annual report business plan

Annual Business Planning Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

What is an Annual Business Plan?

An annual business plan is a document that sets out the goals and objectives for a company over the course of a year. It provides a roadmap for how the business will operate and achieve its desired results. The best business plan template will help guide you in creating a comprehensive annual plan.

Steps to Create an Annual Plan

There are seven steps to creating an annual business plan:

Define the company’s overall vision and strategy.
Set specific, measurable goals and objectives for the year.
Identify the resources needed to achieve these goals.
Create a timeline for each goal and objective.
Assign responsibility for each goal and objective to specific individuals or teams.
Review and revise the plan on a regular basis.
Each of these steps is important in creating a well-formulated annual plan. Let’s take a closer look at each one.

Defining the Company’s Overall Vision and Strategy

The first step in creating an annual plan is defining the company’s overall vision and strategy. This involves deciding where the company wants to be in the future and outlining the steps needed to get there. It’s important to be realistic in setting these goals and to make sure they are aligned with the company’s overall strategic vision.

Setting Specific, Measurable Goals and Objectives

Once the company’s overarching vision has been defined, it’s time to set specific, measurable goals and objectives for the year. These should be attainable but challenging and should align with the company’s overall strategy. Each goal should have a target date for completion, as well as a specific metric that will be used to measure progress.

Identifying Resources Needed To Achieve Goals

Next, it’s important to identify the resources needed to achieve these goals. This includes everything from manpower and funding, to office space and equipment. It’s also important to assign responsibility for each goal/objective to specific individuals or teams. This helps ensure that everyone is aware of their role in achieving the desired results.

Creating a Timeline

Once goals have been defined and resources have been identified, it’s time to create a timeline for each one. This will help keep everyone on track throughout the year and ensure that tasks are completed in a timely manner. A Gantt chart can be helpful in organizing this information visually.

Assigning Responsibility

Finally, it’s important to assign responsibility for each goal/objective to specific individuals or teams. This helps ensure that everyone is aware of their role in achieving the desired results. By assigning clear responsibilities, tasks can be delegated efficiently and everyone will know who is responsible for what outcomes.

Reviewing and Revising Plan Regularly

It’s important to review and revise your annual plan on a regular basis. This ensures that the goals are still relevant and achievable and that the resources required are still available. It also allows for any necessary adjustments to be made if something isn’t working as planned. A good rule of thumb is to review the plan quarterly or more often if needed.

Parts of the Annual Strategic Plan Template

There are four key parts to the annual plan template:

1. Vision and Strategy

The first step is to define the company’s overall vision and strategy. This will provide a framework for all of the other steps in the process.

2. Goals and Objectives

The next step is to set specific, measurable goals and objectives for the year. These should be aligned with the company’s vision and strategy.

3. Resources

The third step is to identify the resources needed to achieve the goals and objectives. This includes things like budget, staff, and materials.

4. Timeline

The fourth step is to create a timeline for each goal and objective. This will help ensure that everything is completed on time and within budget.

The Importance of a Well-Formulated Annual Strategic Plan

The importance of a well-formulated annual plan cannot be overstated. It provides a clear roadmap for the company’s operations and sets forth a clear vision for its desired results. Additionally, it helps to ensure that all employees are aware of the company’s goals and objectives and are working towards the same end.

The Difference between an Annual Plan and A Company’s Broader Strategic Vision

The difference between an annual business plan and a company’s strategic vision is that the former is more focused on the specific goals and objectives to be achieved over the course of a year, while the latter is more concerned with the company’s long-term direction. An annual business plan lays out a roadmap for the company’s operations over the course of a year and sets specific targets to be met. A company’s strategic plan, on the other hand, is more concerned with the overall direction of the business and its long-term goals.

Ultimately the difference between an annual plan and a company’s broader strategic vision is that the former is more focused on the specific goals and objectives to be achieved over the course of a year, while the latter is more concerned with the company’s long-term direction.

Best Practices for Annual Planning

There are a few key best practices that businesses should keep in mind when planning their annual operations.

First and foremost, it is important to be realistic about what can be accomplished in a year. Businesses should establish achievable goals and objectives, and then create a plan of action to achieve them. This includes setting timelines and specific tasks that need to be completed in order to reach the goal.

Another key element of effective annual planning is creating a budget and sticking to it. Budgets help businesses stay accountable and track progress toward their goals.

In addition, effective annual planning should always include regular review and course correction as needed. Businesses should routinely assess their progress, make necessary adjustments, and ensure they are still on track to meet their goals.

When it comes to business annual planning, there are a few best practices that can help your organization make the most of the process. Here are a few tips to get you started:

Set realistic goals. It’s important to set realistic goals for your annual planning process – this way, you’re more likely to achieve them. Be honest with yourself about what’s achievable and what’s not, and make sure your team is on the same page.
Make a roadmap. Once you’ve set your goals, create a roadmap for how you’ll achieve them. This will help keep everyone on track and ensure that you’re making progress toward your targets.
Use data to inform your decisions. When making decisions about your annual planning, use data to inform your decisions. This will help you make informed choices based on evidence rather than intuition alone.
Communicate regularly. Make sure to communicate regularly with your team throughout the annual planning process – this will help keep everyone updated on what’s happening and ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal.
Celebrate successes along the way. Celebrate successes along the way – this will keep everyone motivated and help ensure that the process is fun as well as productive.

Annual Contingency Plan Example

Sometimes it’s helpful to have a contingency plan or clause in case things don’t go as expected. Below is a sample contingency plan.

“In the event that we are unable to achieve our sales goals for the year, we will implement a number of contingency measures. These measures may include reducing our advertising budget, downsizing our workforce, and suspending operations at certain locations. We will only implement these measures if absolutely necessary and we are confident that they will help us to get back on track.”

Strategic Business Plan Example

Below is an example of a strategic business plan.

“Our long-term goal is to become the leading provider of XYZ products and services in our industry. To achieve this, we will need to increase our market share, expand our operations into new markets, and continue to innovate our product offerings. We are confident that we can achieve these goals and become the industry leader.”

Annual Business Plan Template

Executive summary.

The executive summary is a brief overview of the company’s annual plans while taking into account the company’s broader vision. It should include a description of the company, its products, and services, its marketing and sales strategy, its operations plan, and its financial plan.

Company Overview

The company overview section of the annual planning document should provide a brief history of the company, its mission and vision, and its current status.

Products and Services

This section of the annual plans should describe the company’s products and services in detail. It should also include information on the company’s competitive advantages and any new products or services that will be launched in the coming year.

Marketing Plan

The marketing plan section of the company’s strategy should outline the marketing and sales strategy for the entire organization for the coming year. It should include information on the company’s target market, its branding and positioning strategy, its advertising and promotion budget, and its sales goals.

Operations Plan

The operations plan section of the annual business plan should describe the company’s methods for manufacturing, distribution, and other aspects of its operations. It should also include information on the company’s capacity, its supply chain, and its quality control procedures.

Financial Plan

The financial plan section of the annual business plan should include a summary of the company’s financials, the budgetary approval process, contingency plans, as well as the broader visions and plans for funding and investment.

With regards to financials, you want to include past and projected Income Statements, Balance Sheets, and Cash Flow Statements. Also, if you are seeking external financing, document the amount of funding you need and the key expected uses of these funds.

Annual Goals

When creating your business plan, it’s important to set annual goals and objectives. This will help you track your progress and ensure that you’re on track to reaching your long-term goals. Some things you may want to consider when setting your annual goals include:

Increasing revenue
Expanding your customer base
Improving product or service quality
Reducing costs
Developing new products or services
Enhancing marketing efforts
Expanding into new markets

One of the most important aspects of any business plan is setting annual goals. These goals should be attainable, yet ambitious, and should help to guide your business in the right direction. Some things you may want to consider when setting your annual goals include increasing sales, expanding your customer base, improving productivity or efficiency, reducing costs, or developing new products or services. Whatever your goals may be, make sure to document them and track your progress throughout the year. This will help you ensure that you are on track to meeting your targets and achieving success for your business.

The appendix of the annual business plan template should include any supporting documentation that is relevant to the plan, such as market research reports, financial projections, and product specifications.

Every company should have an annual business plan. This document helps you track your progress, set goals, plan forward, and make necessary adjustments throughout the year related to key results. Without a business plan, it is difficult to make informed decisions about where to allocate your resources or measure your success. If you need help getting started, we have a great business planning template that can get you on the right track. By following our simple tips and using our template, you can create a comprehensive business plan that will help ensure your success in the coming year.

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How to Create a Profitable Annual Business Plan [+Free Template]

Published: February 09, 2023

The beginning of a new quarter is the perfect time to start planning the next year for your business. Start the next year or quarter off on the right foot by creating an annual business plan for your company.

Q4 often brings a flurry of business-related activity. And while all this activity helps fill the pipeline, it can distract you from reflecting on past performance and preparing for the year or quarter ahead.

Fortunately, you can write an annual business plan at any time of the year. Start your plan now to set your team up for success.

What is an annual business plan?

An annual business plan is just that — a plan for you and your employees to help achieve the company’s goals for the year. Think of an annual business plan as the guide to complete all of your company’s overall goals outlined in your initial business plan.

The first business plan you wrote for your business is the blueprint and the annual business plan is the detailed instructions to keep your business running long-term.

Usually, an annual business plan contains a short description of your company, a marketing analysis, and a sales/marketing plan.

Because an annual business plan is for the year, you’ll want to review your business at the end of four consecutive quarters and revise your plan for the next four quarters.

Why is annual business planning important?

Even though the fourth quarter might be a busy time of year, don’t put off creating an annual business plan.

Not only will your annual business plan keep you on track, it will also help you map out a strategy to keep your employees accountable. You can then more easily achieve the overall goals of your business.

Here are some reasons why it’s well worth creating an annual business plan for your company.

You can measure your success.

An annual business plan is the best way to measure your success. And I’m referring to the collective “you” here because it takes the entire company or all of your employees to make new business efforts effective.

An annual plan not only sets expectations for you but also for others within your company who need to contribute to the business’s success.

You can reflect on the past and plan ahead.

Creating an annual business plan allows you to reflect on the past 12 months.

As you reflect on the previous year, you’ll be able to get a good idea of what your business is capable of doing and set accurate, attainable projections based on previous numbers.

You’ll define your business goals.

Your annual business plan will shed some light on what the heck you do at your company. For those who are not routinely involved in new business, it can seem like a black hole of mystery.

Sharing your plan — whether to an executive committee, department heads, or even the entire staff — adds clarity and gives everyone something to aim for.

You can impress your boss.

If you head a department that could benefit from an annual business plan, don’t wait to be asked before you start writing. Get on your CEO’s schedule to review your outline and discuss your intentions for putting this plan together.

Sometimes the hardest part is getting started. You can get the ball rolling with the basic template that follows.

Annual Business Plan Template

Each section of your annual business plan will help tell the story of your company and clearly define your company’s goals for the year.

Let’s take a look at each section of the annual business plan template .

Executive Summary

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Free Annual Plan Templates: Excel, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Google Slides

By Kate Eby | January 17, 2024

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We’ve collected the top annual plan templates in Excel, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Google Slides. Use the templates to build a 12-month strategy that streamlines the annual planning process based on the company’s vision for goal-setting.

Included on this page, you’ll find an annual plan slide template , a yearly planning template with Gantt chart , an annual planning template with a calendar , and more. You’ll also learn about the differences between an annual and a strategic plan , as well as how to create an annual plan .

Annual Plan Templates vs. Strategic Plan

An annual plan and a strategic plan serve different purposes for building and organizing a growth strategy. A strategic plan focuses on a company’s direction and long-term goals. The annual plan defines actionable steps to achieve yearly goals.

Review the matrix below to understand the differences between an annual plan template and a strategic plan template.

Simple Annual Plan Template

Download a Simple Annual Plan Template for

Excel | Microsoft Word

Ease your way into annual planning with this simple template that organizes any company’s annual goals, objectives, timelines, and budget. Complete the Overview, Strategies, and Global Priorities sections to build a foundation for goal-setting. Then use the table to list objectives, timelines, owners, budgets, and statuses. Reuse this template year after year to save time and to streamline the annual planning process.

Annual Plan Slide Template

Download an Annual Plan Slide Template for

PowerPoint | Google Slides

Use this annual plan template to outline and present a high-level one-year plan to stakeholders. Objectives are organized by quarters, so it’s easy to follow their timelines. Add more slides, including the company’s marketing plan, sales plan, or strategic plan to create a comprehensive presentation of the company’s overarching goals.

Yearly Planning Excel Template with Gantt Chart

Download the Yearly Planning Template with Gantt Chart in Excel

Use this yearly planning template with a Gantt chart to list annual objectives. This template is similar to the simple annual plan, but adds a Gantt chart to provide a visual representation of each deliverable’s timeline. Enter the start date and due date for each objective. The template will automatically populate the dates into a Gantt chart making it easy to track each objective’s progress and ensure the plan stays on course.

