What is annual report publishing software?

Why are annual reports at risk of error?

Errors are a genuine concern for annual report creators, whether in-house or agency-side.

Annual reports are complex documents - detail-orientated, data-rich and high-profile. Because they provide insights into a whole organization, the process of ideating, collating and executing content is a complex task.

Firstly, there are usually a lot of stakeholders who need to contribute. If you've created any publication in the past, you'll know that more contributors mean higher complexity - at both the creation and sign-off stages. So annual reports are already a complicated beast.

Next, annual report contributors are often very senior within the company. This means they're likely to have a high interest in the content and demanding standards about how it's delivered. This can mean there are more amend-and-approval rounds than on other publications. And often with time-poor contributors who need a little prompting!

And finally, the high profile nature of an annual report means many businesses outsource annual report design to a specialist agency. This adds another dimension to annual report production - one where complexity increases further.

It's ironic really. Accuracy is so essential in annual reports that they're subject to high levels of scrutiny and feedback. And that feedback - without very thorough management - increases the risk of errors occurring.

Whoever produces your annual report - in-house or agency - it’s essential they have a robust process for receiving, amending and signing off content. Otherwise, there’s a serious risk of errors or omissions in the finished document.

How does annual report publishing software reduce the risk of error?

Good annual report publishing software seriously reduces risk caused by project complexity. And it simplifies and speeds up the approval process too. It's a win-win for annual report editors, designers and agencies. Here's how.

With annual report publishing software, everyone works together in a single streamlined system. It combines the end-to-end annual report process into one consolidated workflow - including copy, design and publication.

Stakeholders receive prompts and reminders to keep everyone on track. Contributors can collaborate in real-time (no more emailing PDFs back and forth!). And all amends are automatically saved in a complete audit trail.

Which means:

• faster, easier collaboration
• all amends in one place
• complete record of amends for reference

What about digital annual reports?

Annual reports can be physical, digital or both. Digital annual reports don't just have to be a PDF of your printed version. You can use your digital annual report to deliver additional content to readers, such as videos and data visualization graphics.

Imagine the extra impact of hearing about commercial success directly from your CEO for a private sector business. Or watching video testimonials from beneficiaries in an online nonprofit annual report. Or having the ability to interact with your data to see information specific to their interests...

Plus, an online annual report isn't just ideal for increasing content options and engagement. You can also measure engagement using Google Analytics to see how people interact with your content, to help inform future production choices.

Do I need digital annual report software?

If you do want to publish both a printed and digital annual report, your production processes will be more complex than if you just produce a hard-copy annual report.

Fortunately, you don't necessarily need additional digital publishing software to achieve this.

Some annual reporting publishing software allows you to create digital or online annual reports from the content you've already created for your print publication. This means - instead of treating your print and digital annual reports as separate entities - you create content once and publish it to multiple platforms. And with minimal additional effort or input. Isn't that just the dream?!

Of course, if you want to create an all-singing-all-dancing digital annual report, you may need to use separate software to achieve this. It depends on the complexity and sophistication of your plans. But remember that does mean manually handling your content again, which introduces risk, so ensure you have robust checks and cross-referencing measures in place.