaws, corporate charter or articles of incorporation. These documents may describe how often the financial report should be prepared.
• Ask an executive at your organization how frequently reports are expected to be prepared.
• If you are the executive of your own organization, consider when the financial report would be most useful to you and select that as your financial report date.

• For example, make sure all accounts payable and receivable have been processed, verify that the bank reconciliation is complete, and ascertain whether all inventory purchases and product sales have been recorded.
• You'll also need to consider any liabilities that may be unrecorded as of the financial report date. For example, has the company received any services that have not been invoiced? Are employees owed wages that have not yet been paid? These items represent accrued liabilities and must be recorded in the financial statements.

Preparing the Balance Sheet

• The balance sheet items are reported as of a specific day of the year. For example, the balance may be prepared as of December 31.

• Start with current assets, such as cash and any items that will be converted to cash within one year of the balance sheet date. At the end of this section, include a subtotal of the current assets. [2] X Research source
• Next, list the non-current assets. Non-current assets are defined as any assets that are not in the form of cash and will not be converted to cash any time soon. For example, property, equipment and notes receivable are non-current assets. Include a subtotal of the non-current assets.
• Finally, sum the current and non-current subtotals and label this line “Total Assets.”

• Begin by listing current liabilities. These are liabilities that are due within one year, and typically include accounts payable, accrued liabilities and the short-term portion of mortgages and other loan payments. Include a subtotal of the current liabilities. [3] X Research source
• Next, include the long-term liabilities. These are any liabilities that will not be settled within one year, such as long-term debt and notes payable. Include a subtotal of long-term liabilities.
• Sum the current and non-current subtotals and label this line “Total Liabilities.”

• Here, make a list of all the equity accounts, such as common stock, treasury stock and retained earnings. Once all the equity accounts are listed, sum them and add the caption “Total Equity.”

• Shareholder's equity should correspond to a company's assets minus its liabilities. As mentioned previously, this is the money that would be left over if all assets were sold and all liabilities paid. Hence, liabilities plus equity should be equal to assets.
• If the balance sheet does not balance, double check your work. You may have omitted or miscategorized one of your accounts. Double check each column individually and make sure everything is included that ought to be. You may have missed a valuable asset, or a significant liability.

Preparing the Income Statement

• For example, an income statement is often drafted for the period from January 1 to December 31 of a particular year.
• Note that it is possible to prepare a financial report for a single quarter or month, while your income statement might be for a full year. Your financial report will be easier for readers to understand if they are for the same period, but this isn't strictly necessary.

• Be sure to report each type of revenue separately, adjusted as necessary for any sales discounts or return allowances, for example: “Sales, $10,000” and “Service Income, $5,000.”
• Organize the sources of revenue in a way that is meaningful to the company. Some options may be revenue by geographical region, by management team or by specific product.
• When all revenue sources have been included, sum them and report the total as “Total Revenue.”

• To calculate a cost of goods, you should add the direct materials, direct labor, factory costs and shipping or delivery expenses. [7] X Research source
• Subtract cost of goods sold from total revenue and title this number “Gross Profit.” [8] X Trustworthy Source U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Independent U.S. government agency responsible for regulating the securities industry, which includes stocks and options exchanges Go to source

• Subtract the sum of these costs from your gross profit and title this number “Profit Before Taxes.”

• Adding retained earnings from the beginning of the year to the current year's net income or loss results in the total retained earnings balance.

Preparing a Statement of Cash Flows

• Similar to the income statement, the statement of cash flows covers a period of time, such as January 1 to December 31.

• List the operating activities of the organization. This may include items such as cash receipts from sales and cash paid for inventory. Subtotal these items and label the resulting total “Net Cash Provided by Operating Activities.”

• This section relates to cash paid or received from investments in property and equipment, or investments in securities, such as stocks and bonds. [10] X Trustworthy Source U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Independent U.S. government agency responsible for regulating the securities industry, which includes stocks and options exchanges Go to source
• Add a subtotal called “Net Cash Provided by Investing Activities.”