Annual Planning Template with Calendar

Download an Annual Planning Template with Calendar

Excel | Microsoft Word

Track important deadlines with this annual planning calendar template. This template has all the features of the simple annual plan template but adds a calendar. The calendar format provides space to enter details under any day of the year. Promote timeline transparency and guarantee deliverables meet their due dates by sharing this template with your team.

How to Create an Annual Plan

Create an annual plan by first reviewing the previous year’s wins and losses to determine where to focus the upcoming year’s efforts. Brainstorm annual goals, list the actions to achieve them, and assign the action steps to team members.

Start drafting an annual plan in Q4 to prepare for the upcoming year. Follow the steps below to create an effective annual plan that drives revenue and growth to any business.

Review the Previous Year Meet with stakeholders and review the previous year’s plan and successes. Identify areas that need improvement. This review process will help determine where to focus efforts next year. You can skip this step if it’s the company’s first time creating an annual plan.
Download an Annual Plan Template Download the simple annual plan template. Using a template will help ensure you don’t miss any vital sections of the plan.
Enter the Company’s Vision Statement The vision statement describes the company’s long-term aspirations, so keep it at the forefront of the decision-making and goal-setting processes.
Brainstorm Annual Goals Collaborate with stakeholders and determine what you want to achieve in the upcoming year. Use last year’s wins and losses to set realistic goals that align with the company’s vision statement.
List Objectives List the action steps required to meet the goals. Categorize them into sections, such as marketing, financial, customer experience, product, etc.
Set Timelines Set a start date and end date for each objective. Annual plans are often broken down into quarters, but it’s not uncommon to set monthly and weekly timelines.
Determine a Budget Determine a budget based on financial projections. This step helps allocate resources teams or departments will have available to them, which will make planning more realistic.
Identify Metrics Decide what metrics to use for tracking and monitoring results. The data these provide is important for measuring if objectives are being met.
Assign Responsibility Assign a team, department, or individual to each deliverable to ensure nothing is missed.
Share with Team Members Share the annual plan with team members to create alignment and build motivation around working toward specific goals.

Elements in an Annual Plan

Elements in an annual plan include everything necessary to outline a comprehensive plan for growing any company. Here is a list of elements found in a general annual plan:

Budget: The funds allocated to each goal or objective.
KPIs: The tools and metrics used to measure the success of the objectives.
Objectives: Objectives are the action steps to achieve the goals.
Owner: The owner is the team, department, or individual responsible for completing an objective.
SMART Goals: This represents a type of goal-setting where each should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Learn more about setting SMART goals .
Strategies: List the marketing strategies, operational strategies, and sales strategies to provide a comprehensive framework that drives coordinated efforts.
Timeline: The length of time dedicated to each deliverable. Deliverable timelines are typically quarters, but they can also be monthly or weekly.
Values and Mission Statement: These document the foundation for decision making and goal setting.

Different Types Of Annual Plans

Different types of annual plans support specific areas such as budgeting, marketing, operations, and more. Choose an annual plan from the list below that best fits your company’s needs and growth strategy.

Free Annual Sales Report Templates

Use an annual sales report template to track yearly sales activities and trends.

Free Annual Business Budget Templates

Use an annual business budget template to evaluate business expenditures vs. revenue over a one-year period.

Free Operational Plan Templates

Use an operational plan template to lay out specific actions and resources needed to reach certain milestones.

Annual Report Template

Use this annual report template to document the company’s yearly accomplishments, impact stories, financial data, and donor list.

Annual Marketing Report

Use this annual marketing report template to document the total projects delivered, KPIs, and marketing financial overview.

Create Your Annual Plan in Smartsheet and Get Gantt Chart and Calendar Views

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How to create a successful annual business plan

Here is what you need to know to create an effective and comprehensive annual plan for your department or company:

What is the purpose of annual planning?

An annual plan acts as a roadmap for your company. Annual planning allows you to go into a new fiscal or calendar year with specific and measurable goals set, budgets finalized, and a plan for how to measure progress on and achieve your company’s organizational and financial goals. Through this process, you develop the vision of where you hope that your company will be at the end of the year and the map of how you will get there.

You can also use annual planning to set goals and plans for individual departments or teams within an organization. Create marketing plans, human resource plans, and more to keep each segment of your business on track, reset your goals, and get your teams aligned towards common goals and initiatives. Since trends, consumer habits, and other factors change frequently, it’s good to create a fresh one-year plan each year.

Annual plans complement strategic planning while providing more short-term (one year) goals that are often tied to financial goals as well as the annual budget. Strategic plans often have more overarching goals that work to advance the company’s mission over three years or longer. Your annual plan will likely include goals that play into these longer-term goals in your company’s strategic plan.

Evaluating existing and prior year goals

Start your process by evaluating your current starting point. Take time to look back at last year’s annual plan and evaluate whether you achieved your set goals or fell short in certain areas. Attempt to determine why you fell short on specific goals and what steps you could take to prevent a repeat of that issue. This will help you set realistic goals for the new year.

This is also a great time to review your company’s:

Mission statement. This is a statement that describes the purpose of your organization. What does your business do and what does it hope to accomplish?

Core values. These are the principles, beliefs, and values that your organization’s culture is built on. These values shape how you do business, and as such, should shape your annual plan.

Strategic plan. Your strategic plan should detail your business plan and long-term goals while taking market conditions into consideration. Your annual plan should complement your overall strategic plan.

Financial reports. Review the prior year’s budget reconciliation, cash flow statements, and year-end reporting. If you have access to budgets or financial forecasts for the upcoming year, review them now. If not, they’ll need to be created later in the annual planning process.

Keep all of these documents handy, as you may need to reference them as you move through the annual planning process.

Create an updated SWOT analysis

It’s also time to update or create a SWOT Analysis chart for your company. A SWOT analysis is typically depicted as a four-quadrant square with the following quadrants:

Strengths. List out the things that your company already does well and your internal strengths. Perhaps you have a large Instagram following with a strong network of influencers promoting your product. Maybe you have unique branding, patents, or technology that set you apart from competitors. This section is your highlight reel from prior years and can also include strengths like new products or developments being released in the new year.

Weaknesses. Now it’s time to consider what can be improved. List out your company’s internal areas of weakness. A good way to identify weaknesses is to look at customer feedback. Do customers like your product but complain about the processing and delivery times? A weakness can also be staffing-related such as high turnover or taking too long to fill open positions. A common marketing weakness may be lack of media mentions or ranking low in Google search results for your product or business type.

Opportunities. These are external opportunities that you can take advantage of in the coming year. Are there new trends or technologies that could boost the success of your business? Is it time to start marketing your products to Gen Z? Are there changes in government regulations or laws going into effect in 2022 that could have a positive impact on your business?

Threats. Explore potential external threats to your company’s growth and success in the coming year. Maybe the current supply chain problems mean that you will have manufacturing or delivery delays in 2022. There could also be legal changes that negatively impact your business. Threats could also come in the form of major competitors or market saturation. Knowing what may threaten your success will help you build a plan to overcome these challenges, so be thorough with your market analysis.

After creating a company-wide SWOT analysis, consider breaking things down even further and creating a SWOT analysis on specific aspects or segments of your business.

For example, a marketing SWOT chart can help you identify what you need to adjust in your marketing strategy for the new year. Many businesses, especially small businesses, may have strong Facebook and Instagram accounts but weaknesses in the area of SEO. Reaching new audiences and market segments through TikTok may be an opportunity if your business has not jumped onto the platform yet. A new year is a great time to do a SWOT and update your ideal customer or target demographics to evaluate opportunities for expansion.

Goal setting with SMART goals

It’s a good idea to start off the new year by setting goals for your employees, departments, and the company overall. This creates trackable metrics to measure your company’s success at each level throughout the year. The best way to create goals is to use the SMART goal system.

Specific. Aim to make your goals specific and to identify who will be involved in the goal. A general goal would be to increase brand awareness. Specific goals would be growing your LinkedIn following to 10,000, obtaining 10 media mentions, or ranking one the first page of Google results for a specific target keyword. Within each of those specific goals you could identify who is responsible for them; a social media manager, PR or media relations team member, an SEO consultant, or in a small business, it may just be a digital marketing manager. Regardless, it’s helpful to define who is involved and who will oversee progress.

Measurable. Define how you will measure the success of each goal. What metric will you use to track progress towards the goal?

Attainable. Your goals should be realistic. They can be somewhat ambitious, but avoid including stretch goals that are unlikely to be achieved within the year with your anticipated staffing levels, budget, and level of consumer awareness. Of course, start-ups would love to score a major investor or have their company go viral and generate a huge amount of buzz with consumers, but unless you have reason to believe either of those is on the horizon, leave out goals that depend on unrealistic or unpredictable events. Also, leave goals that will take several years for your strategic plan.

Relevant. The goals that you set for this year should be relevant to your company’s vision, mission, and long-term objectives. This is why it’s helpful to start the process by looking at your mission statement, vision, and strategic plan.

Time-bound. All goals should have a clearly defined time frame including a specific deadline date. For annual planning, the timeframe may be one year, or you can break your goals down into monthly or quarterly goals and adjust the deadlines as such.

You’ll likely end up with a decently long list of goals for your company. As mentioned in the Specific criteria, breaking down your goals and defining who is responsible for them is important. Try to create goals that span the major business functions of your company such as product, operations, marketing, HR, and leadership . Set company-wide goals and then break them down by teams and later by individual contributors to ensure that everyone knows what goals they need to accomplish in order to help the business meet its overall yearly goals.

Budgeting and financial considerations

An important aspect of annual planning is financial planning. A good business plan should take financial constraints, budgets, and financial goals into consideration and plan accordingly. If you are a start-up and plan to go through a round of fundraising or have other major changes such as going public with an IPO, include those in your annual planning.

Your annual plan should include financial projections for the year. These projections will help you plan for financing needs, changes in cash flow, and evaluate the best timing for new projects or hiring. You’ll want to create sales forecasts to project your expected income. It’s also wise to forecast your anticipated expenses for things like labor, materials. supplies, and overhead.

You’ll also want to verify that you will be able to allocate the funds needed to accomplish the SMART goals that you created earlier. At this point, you may need to revise some of your goals to ensure that they are achievable within your financial constraints. Those that require a larger budget may need to be scaled down or saved for next year.

Contingency planning

Hopefully everything will go as planned, but it’s always good to have a contingency plan in place in case something goes awry. After all, we’ve all seen how unexpected challenges can derail business operations over the past two years.

Plan for potential emergencies or alternate scenarios. Does your annual business plan rely on covid conditions improving in 2022? Create a contingency plan in case there are more hiccups than expected during reopening or the return to the office.

Consider how your business could best handle supply chain issues, unexpected cash flow problems, and major IT or security concerns. If your headquarters is in an area prone to natural disasters such as wildfires or hurricanes, you should always have a plan in place for the safety of your staff, files, as well as assets that would be difficult to replace.

Putting it all together

There are a number of annual business plan templates available online that you can use to craft your final report. Larger companies often use specialized software for their annual business plan. If you plan to use the goals created during the annual planning process for performance management , a software solution may be best so that department leads and individual employees can track their goals throughout the year.

The report should open with an executive summary, although this is actually the last piece that you’ll typically want to write. The executive summary should act as an introduction to and a summary of the full report. Tailor it to your audience depending on whether the plan will be shared with employees, investors, or others.

A description of the product or services including new products, the team, and the company at present may also be included.

Then comes the meat of the report where you explain the goals you’ve created and your plan for achieving and measuring them. Your full report may be separated into marketing planning, financial planning, HR planning for organizational improvement, and other relevant sub-sections. This is where the zoomed-in SWOT analyses and department-level SMART goals will come in handy.

The report should leave the reader with a clear picture of what you will achieve and how you will do it.

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How to Create and Compile an Annual Report for Your Small Business

We are committed to sharing unbiased reviews. Some of the links on our site are from our partners who compensate us. Read our editorial guidelines and advertising disclosure .

An annual report, also known as a yearly statement, showcases the current fiscal state of a company and its financial goals. An annual statement should also issue a comprehensive financial breakdown of the company's past financial year.

By law, publicly traded companies are required to issue annual financial statements to keep their shareholders informed. But if you don't own a publicly traded company, should you bother generating an annual financial report?

In our honest opinion, yes. Many organizations—from nonprofits to budding LLCs—prepare annual financial statements. And whatever type of small business you own, getting a complete and honest picture of your company's performance via an annual report can help you make essential decisions for your business's growth.

If you've never created an annual report before, we strongly recommend meeting with a financial advisor (such as your CPA, business banker, or bookkeeper) to discuss how and why to draw up annual reports. Your financial professional can advise you on what reports to create, then help you interpret the results to make wise business decisions moving forward.

