Generating reports is one of the most important things you can do as a business owner. You have a lot of things to keep track of, and most importantly, you have a lot of people who would appreciate being kept current on the state of your business and what your path forward will look like.
Here’s what business owners should consider when preparing and creating periodic reports for important board members, investors, clients, and stakeholders.
What Is a Periodic Report?
A periodic report, sometimes called a recurring report, is essentially a thorough formal check-in. Your periodic report serves as a comprehensive summary of everything your company has accomplished or is working towards since the previous periodic report.
The term “periodic report” is used because there is no firmly established timeline for when such a report should be created. You can create a periodic report as often as every week or as infrequently as bi-annually. An annual report is something completely different. Periodic reports are intended to fill all the gaps between annual reports.
Periodic reports give business owners an efficient way to keep everyone on the same page. Your periodic report can contain all of the important information that key players would like to know.
Their periodic cadence allows you to provide status updates that are easily digestible due to their reduced length, and their frequency allows time for report recipients to offer insight, suggestions, or opinions throughout the year.
Why Are Periodic Reports Important in Business?
Periodic reports are important for a number of reasons. Transparency, accountability, decision-making, and measuring your progress are vital for the future of your business and your relationships with key players like board members or investors.
Maintaining Transparency and Accountability
Most people who invest in a business or become a client of a business only have limited insight into the inner workings of that business. Trust is the cornerstone of every relationship between your business and the people who help to support you. They can take your word for it when they ask you questions about how things are going and what your future plans are, but they would likely appreciate documented play-by-play of where you’ve been and where you’re going.
Investors will be especially appreciative of the transparency your periodic reports provide. They’ll achieve greater peace of mind with a detailed account of how their investment is being utilized. They’ll also have an opportunity to make suggestions or offer their opinion about your business trajectory throughout the year.
Transparency and accountability also go a long way when speaking to investors or lenders about obtaining funds. Detailed accounts of how you’ve utilized your funds and a clear plan for what you intend to do with additional funds significantly reduce the “leap of faith” element that comes with lending. Lenders and investors will have the information they need to make an educated decision.
Decision-Making
Innovation isn’t possible without taking risks, but there will always come a point where a business needs to determine if those risks are worthwhile. When you’re making choices that will impact the future of your business, it helps to see efforts versus results.
Frequent check-ins with the state of your business will give you the information you need to know when to change course or retool your strategy before you’ve lost too much time or funding.
Having a comprehensive play-by-play of everything you’ve done may help you to notice things you hadn’t noticed before or interpret information with fresh eyes. It may illuminate some new ideas or strategies you hadn’t previously considered.
Tracking Progress
One of the most important elements of growing a successful business is staying on track. You already know what you want to achieve, but do you know when you want to achieve it? How close are you to meeting the goals you’ve set for yourself and your team? When can you reasonably expect to see the results of your hard work? A periodic report will help you answer these questions.
Reviewing past periodic reports can also help you set attainable goals. You’ll be able to familiarize yourself with the pacing of your progress and make new achievements attainable within a realistic timeframe.
What Are the Key Components of a Periodic Report?
A periodic report can be completed at any length and released at any frequency. The only technical requirement of a periodic report is that it contains information pertaining to several key topics. You have the freedom to be as thorough or concise as you’d like when disclosing information in your periodic report.
Executive Summary
The executive summary of your periodic report should be like the introduction to a novel. You’re going to cover a lot of ground, and you want readers to know right from the beginning what they can expect to find within your report.
The executive summary portion of your report doesn’t have to be long. An introduction paragraph and a concluding paragraph with the most important takeaways featured as bullet points in between are often sufficient, especially if you only have a limited amount of information to report.
If your periodic report is going to be substantially long, you may want to consider using your executive summary as a table of contents to help readers find key points of information as quickly as possible. They may need to return to these points if they wish to discuss them with you, and making the information easy to find can streamline the conversation.
Financial Data
The financial data in your periodic report doesn’t need to resemble a profit and loss statement. Most people reading your report will expect to see an overview of your budget and a breakdown of how your budget has been utilized. You can utilize things like graphs or pie charts to provide a visual representation of your budget breakdown, which will make it easier to understand at a glance.
Progress Updates
Your periodic reports are intended to mention what your business is working towards and why you’re working towards that goal. Each periodic report can offer a progress update on where you are in relation to your goals.
It helps to be thorough in the progress update section of your periodic report. If you’re facing obstacles or challenges, it’s important to identify them in this section. You can also celebrate your successes if you’ve recently achieved a goal or made significant progress.
The progress update section can be detailed with timetables, tentative or strict, that will provide insight into where you are on your timeline. These timelines will show readers what they can expect by the time they receive their next periodic report.
Future Projections
The future projections section of your periodic report tells readers where you’re trying to go and, more realistically, the trajectory of your plans, which shows where you’ll likely end up. You can use future projections to assess your predictions of your goals and dial in your accuracy.
If you’re on target with almost every periodic report, that’s a sign that you have realistic ideas that you’re capable of achieving. If you’re falling short, you may need to set more achievable goals.
How Is a Periodic Report Created?
A periodic report is created by aggregating and interpreting data collected between report time frames. Using the previous periodic report as a basis for the next periodic report helps to ensure that you’re addressing all of the same points of interest to show the progress you’ve made or the challenges you’re facing.
It can be helpful to have every key player within your business by your side when you’re creating your periodic report. They’ll each have an opportunity to contribute individual progress and insight as you’re compiling the information.
When you have all of the information you need, choose a format that will relay it in a manner that’s easy to navigate and understand. There are pre-made templates for periodic reports, but you’re able to do whatever you feel is best. You’ll only need to make a great custom template once, as you can reuse it for every periodic report in the future.
One of the most important parts of creating a periodic report is to establish a schedule for your reports. It doesn’t necessarily matter how often you choose to create a report. What matters most is the consistency with your schedule. Pick a timeframe that works best for your business. Monthly or bi-monthly periodic reports tend to be the most popular because they give sufficient time for progress to develop between updates.
Maintaining Compliance With Mosey
Periodic reports, like many tools you utilize in your business, help you stay on track. Staying on track is crucial for helping your business grow and thrive. You have a lot of work ahead of you, and Mosey is here to make it easier.
Mosey’s automated compliance platform helps businesses of all sizes maintain compliance in many areas. While you’re focused on creating your periodic reports and staying on track to reach your goals, Mosey can quietly work in the background to help you remain compliant with key concerns like tax and licensing requirements. Schedule a demo with Mosey to learn how we can help you build a stronger business.