• This section should shows inflows and outflows from securities and debt issued by the organization. [11] X Trustworthy Source U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Independent U.S. government agency responsible for regulating the securities industry, which includes stocks and options exchanges Go to source Add a subtotal called “Net Cash Provided by Financing Activities.”

• You can add the increase or decrease in cash to the cash balance at the beginning of the period. The sum of these two numbers should equal the cash balance shown on your balance sheet.

• The notes might contain information about company history, future plans or industry information. This is your opportunity to explain to investors what the report means and what it shows or doesn't show. It can help potential investors see the company through your eyes. [12] X Trustworthy Source U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Independent U.S. government agency responsible for regulating the securities industry, which includes stocks and options exchanges Go to source
• Typically, the notes also include an explanation of accounting practices and procedures used by the company and explanations of balance sheet captions.
• This section also often includes details about the company's tax situation, pension plans, and stock options.

Expert Q&A Did you know you can get expert answers for this article? Unlock expert answers by supporting wikiHow

Support wikiHow by unlocking this expert answer.

• Refer to the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) for additional help in preparing financial reports. GAAP is the standard for accountants and financial professionals in all businesses and industries. [13] X Research source ⧼thumbs_response⧽ Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• If you are having trouble preparing your financial report, look up the financial report of a company that operates in the same industry as your organization. You may be able to take away valuable insights about how to format your report. The Securities and Exchange Commission's website publishes financial statements for a variety of different companies. [14] X Trustworthy Source U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Independent U.S. government agency responsible for regulating the securities industry, which includes stocks and options exchanges Go to source ⧼thumbs_response⧽ Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Remember to use clear labels for each entry in the balance sheet and on the income statement. The information should be clear to a reader of the financial statements who is not familiar with the specifics of your company. ⧼thumbs_response⧽ Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• The professional regulations governing financial statements and footnotes are extensive. Consider consulting a Certified Public Accountant or other financial services professional for additional help with your financial report to make sure your report has been prepared properly and legally. ⧼thumbs_response⧽ Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/how-to-prepare-a-balance-sheet
• ↑ http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/begfinstmtguide.htm
• ↑ http://www.accountingtools.com/questions-and-answers/how-to-calculate-the-cost-of-goods-sold.html
• ↑ http://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gaap.asp
• ↑ http://www.sec.gov/

About This Article

To write a financial report, format a balance sheet that lists assets, liabilities, and equity. Combine the totals for each category and include the final total at the bottom of the sheet. Next, create an income statement page to list revenue, cost of goods sold, operating expenses, and retained earnings, then sum those categories. Lastly, create a cash flows statement page to compile operating, investing, and financing activities and include a sum at the bottom. For tips on preparing and organizing your data before writing the report, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Narrative Profit & Loss Report

What is a Narrative Profit & Loss Report ?

Narrative Financial Reports are considered easy-to-read financial summaries and are often used by Financial Analysts and CFOs to provide end users with a very easy-to-read, newspaper-like cover page for their Profit & Loss and other number-intense reports. One key functionality in this type of innovative report updates all the text, inserted numbers and charts automatically. All the user has to do is run the report for the desired month and the text will refresh with the right data. Even adjectives in headers and text will change based on business rules. The underlying numerical report is presented on the second tab. You will find an example of this type of innovative report below.

Purpose of Narrative Financial Reports

Companies and organizations use Narrative Financial Reports to give executives and managers that are not financial experts a very easy and user-friendly format to interpret financial results. When used as part of good business practices in a Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) Department, a company can improve its ability to drive interest and analytical capabilities outside of the finance team, as well as, reduce the chance that other departments and executives miss the monthly financial highlights.

Narrative Financial Report Example

Here is an example of an automatically generated Narrative Profit & Loss Report with the detailed financial statement on the second page.

You can find hundreds of additional examples here .

Who Uses This Type of Innovative report ?

The typical users of this type of innovative report are: Board Members, Executives and Department Managers.

Other Innovative report s Often Used in Conjunction with Narrative Financial Reports

Progressive Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) Departments sometimes use several different Narrative Financial Reports, along with financial statements and other management and control tools.

Where Does the Data for Analysis Originate From?