But if you're looking for a quick financial statement overview, you've come to the right place. After reading our article, you'll understand what an annual report covers, how it can benefit businesses of all sizes, and how different reports are typically filed.

We'll also take a look at several outsourcing options for yearly report preparation.

Annual reports table of contents

What is included in an annual report, why is annual reporting important, how do you assemble and file annual reports.

What are the best companies for outsourcing annual filing?

The takeaway

If you're searching for accounting software that's user-friendly, full of smart features, and scales with your business, Quickbooks is a great option.

Best companies for filing state-required annual reports

Data as of 4/12/22. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.

First, a quick recap: individual states require all US businesses to update company information through annual reporting. Additionally, large corporations must craft yearly statements to inform potential and current investors of the company's performance over the previous year.

Depending on your business size, you might not have to prepare reports for a large crowd of investors. However, your small business can still learn and benefit from annual reports that are adapted to fit your unique situation.

Okay, so what exactly does an annual report entail? For starters, it includes a report from the CEO as well as copies of the company's balance sheet, income statement, and statement of cash flows. Current documents are included and should be compared to prior annual reports and an auditor's report.

Yearly business reports often start with general information about the company and its economic highlights from the past year. Then, company executives usually offer a compelling statement to shareholders with the executives' perspective on key events from the preceding year as well as their visions for the years to come.

A yearly report also contains three important annual financial statements. While all of these statements are tied to one another, they offer distinct perspectives on your company's economic well-being:

A balance sheet captures your company's current financial status. It compares tangible and intangible assets to your business's long-term liabilities and equity. (In other words, it's like a snapshot depicting your company's current financial standing.)
An income statement contrasts your revenue in the preceding year with the expenses incurred over that same period.
A cash flow statement (a.k.a. a statement of cash flows) focuses only on liquid funds generated and spent during the year.

Annual reports may cover additional topics:

Stories, photos, and charts that construct a relatable narrative for investors
An auditor's report to certify financial information
An explanation of relevant accounting policies
Notes on financial statements for clarification and contextualization
A disclaimer about forecasted expenses and revenues

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Like we said, the yearly business report is a requirement for large corporations, which need to inform public and private investors about the financial and operational state of the company. But businesses of any size can benefit from annual company reports in the following ways.

1. Reevaluate your business's strategies

Over the course of the year, it's easy to get bogged down in day-to-day business tasks. Compiling an annual report gives you the chance to slow down, take a breath, and look at your company's overall financial health.

Crucially, small businesses can use annual filing to reevaluate their core strategies. Most importantly, you can ask yourself:

What are we doing well?
Which financial and marketing strategies are helping us the most?
What are we doing poorly?
How can we change in these areas?

2. Understand your business's place in the financial landscape

An annual financial statement can be a catalyst for answering questions about its operation within the competitive landscape. For instance, you might use your annual report to assess:

Who your main competitors are
How you compare to those competitors financially
What your business's strengths and weaknesses are compared to those of your competitors
Which opportunities and challenges present themselves as you assess the market and your place in it

3. Assess the success of your yearly financial goals

Every business should set goals—not only in terms of finances, but also in terms of operations and human resources. An annual report can clearly show a business if its financial goals have been met or not. If the goals were met, an annual report can show you by how large a margin you succeeded. If they weren't met, an annual report might give you some insight into why your goals weren't achieved.

4. Set new goals for the coming financial year

Your annual report can help you set new financial, productivity, and HR goals based on last year's productivity. Obviously, this is a vital piece of information for your shareholders to consider. But even if you don't have a publicly traded company with multiple investors, setting clear goals for your business can help you meet next year's financial challenges.

5. Plan for growth

Let's say that you launched a small tech startup three years ago. Do you have plans to potentially grow and sell your company? Are you interested in gathering investors to help expand your business?

Even if you're not planning any major expansions for a few years, or even a decade or more, you'll be ahead of the curve if you start preparing annual reports now . Clear, honest financial reporting will show your future investors that you're a true business professional with good financial sense.

If you're a sole proprietor or a small-business owner with only a few employees, accounting software is the easiest way to draw up a financial document for your internal reporting. After all, accounting and bookkeeping software do more than track your finances—they also generate key financial statements.

Report-focused accounting software like Xero, Intuit QuickBooks Online, and FreshBooks can draw up fiscal documents for you with just the click of a button. You can then review your software-generated statements with your CPA, accountant, or bookkeeper to plan for the upcoming year. (If you don't have accounting software, don't worry—your accountant certainly does.)

If you own a publicly traded company, you likely have an accountant (or even an entire accounting department) who can draw up an annual report on your behalf. Alternatively, you can outsource your state-mandated reporting to a third-party company, which we'll talk more about below.

And depending on the state your business is incorporated in, you might need to submit some consolidated financial statements. These reports keep your critical business information up to date with the relevant state authorities. Failing to update the state might result in late fees or even dissolution of your company on a state level.

What are the best companies for outsourcing annual reporting?

Because every state has its own rules and regulations regarding annual reporting, filing small-business reports can be overwhelming. And if your business is licensed to operate in multiple states, you might need to report separately in each state.

Hiring an outside firm to handle your annual reports can help you rest easier knowing your business will remain in compliance with current law and avoid penalties.

The five companies below will file your business's annual reports for you, saving you time and effort so you can focus on what you are really good at—running your business.

Annual reports are required for all publicly traded companies, but they're also a useful year-end tool for business owners looking to reevaluate their finances and move their business forward.

If you own a large corporation, we're sure you've got annual reporting and filing covered. But if your midsize business could use some outside help to maintain compliance, we recommend BizFilings—it's a thorough, transparent business management solution that can see you through every step of the annual report filing process. And if you rely on accounting software, you can create easy financial reports any time you want to check your business's financial health, not just at the end of the year.

And don't forget the most important part of the process: meeting with a financial consultant. While we can offer informative, general advice, only your financial advisor understands the complicated ins and outs of your unique business. Good luck filing your annual reports—you're going to do an amazing job!

Are you in the early stages of setting up your small business? Our ultimate accounting guide can walk you through important accounting terms and principles that all new business owners should know.

Compare our top picks for business accounting software

Data as of 3/9/23. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change. *Only available for businesses with an annual revenue beneath $50K USD **Current offer: 90% off for 3 mos. or 30-day free trial †Current offer: 50% off for three months or 30-day free trial ‡Current offer: 75% off for 3 mos. Available for new customers only

How to Write a Business Plan in 2023 [Examples Included]

To see what Databox can do for you, including how it helps you track and visualize your performance data in real-time, check out our home page. Click here .

So you have come up with a business idea that will turn your company into a Forbes 500 enterprise? Sounds great!

However, you are going to need much more than an idea. You will need to do some comprehensive research, create operational standpoints, describe your product, define your goals, and pave out a road map for future growth.

In other words, you are going to need a business plan.

A business plan is a document that precisely explains how you are going to make your startup a success. Without it, your chances of attracting funding and investments significantly decrease.

Do you want to learn how to create a winning business plan that will take your company to the next level? We created a guide that will help you do just that.

Let’s dive in.

What Is a Business Plan?

Why and when do you need a business plan, types of business plans (what to include in each).

How Do You Write a Business Plan?

Best Practices for Writing a Winning Business Plan

Business plan examples.

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A business plan is a comprehensive document that defines how a business will achieve its goals. It is essentially a road map for growth that includes operational standpoints from all the key departments such as marketing, financial, HR, and others.

Startups use business plans to describe who they are, what they plan to do, and how they plan to achieve it. This is an extremely valuable document for attracting investors.

However, they are valuable for the company members as well. A good business plan keeps executive teams on the same page regarding the strategies they should implement to achieve their set objectives.

Related : Reporting to Investors: 6 Best Practices to Help Increase Funding

While business plans are especially useful for startups, each business should include them. In the best-case scenario, this plan will be updated from time to time and reviewed whether the goals of the company have been met.

The main things that investors want to check out in the business plan are:

Product-market fit – Have you researched the market demand for your products and services?
Team efficiency – Does your startup have devoted professionals that will work on achieving your goals?
Scalability – How probable is growth in sales volumes without proportional growth or fixed costs?

An organized business plan is essentially a blueprint of your goals and it showcases your abilities as an entrepreneur.

Related : Business Report: What is it & How to Write a Great One? (With Examples)

If you want to persuade venture capitalists and banking institutions to invest in your startup, you won’t be able to do it without a solid business plan. Following a clear business plan format is crucial, as it structures your plan in a way that is easily understandable and demonstrates your business’s potential.

A business plan is helpful in two ways – it allows you to focus on the specific goals you set for the future and it provides external parties with evidence that you have done your research in advance.

But don’t just take our word for it – here are some of the things that researchers from Bplans found out when they were analyzing the benefits of business plans with the University of Oregon.

Companies that use business plans have recorded a 30% faster growth compared to those that didn’t use them.
Getting investments and loans is twice as likely to happen with the help of business plans.
There is a 129% increased chance for entrepreneurs to go past the ‘startup’ phase through business plans.

You should create a business plan before you decide to quit your regular job. It can help you realize whether you are ready or not.

Also, creating a business plan is helpful when:

You want to attract investments or funding from external parties
You want to find a new partner or co-founder
You want to attract talented professionals to join your startup
You need to change things up due to the slow growth

While creating a business plan is an important step, you first have to know how to differentiate all the different types. This will help you choose the one that is most suitable for your business.

Here are the most common types of business plans and what you should include in each.

One-Pager Business Plan

Startup business plan, internal business plan, strategic business plan, feasibility business plan.

The one-pager is a business plan that only includes the most important aspects of your business. It is essentially a simplified version of a traditional business plan.

When creating the one-pager business plan, your primary focus should be on making it easily understandable.

Since this business plan is rather short, you should avoid using lengthy paragraphs. Each section should be around 1-2 sentences long.

The things you should include in a one-pager business plan are:

The problem – Describe a certain problem your customers have and support the claim with relevant data.
The solution – How your products/services can solve the issue.
Business model – Your plan on how to make money. Include production costs, selling costs, and the price of the product.
Target market – Describe your ideal customer persona. Start with a broad audience and narrow it down by using TAM, SAM, and SOM models. This lets investors in on your thought process. To understand these models better, check out, for example, the importance of proper TAM evaluation for B2B startups .
Competitive advantage – How are you different from your competitors?
Management team – Include your business’s management structure.
Financial summary – This part should revolve around the most significant financial metrics (profit, loss, cash flow, balance sheet, and sales forecast).
Required funding – Define how much money you need to make your project a success.

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New businesses use startup business plans to outline their launching ideas and strategies to attract funding and investment opportunities. When creating startup business plans, you should primarily focus on the financial aspect and provide evidence that supports it (e.g. market research).

These are some of the main things that should be included:

Vision statement – Explain your vision for the company and include the overall business goals you will try to achieve.
Executive summary – A quick overview of what your company is about and what will make it successful. Make sure to include your products/services, basic leadership information, employees, and location.
Company description – A detailed overview of your company. Talk about the problems you will solve and be specific about customers, organizations, and growth plans. This is the place where you should state your business’s main advantages.
Market Analysis – Show investors that you have a good understanding of your industry and target market by providing a detailed market analysis. Try to point out certain trends, themes, or patterns that support your objective.
Organization and management – This section explains the structure and the management hierarchy. Also, describe the legal structure of your business.
Service or product line – Go into detail about the products and services you are going to sell. Explain the benefits they bring and share your intellectual property plans.
Marketing and sales – Talk about your marketing strategy and describe how you plan to attract new customers.
Financial projections – This section should be about convincing your readers why the business will be a financial success. Create a prospective financial outlook for the next few years and it includes forecasts.

An internal business plan is a document that specifically focuses on the activities within your company. While external business plans focus on attracting investors, internal business plans keep your team aligned on achieving goals.

Related : Internal vs. External Reporting: What Are the Differences?

This business plan can differentiate based on how specific you want it to be. For example, you can focus on a specific part of the business (e.g. financial department) or on the overall goals of the whole company.

Nonetheless, here are some things that should universally be included in all internal business plans:

Mission statement – Focus on the practical, day-to-day activities that your employees can undertake to achieve overall objectives.
Objectives – Provide specific goals that you want your company to achieve. Make the objectives clear and explain in which way they can be reached. Focus more on short-term objectives and set reasonable deadlines.
Strategies – Talk about the general activities that will help your team reach the set objectives. Provide research that will describe how these strategies will be useful in the long term.
Action plans – These plans revolve around particular activities from your strategy. For example, you could include a new product that you want to create or a more efficient marketing plan.
Sustainability – This refers to the general probability of achieving the goals you set in the internal report. Sometimes, plans may seem overly ambitious and you are going to have to make amends with certain things.

A strategic business plan is the best way to gain a comprehensive outlook of your business. In this document, forecasts are examined even further and growth goals tend to be higher.

By creating a strategic business plan, you will have an easier time aligning your key stakeholders around the company’s priorities.

Here is a quick overview of what a strategic business plan should include:

Executive summary – Since strategic business plans are generally lengthy, not all executives will have time to go through it. This is why you should include a quick overview of the plan through an executive summary, you can also create an executive summary template to make the step easily repeatable.
Vision statement – Describe what you wish to achieve in the long term.
Company overview – This refers to past achievements, current products/services, recent sales performances, and important KPIs.
Core values – This section should provide an explanation of what drives the business to do what it does.
Strategic analysis of internal and external environments – Talk about the current organizational structure, mission statements, and department challenges.
Strategic objectives – Go into detail about the short-term objectives your team should reach in a specific period. Make sure the objectives are clear and understandable.
Overall goals – This section should include operational goals, marketing goals, and financial goals.

A feasibility business plan is also known as a feasibility study. It essentially provides a foundation for what would be a full and comprehensive business plan. The primary focus of a feasibility plan is research.

The things you should include in a feasibility plan are:

Product demand – Is there a high demand for your product? Would customers be interested in buying it?
Market conditions – Determine the customer persona that would be interested in buying your products. Include demographic factors.
Pricing – Compare your desired price with the current pricing of similar products. Which price would make your service profitable?
Risks – Determine the risks of launching this new business.
Success profitability – Is there a good way to overcome the risks and make your company profitable?

How Do You Write a Business Plan Report?

As we explained in the previous heading, there are a few different types of business plan. Depending on the audience you are referring to, the language you use in the plan should be adjusted accordingly.

Nonetheless, there are certain key elements that should be included in all business plans, the only thing that will vary is how detailed the sections will be.

Include these elements in your business plan.

Executive summary

Company description, market opportunity and analysis, competitive landscape, target audience, describe your product or service, develop a marketing and sales strategy, develop a logistics and operations plan, financial projections, explain your funding request, compile an appendix for official documents.

An executive summary is a quick overview of the document as a whole that allows investors and key stakeholders to quickly understand all the pain points from the report.

It is the best way to layout all the vital information about your business to bank officials and key stakeholders who don’t have the time to go through the whole business plan.

If you summarize the sections well, the potential investors will jump into the sections they are most interested in to acquire more details.

You should write the executive summary last since you will then have a better idea of what should be included.

A good executive summary answers these questions:

Who are you?
What do you sell?
How profitable is it?
How much money do you need?

This section of the business plan aims to introduce your company as a whole. The things you include in the company description can vary depending on if you are only starting a business or you already have a developed company.

The elements included in this section are:

Structure and ownership – Talk about who the key shareholders in your company are and provide a full list of names. Also, mention details such as where the company is registered and what the legal structure looks like. In most countries, this is a legal requirement for AML regulations.
History – This segment is if you already have an existing company. Use this section to show your credibility. Include company milestones, past difficulties, and a precise date for how long your company has been operating.
Objectives – Describe the overall objectives of your company and how you plan to reach them.

Market analysis refers to creating your ideal customer persona and explaining why they would be interested in buying your products.

Market opportunities are the gaps that you found in the current industries and creating a way for your product to fill those gaps.

The most important step in this section is to create a target market (persona) through demographic factors such as location, income, gender, education, age, profession, and hobbies.

Make sure that your target market isn’t too broad since it can put off potential investors.

A good idea is to also include a detailed analysis of your competitors – talk about their products, strengths, and weaknesses.

Related : 12 Best Tools Marketers Use for Market Research

Although you may include a competitive analysis in the market analysis section, this segment should provide a more detailed overview.

Identify other companies that sell similar products to yours and create a list of their advantages and disadvantages. Learning about your competitors may seem overwhelming, but it’s an indispensable part of a good business plan.

Include a comparison landscape as well that defines the things that set you apart from the competitors. Describe the strengths of your product and show which problems it could solve.

Related : How to Do an SEO Competitive Analysis: A Step-by-Step Guide

Use the target audience section to fully describe the details of your ideal customer persona. Include both demographic and psychographic factors.

Ask yourself:

What are the demographic characteristics of the people who will buy my product?
What are their desires?
What makes my product valuable to them?

Make sure to answer all of these questions to get in the mindset of your customers.

If you need more details on how to identify your target audience , check our full expert guide.

When talking about your products and services, be as precise as possible. Mention your target audience and the marketing channels you use for targeting this audience.

This section should reveal the benefits, life cycle, and production process of your products/services. Also, it is a good idea to include some pictures of your products if possible.

When describing your products, you should highlight:

Unique features
Intellectual property rights
What makes the product beneficial

Marketing is the blood flow to your business’s body. Without a good marketing and sales strategy, the chances of your product succeeding are very slim.

It’s always best to already have a marketing plan in place before launching your business. By identifying the best marketing channels, you will show your investors that you researched this topic in detail.

Some of the things you should include are:

Reach – Explain why a specific channel will be able to reach your target market
Cost – Is the marketing strategy going to be cost-effective? How much money do you plan on spending on the strategy?
Competition – Are your competitors already using this channel? If so, what will make your product stand out?
Implementation – Who will be taking care of the implementation process? Is it a marketing expert? Which suppliers did you reach out to?

Related : 14 Reasons Sales And Marketing Alignment Is Crucial for Skyrocketing Company Growth

This section should explain the details of how exactly your company is going to operate.

These are the things you should include:

Personnel plan – Define how many people you plan to employ and their roles. Also, if you plan on increasing your staff, you should explain what would be the cause of that.
Key assets – This refers to assets that will be crucial for your company’s operation.
Suppliers – Mention who your suppliers will be and what kind of relationship you have with them. Your investors will be interested in this part of the section since they want to be reassured that you are cooperating with respectable counterparties.

The financial projections section is one of the most important parts of your business plan. It includes a detailed overview of expected sales, revenue, profit, expenses, and all the other important financial metrics .

You should show your investors that your business will be profitable, stable, and that it has huge potential for cash generation.

Monthly numbers for the first year are crucial since this will be the most critical year of your company.

At the very least, you should provide:

Funding needs
Profit-and-loss statement forecast
Balance sheet forecast
Cash-flow statement forecast

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

When providing the funding request, be realistic. Explain why you need that exact amount of money and where it will be allocated.

Also, create both a best-case and worst-case scenario. New companies don’t have a history of generating profits which is why you will probably have to sell equity in the early years to raise enough capital.

This will be the final section of your business plan. Include any material or piece of information that investors can use to analyze the data in your report.

Things that could be helpful are:

Local permits
Legal documents
Certifications that boost credibility
Intellectual properties or patents
Purchase orders and customer contracts

After reading the previous heading, you should have a clear idea of how to write a compelling business plan.

But, just to be sure, we prepared some additional information that can be very helpful.

Here are some of the best practices you should implement in your business plan according to the most successful companies.

Keep it brief

Make it understandable, be meticulous about money, design is important.

Generally, business plans will be around 10-20 pages long. Your main focus should be to cover the essentials that we talked about, but you don’t want to overdo it by including unnecessary and overwhelming information.

In business plan, less is more.

Create a good organizational outline of your sections. This will allow investors to easily navigate to the parts they are most interested in reading.

Avoid using jargon – everyone should be able to easily understand your business plan without having to Google certain terms.

Make a list of all the expenses your business incurs. Financial information should be maximally precise since it will directly impact the investor’s decision to fund your business idea.

After you wrap up your business plan, take a day off and read it again. Fix any typos or grammatical errors that you overlooked the first time.

Make sure to use a professional layout, printing, and branding of your business plan. This is an important first impression for the readers of the document.

Now you know what a business plan is, how you can write it, and some of the best practices you can use to make it even better.

But, if you are still having certain difficulties coming up with a great business plan, here are a few examples that may be helpful.

HubSpot’s One-Page Business Plan

Bplan’s free business plan template, small business administration free business plan template.

This One-Page Business Plan was created by HubSpot and it can be a great way to start off your business plan journey on the right foot.

You already have fields such as Implementation Timeline, Required Funding, and Company Description created so you will just need to provide your specific information.

This free business plan template highlights the financial points of the startup. If your primary focus will be your business’ financial plan and financial statements, you can use this template to save up some time.

It can also be useful for making sure everyone in your company understands the current financial health and what they can do to improve it.

If you need additional inspiration to kick start your own business plan, you can check out this free template by small business administration .

You just have to decide which type of plan you want to create and then review the format of how it should look like.

Small Business Administration Free Business Plan Template

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Tracking your company’s performance is an indispensable part of quality decision-making. It is crucial that you know how your business strategy is performing and whether it needs to be optimized in certain areas.

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By using customizable dashboards from Databox, you will be able to connect data from all your different tools into one comprehensive report. Not only that, but you can also visualize the most important metrics to make your presentation to shareholders immensely more impactful.

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Leave the grueling business reporting process in the past and sign up for a free trial with Databox.

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Annual Planning: Plan Like a Pro In 5 Steps (+ Template)

Get ready to take your strategic annual planning game to the next level! This process is essential for companies who want to set a clear direction for the future and ensure everyone is working towards the same goal.

But, let's be real, executing a killer strategic plan is easier said than done. That's why we're here to help you.

In this article, we'll dive into the nitty-gritty of annual planning and cover all the tips and tricks you need to know. From involving the right people to communicating your plan like a pro, we've got you covered.

We'll also share some common pitfalls to watch out for and provide real-life examples to help bring it all to life.

So, whether you're a seasoned planning pro or just starting out, get ready to learn how to make your annual strategic planning a total success!

In this article, you’ll discover:

What Is Annual Planning?

The Benefits of The Annual Planning Process

5 Steps To Build A Highly Effective Annual Plan

The only annual planning template you need in 2024.

7 Mistakes to Avoid When Conducting Annual Strategic Planning

Build And Execute Your Annual Plan With Cascade 🚀

Free Template Download our free Strategic Planning Template Download this template

Annual planning is about turning long-term business goals into short-term action plans for the year ahead. It contains insights from past performance and a clear roadmap with a timeline. This yearly plan should be realistic and achievable, while also being ambitious enough to move the business forward.

Annual planning is your opportunity to take the previous year’s wins, knocks, and lessons and adjust your strategy to help your business grow consistently and become better.

Boilerplate definition aside, imagine if IBM still focused on building business-centric PCs, BMW still only made airplane engines, or Tata focused on producing steel. They wouldn’t be the companies they are today.

Annual planning and regular reviews help you proactively adapt to changes and steer your organization in the right direction to get the business results you want by the end of the year or toward your vision in the future.

The Benefits Of The Annual Planning Process

Whether it’s your IT, supply chain , pricing, marketing, operations , or sales strategy—improving, pivoting, or optimizing your annual planning approach from one year to the next year is non-negotiable. The annual planning process will help you assess the effectiveness of your business strategies and make adjustments to keep up with customer needs and market trends.

An effective annual planning process for the new year can offer:

Strategic clarity: Annual strategic planning helps define and align goals, mission, and values, leading to more focused and effective decision-making across all levels of the organization. This in turn sets a clear and consistent direction for future initiatives, maximizing the organization's potential to achieve success.
Focus: By regularly reviewing and updating its strategic plan , your organization stays focused on long-term objectives instead of being constantly sidetracked by day-to-day operations.
Benchmark performance: An annual strategic planning process helps you measure and track progress on key strategic initiatives , and evaluate the progress made compared to last year.
Gaps and opportunities: By regularly reviewing your strategic plan, your teams will identify gaps and opportunities for improvement and innovation, which can help you stay ahead of your competition.
Resource allocation: By aligning your strategic plan with your budget, you can allocate resources that will support your goals and cut costs from misaligned initiatives.
Engagement and buy-in: Involving key stakeholders in the strategic planning process will increase engagement and buy-in across your organization, leading to a more cohesive and motivated team.

A clear and execution-ready annual plan that focuses on the big picture and pays attention to the details can be the glue that binds your teams together. And this is crucial if you want to reach this year’s goals with greater speed and efficiency. Plus, it’s much better than the alternative of just winging it and hoping for the best!

📚 Recommended read: How To Create An Effective Annual Operating Plan (+Template)

Don’t get us wrong—creating and managing a yearly planning process can be a daunting task. But, with the right approach, you'll be able to get it right and start executing faster. Here's how to do annual planning the right way:

1. Analyze your performance and identify opportunities

Before you set goals , you should do an analysis of your company's current performance, market, and competitors to see where you stand.

Here are some tools you can use in the process:

SWOT analysis
PESTLE analysis
Porter’s Five Forces
Competitive analysis
Financial performance of the previous year
Gap analysis

A better understanding of your current performance can help you make data-driven decisions in the next steps of the planning process.

Want to make it fail-proof? Don’t forget to include key stakeholders who will be involved in the day-to-day execution of your annual plan.