The Actual (historical transactions) data typically comes from enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like: Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC), Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Sage Intacct, Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, SAP Business One, SAP ByDesign, Acumatica, Netsuite and others.

In analyses where budgets or forecasts are used, the planning data most often originates from in-house Excel spreadsheet models or from professional corporate performance management (CPM/EPM) solutions.

What Tools are Typically used for Reporting, Planning and Dashboards?

Examples of business software used with the data and ERPs mentioned above are:

• Native ERP report writers and query tools
• Spreadsheets (for example Microsoft Excel)
• Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tools (for example Solver )
• Dashboards (for example Microsoft Power BI and Tableau)

Corporate Performance Management (CPM) Cloud Solutions and More Examples

• View 100™s of reporting, consolidations, planning, budgeting, forecasting and dashboard examples here
• See how reports are designed in a modern report writer using a cloud-connected Excel add-in writer
• Discover how the Solver CPM solution delivers financial and operational reporting
• Discover how the Solver CPM solution delivers planning, budgeting and forecasting
• Watch demo videos of reporting, planning and dashboards

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Why and How to Write Narrative Financial Reports

It’s interesting to learn what lurks behind a curtain of numbers. For many people, reading a paper covered with numbers is a burden. Instead of providing information, it provides data. To turn data into information, the reader needs to look at the line descriptions, look at the number or numbers, and do one of a few things: • Relate that number to other numbers on that page. • Relate that number to other numbers on a different page (maybe not among those attached). • Compare that number to the same number in another period on another report. • Determine if it is reasonable. • Sense changes or movement in that number.

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Dr. Flavia S. Ramos-Mattoussi is a Senior Research Associate at the Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University and Associate Director of the Center for International Studies in Educational Research and Development (CISERD). Prior to joining FSU in 2009, she served as director of the Assistance to Basic Education (USAID ABE-IQC) at Juarez & Associates in Washington, DC (2007-2009). She held prior academic appointments including Assistant Professor and Director of the International Training and Education Program at American University in Washington, DC (2002-2007); Visiting professor of International Education at the George Washington University (2000-2002); Adjunct faculty at the University of Connecticut (leading a study abroad program to Cuba in 2002), and at the School for International Training in Vermont (1990). Dr. Ramos-Mattoussi is an International Education and Development professional with more than 30 years’ experience in project design & implementation, teacher education, leadership training, nonformal education, materials and curriculum development, intercultural communications, gender and development, women’s empowerment, program evaluation and assessment of education initiatives in multicultural, post-conflict and development settings. She has been a consultant for government agencies (U.S. Agency for International Development and U.S. Department of Labor) and non-governmental organizations (UNICEF, American Council on Education, World Learning, Institute for Training and Development, IBTCI, etc.) implementing participant training programs in the United States and conducting research and training in Latin America, Africa and Asia. She has produced numerous informational materials and training curricula targeting multicultural and multilingual populations and conducted social marketing research for health and education (Boston Medical Center, Massachusetts Center for SIDS; The Johns Hopkins University, Center for Communication Programs; and the National Coalition of Advocates for Students). Most recently, she has been involved in the development and evaluation of literacy programs, as well as evaluation of higher education partnerships worldwide. She is fluent in English, Portuguese, and Spanish. Dr. Ramos-Mattoussi’s research focuses on the development of participatory and action research methods, including visual sociology, life histories and biographical approaches in research. She is the author of The FotoDialogo Method©, several training manuals, technical reports, book chapters and articles in refereed journals (Teaching & Teacher Education, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, Electronic Magazine of Multicultural Education, Chalkboard, SAGE Benchmarks in Social Research Methods Series, RTI Press, etc.). She is also a playwright, visual artist, author and illustrator of numerous children's books published in Brazil—as Flavia Sales. She is a frequent presenter at national and international conferences including Comparative and International Education Society, American Anthropological Association, Southeast Evaluation Association, National Association for Multicultural Education, Society for International Development, and the Intercultural and International Communication Conference. Dr. Ramos-Mattoussi holds an Ed.D. in Education Policy, Research, and Administration, and a M.Ed. in International Education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She received her B.F.A. in Art Education from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.

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