Here’s who should be included in the analysis process:

Executive leadership: They are responsible for setting the overall direction and strategy for the organization.
Department heads and team leaders: They can offer insights into team capabilities and resources. They can provide insight into the specific needs and challenges of their teams and ensure that their operational plans align with the annual plan.
Employees: Employees often have valuable insights and ideas that can help improve the plan. By involving them in the planning process, you can tap into this wealth of knowledge and potentially identify new opportunities or challenges that may not have been considered otherwise.
Customers: Customer feedback is critical to understanding the needs and priorities of the target market.
Suppliers and partners: Depending on the nature of the business, it may be beneficial to involve suppliers and partners in the strategic planning process. They can provide valuable insights into industry trends and potential challenges.

👉Bonus tip: Don't let analysis paralysis slow you down! Set a timeline, prioritize data, make informed decisions, and don't overthink it. Move into the execution phase as fast as possible. Adapt later.

2. Formulate your strategy

The data and insights from Step 1 should inform the formulation of your strategy for the coming year. At this point, you should have a clear sense of direction and objectives that your company wants to achieve in the coming year.

💡 To identify and formulate your strategy, consider the following questions with your team:

What is the business problem that we are trying to solve?
What are our core strategic objectives , and how will we measure success?
What are our key strategic initiatives, and how will we prioritize them?
What are our key performance indicators , and how will we track progress?
Are there potential risks , and how will we mitigate them?
What resources will we need, and how do we allocate them?

Answering these questions will help you test the validity of your strategy and identify any potential gaps or risks that need to be addressed. In this way, you'll build a solid foundation for your annual plan and increase the chances of its successful execution.

3. Build your annual plan

Next, you’ll need to turn your strategy into a detailed roadmap that outlines the steps you’ll take to achieve your annual strategic objectives and goals.

It’s like taking a map from a broad view of the journey to a more detailed look that zooms in on the roads and landmarks you’ll need to follow to reach your destination.

📝Your annual plan should include the following:

🔎 Focus areas: The specific areas of the company or its operations that need improvement.
📌Goals and objectives: Specific outcomes the company wants to achieve in its yearly plan.
📈Measures: Deliverables and KPIs to track progress toward your company’s goals and objectives.
📤Actions: Specific actions or projects to achieve goals and objectives.
😎Owners: Individuals or teams responsible for implementing the actions.
📆Due dates: Specific deadlines and milestones throughout the year.
💰Budget: Allocating the resources to achieve goals and objectives.

👉Here’s how Cascade can help you:

Cascade’s strategic planning feature gives your annual planning process a standardized and structured approach that includes all the key elements for success. It helps you set high-level annual goals, break them down into smaller initiatives, and assign owners to drive accountability.

4. Create tight alignment with your teams

If the leadership team’s job is to set high-level company priorities to frame key strategic initiatives, then it’s up to specific business functions or teams to chart out the path to reach those strategic goals .

The first step in ensuring strategic alignment is to clearly communicate the plan to all employees. This can be done through regular meetings, company-wide presentations, and other forms of communication, such as a central location for your annual plan that is easily accessible to your stakeholders.

The key is to make sure that everyone understands the goals and objectives of the plan and how their work fits into the bigger picture.

With Cascade , you can link your annual strategic plan to individual departmental or team plans in a single source of truth. As a result, it's easier to ensure that everyone in the organization is aligned with the goals and objectives and monitor the progress being made toward those goals.

An example of the Cascade alignment view is where you can see how each plan aligns with the company's annual plan and drill down to evaluate performance.

5. Monitor progress and adjust your plan

Gone are the days of static, set-in-stone strategic plans! It's time to embrace flexibility and be willing to make changes as needed. Your annual plan is a flexible, dynamic roadmap that should be adjusted as circumstances change or new information becomes available. The key is to stay focused on your goals and objectives, and be ready to pivot when needed .

Here are some steps that you can take to monitor the annual plan and adapt as needed:

Set up a system for tracking progress: This can be done using a variety of tools, including spreadsheets, strategy reports , strategic planning software , or status reports .
Establish regular review meetings: These meetings can be weekly, monthly, or quarterly, depending on the needs of your organization. The key is to make sure that progress is regularly reviewed and that any issues are identified and addressed in a timely manner.
Monitor key metrics: Track the most important KPIs that will help you quickly catch underperforming areas and evaluate the success of your annual plan and business strategies.

If you want to be a savvy business leader, you need to always be monitoring progress, the business environment, and adjusting your plans accordingly. So, let's ditch the rigidity and embrace the flexibility of modern strategic planning and strategy execution!

With Cascade’s powerful data visualization, you can connect multiple data sources from spreadsheets, project management tools, or business intelligence tools in a single place. You'll be able to uncover powerful insights and deliver accurate reports to help stakeholders make better decisions.

Plus, Cascade's drill-down capabilities allow you to easily explore and interact with your data to gain deeper insights in real time.

Ready for some serious annual planning made easy-peasy? We've got just the thing for you—our annual planning template ! This bad boy is like your own personal planning sidekick, packed with all the goodies you need to align your teams, monitor performance, and rock this year.

Think of it as a one-stop shop for all your annual planning needs. It’s pre-filled with examples that can guide you through the planning process, or you can customize it with your own information.

It’s a great alternative if you want to get out of messy and ineffective spreadsheets. Plus, it's got a super simple layout, so you won't be bogged down by a bunch of unnecessary features. This template can help, regardless of whether you work at a startup or an enterprise-sized company. And no matter the industry you’re in.

Don't believe us? Give it a try! We guarantee it'll make your annual planning process a whole lot smoother and its execution a whole lot faster. So what are you waiting for?

Sign up for a free forever plan with Cascade, add the annual planning template to your profile, and level up your game. It’s that simple.

👉 Click here to get instant access to your annual planning template.

7 Mistakes To Avoid When Conducting Annual Strategic Planning

Alright, before you dive deep into your yearly planning session, let's talk about the elephant in the room: planning and execution mistakes . In this section, we're diving into some of the most common blunders made during the annual planning process, so you can dodge them like a boss.

Lack of stakeholder engagement: Failing to involve critical stakeholders in the planning process can lead to a siloed plan that doesn’t align with the organization's capacities, needs, and priorities.
Unrealistic goals: Be sure your planning is grounded in your situation's realities and consider your organization's resources, skills, and timelines. This is why it’s crucial that you consult with various stakeholders when planning and executing your strategy. If you need a goal-setting framework, you can check OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). Or take a look at these 5 best strategic planning models to help you set SMART goals.
Lack of flexibility: View your plan as a flexible roadmap, not a rigid set of rules, and be prepared to adapt as the business environment changes. The “perfect plan” doesn’t exist. As 76% of corporate strategy leaders report significant pivots in strategic plans happening more frequently, you need to be ready to expect the unexpected.
Lack of resources: An annual plan that doesn’t consider your team member’s knowledge and skill sets won't result in tangible outcomes. Additionally, ensure that your business has the necessary resources and that your annual plan won’t cause a cash flow crunch.
Inadequate communication: Clear and transparent communication is crucial for success, so communicate plans to all stakeholders and ensure they understand the goals and how they fit into the organization's overall strategy.
Lack of follow-through: Nobody wins if your teams aren’t hitting goals, and your strategy is just a document collecting dust. According to Cascade’s Strategy Report , less than 20% of team members review progress weekly. Set up regular progress reviews and take corrective actions as needed. Ignore this pitfall, and you’ll set your strategy up for failure.
Misalignment between business strategy and team goals: Strategy execution is a team sport, and everyone needs to be on the same page. Share annual business goals with your team leaders and their team members. Let them set their team goals independently, give them feedback, and ensure buy-in early on.

Ready to tackle your annual planning with confidence?

Remember, the key to success is having a clear plan in a single source of truth, organization-wide alignment, and being flexible enough to adapt when necessary.

And as a final reminder, don't forget to check out our annual planning template! It's the perfect tool to help you structure your plan, get your teams aligned with your strategic priorities, and keep track of your progress so you can adapt quickly if needed.

So don't miss out, book a demo with one of our strategy experts or sign up today for free , and let's get started!

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How to write an annual report: 4 tips for getting started.

How to Write an Annual Report: 4 Tips for Preparing Annual Reports

Connecting with shareholders, investors , and the public is key to growing your small business. Your annual report communicates the strength of your business, so your current shareholders can feel confident knowing how your business operates. It’s also a chance to build new relationships with investors and clients by showcasing your management, financial performance, company mission, and goals.

Learning to write strong annual reports is important for delivering required year-end documents, but it can also help you forge personal connections. Explore the essential components of the annual report, as well as strategies for adding a creative touch that sets your business apart.

Key Takeaways

An annual report communicates your business affairs to stakeholders and the public
It typically includes mission goals, financial position, structure, and strategies
Depending on the size of your business, you may be legally required to provide an annual report
A good annual report can also be used as a marketing tool
Aim to create an annual report that’s clear, honest, and engaging

What this article covers:

What Is an Annual Report?

What to include in an annual report, how do you write a good annual report, why is an annual report important.

Frequently Asked Questions

To write an annual report, the business operations and the financial position are listed, summarized, and recorded. The annual report is a financial document businesses provide to shareholders, potential investors, and analysts. It is the best source of information about the business performance and financial well-being of a business.

Publicly traded companies are required to file annual reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission. However, small businesses and non-profit organizations also prepare yearly reports to connect with customers and provide information about yearly operations, past performance, and future goals.

The annual report is an integral part of corporate reporting. Since the annual reports are based on specific legal requirements , the items included in the report vary.

Most annual reports provide a fundamental overview of the business over the past year. The sections typically included in an annual report are an opening letter from the chairman, a business profile, an analysis by management, and financial data.

Chairman’s Letter

Annual reports usually start with an introduction and a letter from the company’s chairman, primary owner, or CEO to the shareholders providing a snapshot of the significant developments in the past financial year, company initiatives, and a brief summary of the financials. Key elements included in this section are the challenges that the business faced, its successes, and insight into the growth of the company.

A table of contents follows the section.

Business Profile

This section includes the vision and mission statement of the company, details of directors, officers, and registered and corporate office, investor profile, the products or services that are the main source of revenue for the business, competitor profile, and risk factors of the business.

Management Discussion and Analysis

The section provides an overview of the business performance over the past three years and discusses profit margins, sales, and income

If the business has launched a new product or service or there are drastic shifts in sales and marketing efforts, this section should include them. The other topics of discussion include new hires, business acquisitions, and other information that the management thinks would benefit the stakeholders.

Financial Statements

The financial statements are the most important part of the annual report that allows current and future investors, shareholders, employees, and other business stakeholders to determine how well the company has performed in the past, its ability to pay off its debts, its cash flow, and its plans for growth. The statements that are included are:

Balance sheet
Cash flow statement
Income statement
Statement to shareholders

These statements show whether the company has made a profit or loss in the past year, how much earnings it has retained, and the proportion of revenues to operational expenses the previous year. Apart from the financial statements, information about the market price of shares of the company and the dividends paid have to be provided.

Looking for an easier way to organize your accounts? FreshBooks’ bookkeeping software lets you manage your own bookkeeping with easy filing methods and specialist support. Click here to get started.

Other elements included in the year-end report are:

Notes to accounts with details about the accounting policies
Comments by auditors on the financials of the company.
Disclaimers about forecasted income and expenses
Stories, infographics, and photographs

Annual reports are important elements of a brand’s transparency and accountability. However, rather than writing a ponderous document that only a few can understand, businesses are creating annual reports that speak to a broad group of people.

These reports communicate the values and goals of the company’s mission and brand. Producing a highly visual and narrative-driven interactive annual report can help businesses connect with shareholders, investors, and customers. Aim to include visual elements throughout the entire report to keep the document engaging.

Determine the Key Message

Annual reports are a perfect opportunity to highlight your accomplishments and the impact of these accomplishments. The investors and employees want to know what you did and why you did it. By connecting your business activities and your accomplishments to the final goals and mission statement, businesses can build trust and foster long-lasting connections.

Finalize Structure and Content

One of the most difficult parts of writing an annual report is deciding what to include and leave out. It’s important to map out the report’s content and structure.

Apart from the basic elements such as the introduction, chairman’s letter, business profile, and financial statement, the annual report should have a storyline that defines the report’s overall structure and shapes the content around a narrative thread. This makes identifying and cutting out information that does not actively move the story forward easier.

Use clear, precise, and unambiguous writing. Maintain a professional and unbiased position throughout the document. The content of the annual report should be transparent and honest. Don’t inflate accomplishments or disguise the losses that you faced.

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Use Compelling Design

A well-designed, engaging, professional report can be used as a marketing tool by a business. Ideally, readers should be able to scan through the document and get the relevant information they need. Here are some pointers for a good annual report design:

Use headings and subheadings
Devote space to photographs, infographics, and other compelling visual elements
Keep the text short and simple
Use a bold and complimentary color scheme and layout techniques that are in sync with your brand
Emphasize key areas with colored text boxes, quotes, and captions

Plan in Advance

Creating an annual report is a long-term process that requires an organized system for recording and tracking data, media clipping, photographs, and a list of business achievements. While a number of companies create the annual reports in-house, others may hire a design firm to compile, proofread and finalize the document.

Ready to create a clear and compelling digital annual report? FreshBooks’ reports feature lets you explore report templates, performance tools, and accounting details so you can write your reports in-house. Try it free to begin your annual report today.

Both public and private companies use annual reports to provide important business and financial information to customers, investors, employees, and the media. Here are some reasons why writing annual reports is necessary for businesses:

Provides an opportunity to highlight a company’s key achievements, expectations for the coming year, and overall goals and objectives
Gives information on the company’s financial position
Introduce you’re the key members of the business to stakeholders and the general public
Tells shareholders and employees the company’s strategy for growth in the coming year
Useful as a decision-making tool for managers

The annual reports keep your critical business information up to date. A failure by public companies to update the investors and the state might result in late fees or even the dissolution of your company.

Writing an annual report is essential for communicating your business position to shareholders, investors, and the public. Depending on the size of your company, you may also be legally required to produce annual reports for the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Your annual report should include four main components: the chairman’s letter, a profile of your business, an analysis of your management strategies, and your financial statements. Adding creative elements like graphic design and a narrative can also help your annual report double as a marketing tool. Learning to create a strong annual report is essential for guiding management decisions in your company and connecting to those who support and grow your business.

FAQs on How to Write an Annual Report

How do you write an annual report for a small business.

Writing the annual report for a small business follows a similar process as writing for a large company – you should include a chairman’s letter, business profile, management analysis, and financial statements. However, since you’re writing for a smaller business, you also have more flexibility to be creative. You can tailor your report to shareholders or make it a public-oriented document that you can use to market your small business.

Who Prepares the Annual Report?

Companies may have their own in-house writing and design team, or they may choose to hire an outside firm to prepare their report. Teams usually include accounting, writing, and graphic design professionals.

Which Things Should be Avoided while Writing a Report?

Avoid leaving your annual report to the last minute, trying to mask challenges your business has faced, or overloading the report with details and jargon. The aim is to be clear in your communication – be upfront about both your successes and losses, and write with accessible language that’s understandable to all your readers.

What are the 5 Basic Structures of a Report?

A good report can be structured in a simple 5-part setup to showcase your company’s performance. These sections are:

1. Introduction

3. Comments and disclaimers

4. Conclusion

5. References

You’ll start with a brief overview, then provide the body of information. Comments and disclaimers should explain any claims or facts, then summarize your information in the conclusion and cite any external references.

What are the 4 components of an annual report?

There are 4 key components to include when writing an annual report:

1. Chairman’s letter

2. Business profile

3. Management analysis

4. Financial statements

You can also include creative elements like stories, infographics, and photographs to make your report more visually engaging to your target audience.

Kristen Slavin, CPA

About the author

1000 more rows at the bottom Kristen Slavin is a CPA with 16 years of experience, specializing in accounting, bookkeeping, and tax services for small businesses. A member of the CPA Association of BC, she also holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Simon Fraser University. In her spare time, Kristen enjoys camping, hiking, and road tripping with her husband and two children. In 2022 Kristen founded K10 Accounting. The firm offers bookkeeping and accounting services for business and personal needs, as well as ERP consulting and audit assistance.

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The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Strategic Annual Plan

November 19, 2021 - 10 min read

The first step to achieving goals is to come up with an annual plan. A strategic annual plan makes it easier for managers, team leaders, and company owners to execute their vision for growth. Not only does creating an annual plan give you time to reflect on past accomplishments, but it’s also a great way to make ideas actionable. Keep reading to learn more about what annual planning is and how you can create one that has a significant impact on your organization.

What is an annual plan?

An annual business plan is a set of goals and milestones that guide a company's operations for the year ahead. It helps guide employees and investors in the right direction. For many people, this year's new year begins with a review of their previous year. They then set goals and make plans for the coming year.

Annual planning is a combination of two other important elements: a business plan and an annual plan.

A business plan is a document that a company or organization uses to set goals and improve performance. It's similar to a belt-tightening exercise.

An annual plan is a strategy that a company uses to set goals and expectations for the coming year . It helps employees visualize where they are headed and how they can get there. The annual plan also sets out a company's long-term goals and helps guide how it will reach these targets.

An annual business plan helps workers set goals and holds them accountable for achieving those goals for the upcoming 12 months.

Then, there’s strategic planning. A strategic planning process helps an organization identify its mission, vision, and strategic goals.

The strategic plan combined with the annual business plan are two key components of a successful strategy. The former provides a framework for the company's goals and intentions, while the latter provides the necessary tools and processes to execute those goals.

Overview of a strategic annual plan

Here is what is typically included in a strategic annual plan:

Analysis of past performance. Reviewing your goals can help you identify areas where you can improve and become more productive.
Budget estimations. Financial projections are often included in budget planning. They help you plan for the coming year and identify the right course of action for your projects.
A clear vision statement. Expectations must be clearly stated, as well as responsibilities and clear OKRs. Having these elements in place can help keep teams on track and motivated.
SMART goals . Set specific, measurable goals and deadlines for your company. This will help you measure how far you've come in terms of meeting the key results.
Buffer room. A well-written annual plan should include space for emergencies as well. Having a contingency plan can help avoid unexpected expenses.

In a nutshell: the annual plan is a strategy used to plan and execute the organization's goals and objectives. It is usually composed of three phases which are strategy, projects, and timing.

The importance of an annual plan

Annual planning helps define what's important to achieving goals and driving performance. An annual plan also helps keep the workforce united and can be used to motivate and retain employees.

A well-written annual plan can help you set the direction for your company while providing the team with a sense of direction.

Examples of annual strategic planning

Here are some ideas to get you started with your own strategic annual plan:

1. Coca Cola HBC 2020 Integrated Annual Plan

Coca-Cola's 246-page report details all aspects of their business. They start by celebrating their wins with statistics. They also include photos of actual customers and partners. Their CEO writes a letter to their stakeholders sharing their biggest accomplishments over the past year.

Then they go through their vision. Throughout the strategy, you can see that they are using the pillar method for goal planning. Key areas of focus include leveraging existing business, continuing to win the beverage marketplace, making competitive investments, focusing on employee growth, and expanding their licensing.

The overall report is designed well and is reminiscent of a well-crafted white paper. Because the CEO's letter was addressed specifically to stakeholders, we know that this is a tool for increasing investment as well as project planning. Because of this, a lot of the content within it answers the question, “why should I invest in you?”

Throughout the rest of the annual plan, each pillar gets its own section. At the top of each section, there is a list of accomplishments from the past year and priorities for the coming year. They also summarize risks, stakeholders, and KPIs. This makes the packet easy to skim but also easy to remember.

2. pep+ (PepsiCo Positive)

PepsiCo recently announced that their new 2022 initiative will revolve around “the planet and people.” While this is a long-term process for the brand, the launch will mark the core of their strategic annual plan for the foreseeable future. Their keywords include positivity (hence the “+”), sustainability, and “a fundamental transformation of what we do and how we do it.”

On their dedicated landing page, readers can dig deeper into their annual plan. Also well designed, this presentation shows what the future looks like for PepsiCo through refreshed branding and imagery. Symbols such as smiling farmers and healthy, green fields drive the message home.

To achieve these new goals, the company will focus on supply chains, inspiring consumers, and driving sustainable change among all its product lines.

They link several documents throughout the report, including a comprehensive list of goals which is a great example for your own annual plan template inspiration. This three-page chart names pillars on the left-hand side and targets or actions with due dates on the right.

If their goals have numerical metrics, they include data from past years, along with key benchmarks they hope to reach by the end of the year or in the future. Otherwise, their goals are measured in actions.

For example, as part of their sustainability pillar, they plan to “develop and deploy disruptive sustainable packaging materials and new models for convenient foods and beverages.” This task is specific and clear, despite the fact that it’s not as quantifiable as some of their other goals.

3. Nestlé Global’s Annual Report

Their annual plan is not public but they have shared an annual report on past wins from 2020. In addition to a financial review, Nestlé also shares a new strategy. Starting with important facts and figures the company highlights statistics from organic sales growth and more. They also visualize data about which types of products are selling most and where in the world the company has grown over the past year.

As Coca-Cola did, Nestlé also includes a letter to shareholders. They discuss ways in which they plan to grow in the coming year. This includes what product areas they will invest more in and where they will pause or halt efforts. They also emphasize a new product area which will be the focus moving forward in the short term. In this section, Nestlé touches on long-term strategies and how these short-term goals will affect them.

In general, their annual report focuses on the word innovation. It mostly has to do with developing new products and revamping old ones. Like PepsiCo, they are using sustainability as a pillar as well as e-commerce.

The report goes on to elaborate on each strategy individually. Nestlé lists action steps and provides clear evidence as to why each is important. They also highlight statistics for growth in key areas and name even bigger numbers for where they hope to be in a year.

Throughout the report, they include images from ad campaigns that demonstrate the change they wish to continue implementing as part of their marketing plan . Again, branding imagery makes a big difference when creating your own strategic annual plan. It sets the tone for what's written on the page and can help visual learners better understand what you're going for at a glance.

Although Nestle's strategic annual plan is designed more like a white paper than a chart, this layout is the most magazine-like by far. It serves as a great example of how you can organize ideas on the page in a way that is interesting and attention-grabbing.

One of the most notable aspects of their annual plan is the Materiality Matrix. They use this chart to visualize key areas of interest and prioritize them according to stakeholder values. Within each box, they’ve listed bullet points of business areas this value will impact. It’s a great method for summarizing goals that cover a wide variety of departments and business engagements.

Understanding strategic planning best practices

Everyone has their own way of thinking about annual plans. Regardless of what you’re trying to achieve, the following strategic planning best practices will help you get there:

1. Use SMART goals

A variety of SMART goals are commonly used to help guide and motivate people. They help set realistic benchmarks and are designed to help teams achieve success. It will also help you plan for the ups and downs of your business. To reach your goals, divide them up into smaller goals and set specific deadlines. These goals will help you measure how successful you are at reaching them.

2. Include contingencies

For example, having an emergency financial reservoir is a good idea to prevent a potential financial disaster. It can help your company navigate slower seasons while still sticking to your annual plan.

3. Build in flexibility

Even minor shifts in external factors can significantly impact on how effective you are at creating and implementing your strategic plan. Never forget that, while we are creating our annual plans in a vacuum, the world will undoubtedly go through more changes this coming year. Even though we can’t predict the future, we can make our plans foolproof by being flexible now.

What is an annual plan template?

An annual plan template is a document or tool that can be utilized repeatedly to outline the various stages involved in creating an annual plan.

Its purpose is to provide a clear understanding of the annual planning process by specifying the actions to be taken and the timeline to follow in order to develop an effective business plan. By utilizing the annual planning template, individuals or organizations can ensure that they have a systematic approach to reaching specific goals, and can enhance the quality of their business plans.

Using Wrike to assist with an annual plan template

Wrike’s project management software can help you keep track of all your company-related information in one place. It can also streamline your work and help you stay on track. It can also help you keep track of your annual plans and develop a strong strategy.

Start by using last year as a reference. By understanding the issues that affected the previous year, a company can improve its performance in the following year.

Draw reports of time spent per project and see where your team went over or underestimated. Then look at which tasks tend to drain resources the most. Determine whether or not the ROI is worth it moving forward.

Next, set realistic goals. Reflect on last year's statistics from Wrike Reports and put together a plan with a realistic metric for improvement.

After, break down big plans into individual steps. Start by focusing on the business goals of the company then outline your key objectives that align with those. Make sure that everyone knows who is responsible for executing and approving each task.

Draft a Gantt chart that includes each step broken down into relevant tasks. Remember to add deadlines to every action to keep teammates accountable and keep to realistic deadlines.

Then, delegate tasks according to strengths and weaknesses. Use project reporting and individual job performance to assess team members. You may find that those with specialized talent are being tasked with unskilled work when they could help solve major problems elsewhere.

Don’t forget to involve the whole team. Start early, plan ahead, and keep everyone involved in the process. Doing so will make it easier to overcome obstacles once the projects are underway.

Additionally, ask them for direct feedback on your ideas for the next year. You will learn from the front line what obstacles they may be facing that will affect the timeline.

Another bonus of getting your team involved is that it creates more transparency in the workplace. Using Wrike as a part of the process is not only helpful, but the team also keeps learning how to use the system more efficiently as they go.

Having a work management platform that enables you to plan and execute annual plans is a good idea. Plus, it's also a good idea to use tools that allow you to collaborate and manage complex processes. Create an effective annual plan today with Wrike’s free trial .

Maria Waida

Maria is a freelance content writer who specializes in blogging and other marketing materials for enterprise software businesses.

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Free Annual Report Templates

Praburam Srinivasan

Growth Marketing Manager

April 30, 2024

Highlighting successes and failures at the end of the year lays the groundwork for a better and more fruitful new year. It’s a time to review performance, assess financial reports, and take those insights to make improvements.

One way companies do this is by creating an annual report. For public companies, this document is required for shareholders to understand the health of the business. For smaller businesses and teams, creating an annual report can also help to build better decision-making.

An annual report template lets you create your financial report in half the time. Here, we’ll share some of the best templates to build an informative annual report. You’ll find templates for progress reports, work breakdowns, and annual reports for businesses in different sectors. 🙌

Why are Annual Reports Important?

1. clickup annual report template, 2. clickup business annual report template, 3. clickup annual report work breakdown structure template, 4. clickup financial analysis report template, 5. clickup progress report template, 6. clickup nonprofit annual report template, 7. clickup llc annual report template, 8. canva modern cover annual report, 9. venngage year end annual report template, 10. annual report template by envato.

Annual reports are documents that lay out the company’s financial health and describe operations. It’s required for public companies, but can also be used by smaller businesses and private firms for internal reporting.

Prior to the 1929 Wall Street crash , the annual report was not mandated. Following the financial implosion, regulators required annual reports from all public companies so shareholders and stakeholders could understand the financial health and operations. 📈

The corporate annual report typically starts with a letter to the stakeholders briefly outlining the main takeaways. The annual reporting process centers around collecting data and building diagrams to form a narrative that explains how the previous year went and what is expected for the future. The final parts of the report include in-depth metrics to highlight financial and operational procedures.

Most annual reports contain the following:

A letter to shareholders
Management discussion and analysis (MD&A)
Financial statements
Audit reports
Summary of financing and operating wins

Businesses can choose to hire outside agencies to create the annual report or handle it internally. With a template for annual reports, you can take information from impact reports and sales reports to create your own financial and operational review.

What makes a good annual report template

Annual reports must have specific financial information to help shareholders understand the health of the company. These reports are designed to provide information on the ability to meet existing debts, profits or losses over the previous year, and operational plans. 💰

A comprehensive annual report should have:

Detailed financial information : The whole point of this document is to meet regulatory requirements by providing in-depth financial information on revenues, profits, and losses
A letter to stakeholders: Annual reports generally start with your organization’s mission statement and key takeaways from the previous year, so choose a template that includes a cover page for this information
Support for data visualizations: Look for a template that features built-in graphs, pie charts, and Kanban boards to display key financial information and future plans
Customizable fonts and graphic designs : Present your annual report in line with branding standards by selecting a template that offers customization for typography, design elements, and color schemes

10 Free Annual Report Templates

Ready to start making annual reports? You’ll need to start by gathering insights on key financial metrics and operational performance. Dive into team performance reviews , assess success on project management goals , and delve into the nitty gritty numbers when it comes to revenue, debts, and profits.

Then, use one of these pre-built templates for annual reports to quickly put all of the information together in one informative document. From all-in-one templates to progress reports and financial analysis reports, you’ll find what you need to inform your shareholders. 💪

ClickUp’s Annual Report Template takes a daunting task and turns it into a manageable step-by-step process. From gathering the correct data to presenting it in a professional annual report, this free annual report template will be your best friend when working on your most important end-of-the-year tasks.

Start by collecting important data from the previous year’s financial statements, project milestones, and marketing reports. Next, pop into the annual report template and fill out basic information like the company name, logo, and main people involved.

Use the Annual Highlights section to call out big wins like sales growth, market share expansion, and global ranking. Next, cover at least two notable projects, focusing on objectives and the impact on the company at large.

Finally, go over the year’s best practices that had the best results and a financial analysis for the entire year. Share the presentation with board members, teammates, and shareholders. Use key takeaways from the report to improve communication plans , lay the groundwork for increased profits, and streamline operations to meet team and HR goals .

The Business Annual Report Template from ClickUp is an easy tool to gather, document, and present financial data at the end of the year. This modern annual report template provides support for advanced graphics, charts, and data tools to share information the way you want to.

Start by creating a report overview by breaking down information into summaries of business objectives, vision, and mission. Next, cover the company strategy, including reports on growth and shares. Add charts and graphs to drive home key successes and takeaways. 📊

The next section of the annual report template is all about finances. Write a financial statement laying out where the company stands and use hard numbers to back up the claims. Add a brief conclusion summarizing the main takeaways and finish with forecasts for the next few years.

The ClickUp Annual Report Work Breakdown Structure Template makes creating annual reports easier than ever by divvying up the work. Use the template to break down your entire annual report into tasks and subtasks. Automatically assign them to the correct team member to gather analytics and build sections of the annual report.

Use the different views packed into this modern annual report template to visualize progress and see who is working on what. Use priority flags to identify work that needs to be addressed immediately. Add relationships for dependencies so the team knows which tasks are blocking others.

The built-in Gantt chart lets you quickly see the timeline for creating the annual report. Use it for a broad overview of all the tasks in progress. Open the individual task cards to get more detailed information on financial stats and reporting progress.

ClickUp Financial Analysis Report Template

Use the Financial Analysis Report Template from ClickUp to craft an up-to-date and detailed report on financial health that you can use as part of a bigger annual report. Pre-built spreadsheets make it easy to fill out financial data and track changes as needed.

Start by filling out the basic company information, including your logo, business address, and contact details. Next, add graphs and charts laying out details on financial essentials. These can include things like cash flow analysis, liquidity ratios, and debt ratios. 💸

The following sections include summaries for valuation and risk analysis. Add data and narratives to keep the reader’s attention and help them understand the company’s standing. Finish off by summarizing key takeaways, tips for improvement, and a quick recap.

Use the report to give a quick presentation to internal stakeholders or share it more widely in a PowerPoint or webinar with shareholders. Custom permissions settings let you control who sees the report and whether they can edit it or not.

The ClickUp Progress Report Template is a great add-on to an annual report. It allows you to keep track of project objectives, stay on schedule, and share summaries of progress with shareholders. Use the Progress Report Template to assess individual team member success or monitor achievements for the entire department.

Customize the sheet to evaluate a single team member or the department. Fill out the basic information, including job titles, project scope, and contact information. Next, create a performance evaluation by breaking down main goals into key metrics.

Develop a skills assessment section in the template by coming up with key skills the team or employee should meet. Break the ranking down into three to five ratings. Finally, end the report by featuring a recommendations section where you take the evaluated metrics and assess them alongside company and project objectives.

Use the Progress Report Template to highlight wins and areas for improvement in your annual report. The Progress Report can also be used to identify cases where teams have improved operations and elevated the company’s health and success.

ClickUp Nonprofit Annual Report Template

The Nonprofit Annual Report Template from ClickUp allows organizations to share insights into operations and financial standings. Use nonprofit annual reports to share key takeaways with the public at large or offer reporting to advocates and donors. 🤩

The Nonprofit Annual Report Template starts with a message from the executive director. Use this section to thank investors and volunteers for their contributions and make a statement on the past year’s successes.

Next, lay out the vision and mission for your non-profit organization. Be sure to explain where the company stands today and where you see it going over the next year or two. The Annual Report layout then goes on to cover key accomplishments and program activities.

Follow up by highlighting stories of change where people made the biggest impact in the organization this past year. Dive into financial statements and share special thank-yous to donors and volunteers who went above and beyond.

End your nonprofit annual report templates by focusing on future goals for the organization. Here, you can focus on financial goals in terms of fundraising as well as upcoming projects that you want to take on.

ClickUp’s LLC Annual Report Template lets you share operational details and financial results from the past year. Use it to manage business filings, save time creating annual reports, and keep track of progress over the years.

This corporate annual report template features four pre-built sections, but you can add more as you see fit. The first section is all about project growth, including detailed financial statistics. Sections for the growing team and corporate social responsibility highlight a people-first approach to the company.

Finally, a section on plans for the year ahead lets you add in financial forecasts and potential projects. This is a great place to get buy-in for the year ahead from key stakeholders.

Example cover of an annual report in Canva

Canva is known more for design than it is for annual reports. However, this tool can take a generally boring set of information and turn it into a creative annual report, ready for presentations and sharing among the company. Featuring dozens of annual report design templates, the Modern Cover Annual Report is among our favorites.

This creative annual report template features a blue and yellow design, but you can customize it to feature your branding colors or go for a simple black-and-white layout. Personalize the fonts to use your branding style in the annual report cover. 👩🏽‍🎨

Add photos, graphics, and icons to make the design really stand out. Download the design in two clicks and instantly share it across forums from social media to your internal annual report document.

Venngage Year End Annual Report Templates

Venngage is a professional infographic design tool that features an eye-catching Year End Annual Report Template. The vintage design features retro color palettes that you can customize to suit your company’s branding.

The six-page template starts with a cover page, introduction, and table of contents. The next few pages cover year-end highlights, industry trends, and performance. Throughout the free template, you’ll find bright colors, gradients, and charts to highlight the most important information from expense reports and other financial documentation.

This attractive annual report template is best used for businesses that want to provide short insights into the business dealings of the past year. Add more pages and deeper insights if you prefer a more in-depth report.

The Annual Report Template from Envato is an in-depth, 24-page approach to informing shareholders about the state of your business. Featuring a professional design, the final product can be shared as a PDF or email attachment. 📧

This annual report example lets you present your business in a formal and eye-catching way. Use it to share quarterly business reviews , key wins, and financial statements with relevant parties.

Change all the colors throughout the document in one place to match your branding. Use the built-in free fonts to change the text to meet your brand guidelines. The design works best in Adobe InDesign and features layered and vector functionality for elevated designs.

Update Shareholders with Annual Report Templates

With a simple annual report template, you’ll update shareholders on the company’s health and financial situation faster than ever before. From gorgeous, customizable designs to simple, informative layouts, there’s a way to share your information the way you want to.

Sign up for ClickUp today and start creating a comprehensive annual report that’s sure to be informative and engaging. Browse more than 1,000 templates to gather data for financial reporting and leverage the 15+ views and customization tools to monitor success throughout the year. When you’re ready to craft an annual report, there are several template options from ClickUp to get the job done. 🌻

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Annual Planning

A strong annual plan builds on the company’s broader strategic vision and core values while still providing specific goals, metrics, and budgets to guide managers and employees. If it’s doing its job, the annual business plan is also flexible enough to adapt to an unpredictable and often volatile market.

Take the Scenario Planner demo

What is annual planning?

An annual business plan is a road map for a company and its employees. It contains milestones that carry the plan forward through a series of smaller goals that lead to a broader vision of where the business aims to be by the end of the year.

When a new year arrives, many people make plans and resolutions for the coming 12 months. They look back at the previous year and consider what worked for them and what they want to improve. Then they plan what goals they want to achieve, from getting out of debt to losing weight to learning a new language. Similarly, a company or organization will use an annual business plan to tighten its belt, improve performance, and reach specific goals over the coming year.

Whether using an annual business plan template or working from scratch, a company will review the expectations and results from the previous year in order to create an annual plan that gives everyone in the organization a sense of where they’re headed and how they will get there.

Why annual planning is important.

An annual business plan empowers workers to set specific business goals based on the company’s overarching strategy, and it also holds teams accountable for achieving stated goals.

The annual plan connects directly to where a company wants to be in 3 to 5 years and defines what’s critical to achieve over the next year to progress toward longer-term targets.

A well-formulated annual plan also keeps the workforce united and focused, energizing them to be more productive.

Additional benefits of an annual business plan include:

Providing a stronger connection to the strategic plan
Putting the mission of the organization into daily practice
Providing workers with a clear sense of direction in their departments or roles

What’s the difference between an annual plan and a strategic plan?

In the strategic planning process , an organization describes or affirms its mission, deciding what it wants to achieve over the next few years (vision) and setting strategic priorities to help make that vision a reality.

The strategic plan works hand in hand with the annual business plan. The former provides an overarching vision of what the company wants to achieve, and the annual plan provides the nuts and bolts of the necessary work to be done over the coming year.

So, the annual business plan depends on the strategy for its priorities, and the strategy depends on the annual plan to execute its ideas about the organization’s vision, mission, purpose, and goals. Logistics, projects, allocation of resources, and timing are covered in the annual plan.

Preparing to create an annual plan.

Before you can look ahead, you need to first look back, take what you’ve learned, and recommit yourself to your company’s values and priorities. Thus, reviewing your old plan and assessing its results against expectations is an important first step.

You should also review your company’s:

Mission statement: This is a guiding declaration that describes what your company does and differentiates you from your competition.
Vision statement : This is an aspirational statement about what your company wants to become—an important factor in setting the annual plan’s priorities.
Core values: These are the principles, beliefs, and philosophies that shape your company’s culture and support your vision for the future.
Financial information, including budgeting: This is important because annual planning is connected to the budgetary approval process for the next fiscal year, including anticipated revenue, expenses, and growth predictions.
Key problems and issues: By understanding what went wrong the previous year and the issues it faced, a company can offer remedies in its annual plan to improve future outcomes.

What is included in an annual plan?

There are many annual business plan templates you can use to make your plan. Generally, they contain these elements:

Stated goals (SMART)

Your yearly plan should include both SMART and stretch goals.

SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound) goals are an enduring staple of the business world, helping to clarify your ideas, focus your efforts, ensure your time and resources are used productively, and increase your chances of success. Stretch goals, as the name suggests, require above-and-beyond effort and innovation to pull off, with the promise of a greater payoff. Include a mixture of both in your annual plan.

Budget and financials

An annual plan also includes projections for the coming 12 months, forecasting income and outlays. Your projections will help you plan for cash flow dips, pinpoint financing needs, and decide the best timing for projects.

Part of this involves developing monthly financial projections by recording expected income based on sales forecasts and anticipated expenses for labor, supplies, overhead, and so on. It’s wise to prepare a projected income (profit and loss) statement and a balance sheet projection.

You can also use the projections to determine financing needs, if any. Well-prepared projections will make it easier to qualify for a loan.

Timelines and checkpoints

To reach where you want your business to be in a year, take your larger goals and split them up into smaller goals set on specific timelines. As you set your deadlines, include metrics that will indicate how successful you’ve been in achieving your goals.

Clearly outlined expectations and responsibilities

An annual business plan works best if it’s aspirational but achievable, with practical goals that are spelled out in clear language, indicating which individuals, teams, or departments are responsible for which parts of the plan. Given that almost 50% of employees in the United States don’t know what is expected of them at work, a little bit of clarity can go a long way.

Vision for what the business looks like at the end of the year

As much as annual business plans are about the practical implementation of a company’s strategy, it’s also important to keep the organization’s aspirational future vision in mind. Having a clear vision of what successful completion of your annual planning goals looks like increases your chances of success.

Contingency plans

What happens if your company’s cash flow gets into trouble? It’s a good idea to set up emergency financial reservoirs before they’re necessary. Maintaining a cash reserve or keeping room in a line of credit are both good contingency measures. Remember to compare your actual financial results to your projections throughout the year, so you can spot financial problems before they spiral out of control.

Creating an annual plan is easier when you use the right tools. These can include an annual business plan template that organizes planning efforts and a wide variety of software solutions for writing business and strategy plans.

As you execute your annual plan, it’s also a good idea to rely on a work management platform with strategic planning tools that allow you to collaborate productively, create content, and manage complex processes. Using features like Workfront's Scenario Planner , you can simplify the annual planning process, adapt to market shifts with continuous planning, compare scenarios for risk and effectiveness, and stay ahead of the competition.

Armed with the right tools, plans, and processes, you can create a well-conceived and executed annual business plan that ensures the year ahead lives up to your expectations.

Man with laptop developing an annual plan during an annual planning meeting card image

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Blog Business 90+ Annual Report Design Templates, Inspirational Examples & Design Tips [2024]

90+ Annual Report Design Templates, Inspirational Examples & Design Tips [2024]

Written by: Sara McGuire Jan 15, 2024

annual report design template Venngage blog header

Annual reports may sound boring, but they don’t have to be. With an appealing design, annual reports can be a powerful promotional tool by drumming up enthusiasm for your company or organization./

You don’t need to be a graphic designer to create a compelling annual report design that will impress your stakeholders. All it takes is the right report maker tools — and the right annual report design templates.

Keep reading for our 55+ top annual report templates and examples (free and paid included), plus some design secrets you can apply right away.

Click to jump ahead:

Company annual report example [with templates], corporate annual report design templates, small business annual report design templates, nonprofit annual report design templates.

Marketing annual report design templates
HR annual report design templates

Government annual report design templates

Actual annual report design examples
Annual report design takeaways

FAQs about annual report design

Short on time? Here’s our video cheat sheet on how to create an annual report:

Annual reports serve as comprehensive snapshots of a company’s performance, highlighting its achievements, challenges, and future prospects.

Crafting a compelling annual report goes beyond mere financial statements; it is an opportunity to narrate the company’s journey and present a transparent view of its operations to stakeholders.

When creating your company annual report, utilize visually appealing graphs, charts and infographics to present complex financial data in a digestible format. By combining data-driven visuals with concise explanations, you can effectively communicate the company’s financial performance and growth trends.

Consider including testimonials from satisfied customers, partners and employees to provide a human touch to the annual report. Sharing real-life experiences and success stories can reinforce the company’s credibility and showcase its positive impact on various stakeholders.

Don’t forget to articulate the company’s future vision and growth strategies, outlining the roadmap for continued success and expansion. Emphasize the company’s goals, targets and innovative approaches that will drive future growth.

Corporate annual report cover design

What overarching theme would you use to describe the past year?

When creating an annual report cover page, ensure that it reflects the theme. Right off the bat, readers will get a sense of the story you’re about to tell.

The cover page design will prime them for the rest of the information to come.

You should also make sure your annual report cover page reflects your business brand. For example, this free annual report template uses different icons of people and pets as it’s for an animal rescue organization:

free annual report template designed for animal rescue organizations

Pro-Tip: Venngage’s Brand Kit feature makes it easy to import your logo, brand colors, and fonts with a single click! Upgrade to Business to test it out.

Geometric annual finance report design

You don’t need to exclusively rely on images to set a visual tone, however. You can also use color!

In the free annual report example below, a vibrant color scheme is introduced on the cover page. Each of the following pages then features a single color from the original palette, maintaining a cohesive look unexpectedly.

free Colorful Annual Report Design Template

Here’s another good example of a creative annual report template:

Fresh and creative annual report design templates stand out from traditional alternatives.

Modern financial report design

The budget season can be a confusing time for businesses. How much has been spent in the past year? How much should one predict for the upcoming year?

A modern annual report, like this example, simplifies the process for the finance department. By using pie charts and bar charts , the report shares a wealth of information at a glance.

For financial projections for the following year, you can use this free annual report template:

free annual report template financial projections

Your annual financial reports don’t have to be one pagers like the report infographics above. They can stretch into two or more pages like this financial statement analysis template — with the first page being the cover page, perfect if you want to export and use it in a presentation:

annual financial report template financial statement analysis

Notice we said you could use this in a presentation? With a Venngage Business plan, you can download your annual reports in PPTX format — and use them with your desired presentation platforms like PowerPoint or Google Slides.

Pro tip: Use the real-time collaboration feature to make your annual report with teammates. Get instant feedback and share comments in real time. Learn more about how to use the feature here.

Bright corporate annual report design

You don’t have to use neutral colors or corporate blue just because everyone else is. Show how unique your business is by using a bright, bold color scheme in your annual report.

Annual report design templates, like this example, make no apologies for their bright colors.

A financial report, like this template, would be a great fit for a bright report design. Though packed with numbers, the clean layout makes it easy to read and understand.

Detailed highlights annual report design

You may have sections that include a lot of text or a lot of data visualizations . That’s okay as long you organize it well.

This detailed highlights annual report example uses a portrait layout and dynamic text formats for all the content.

The sections in these annual report templates consist of multiple data points but remain easy to read.

Job Consulting Agency Annual Report Template

Colorful year-in-review report design

Many companies hold a year-end meeting to go over key metrics, achievements, and goals. Create a slick presentation of an annual report infographic that will hold your team’s attention.

Bright colors, gradients, bold fonts , charts , and images are all elements of a successful presentation design or data infographic :

Yearly Performance annual Report Template

Simple year in review annual report design

Icons are the perfect way to visualize ideas and highlight points. You can use icons to emphasize specific points on a chart or to draw attention to important text.

Take a look at how icons are used in creative annual report design templates, like this example:

Annual shareholder business report design

This simple annual report design uses simple icons to differentiate between different types of shareholder returns:

Related : 50+ Business Report Templates Every Business Needs

Financial budgeting annual report infographic design

Flow charts are perfect for visualizing processes, timelines , and connections between information. Simple flow charts can be used in a presentation slide, while more complex ones can take up one (or even several!) pages.

Our flowchart maker can help get you started with creating handy flowcharts.

Take this report template that uses icons to make the points in the flow chart more memorable:

One Page Budget annual Report infographic Template

Corporate company report infographic design

If your charts require some added context, be sure to include a brief description.

For example, take this report presentation slide that uses a description box with the same blue as the bars on the chart to indicate that the audience should read the paragraph to fully understand the chart:

Marketing analysis and business strategy report template

Pair dark colors with bright colors for a bold design. Not only do contrasting colors look good, but they can also help you highlight important information.

For example, showing an important statistic in a bolder font than the other text on the page will help it to immediately jump out at readers.

Take a look at how contrasting dark shades and light shades are used in this free annual report template:

Creative Monthly Business Marketing Report Template

Basic company growth infographic report design

Part of creating an effective slide for your simple annual report presentation is finding the right balance between text and imagery.

Drawing an invisible “line” down the middle of your slide is an easy way to guide your design.

Put your chart or photo on one side of the slide and text on the other, and voila:

Quirky illustrated annual report design

Images and icons are perfect for helping to tell the story of your business’ past year. You can use icons to create a quirky graphic illustration!

For example, this report design template uses icons to create a little city scene in the page header:

Solar-Energy-Annual-Report-Infographic-Template

Infographics are great for turning data into engaging visuals that anyone can understand. Plus, there are a ton of ways that you can integrate them into your reports, especially if you mix them with well-designed icons.

Check out our beginner’s guide to creating infographics for more tips.

Bold annual report charts design

Grab readers’ attention with a big, bold header font . While you will probably want to keep the rest of the text in your report relatively simple, your headers are places where you can get more creative.

Take this simple annual report template that uses a slightly funkier font in its title:

Blue One Page Business Annual Report Template

Corporate performance annual report design

Often enough, what an annual report design is missing most is some color.

Pick a bright color. It could be your brand colors or a color that reflects the theme or “mood” of your annual report. And use that as the page background.

This green annual report template with a green background similarly uses white boxes to help the text stand out from the background:

Green Modern Corporate Annual Report Template

Pro-Tip: Use the Venngage chart maker to create comprehensive charts for your annual report. Import data from an XLSX or CSV file and start editing your chart.

Customer service annual report design

Annual reports have a bunch of different topics to cover. A small thing that you can do to help the reader navigate through the labyrinth of info is to use an intro page or section.

A bit of context will give readers a clearer understanding of what the section covers. It could be as simple as a single sentence, or a short paragraph.

Creative annual report templates, like this example, give you plenty of wiggle room:

Corporate customer activity report design

If you want to separate your page into sections, using colored headers is an easy way to do this. Just draw a block line across the page to help your header pop. You could even color-code your headers to make a simple annual report page more readable.

This report design template uses a simple white background with bold blue headers:

Monthly Consumer Activity Report Template

Bold one-pager industry report design

While your full annual report may be pages and pages long, a one-pager that summarizes key information is a great accompaniment to create. Pull the most important or noteworthy information and make that the focus of your one-pager.

You could, for example, choose to hone in on our key metric and visualize it in a chart, like in this free annual report design template:

Retail year-end annual report design

In each section of your annual report, you’re introducing a new topic. To help introduce the new section, use a decorative section header that illustrates the topic of the section.

For example, this free annual report template for a retail business uses images in the headers that reflect key pieces of information from each given section:

Creative Business Annual Report Template

Branded year-end annual report design

Since your annual report tells the story of your company, make sure that the design reflects your brand’s personality . That can mean more than just incorporating your brand colors. Use font styles and images that reflect your brand’s personality.

For example, this annual report design has a light and playful look. The style is appropriate for a family-friendly burger joint, with rounded fonts and plenty of icons:

Orange Creative Business Annual Report Template

Bring color back into your annual report

In case you hadn’t noticed the recent graphic design trends , but bold colors are making a comeback. This isn’t something only hipsters are using. Massive companies like Salesforce and Zendesk are embracing the trend too.

This annual report design uniquely embraces colors through the use of images and icons. The three main colors (blue, yellow, hot pink) repeat throughout the report design, making it pop:

Vibrant engineering report design

Ditch the dull office color grays for an engineering report that’s bright and attractive. Vibrant colors draw much more attention than something that looks formal and plain.

The key to using vibrant colors is to leverage contrast to make your text pop. You don’t want to lose your content in the bright colors of the background. This vibrant engineering report template uses grey and black backgrounds wherever there is text, to offset the bright teal throughout the design. However, for charts and other data, the vibrant color works just fine.

Engineering Consultant Annual Report Template

Business executive report design

When it comes to design, repetitiveness and consistency are two different things.

When your report design is repetitive it means each page or slide looks like the one before. That’s boring .

When there is design consistency, it means certain design elements appear throughout your report. It provides a sense of order as the content continues to change. That’s fun .

Take a look at the executive annual report template, for example. Every page looks different and shares distinct information. However, the icon tile pattern appears throughout. It’s a neat design touch that’s engaging and looks professional, without getting boring.

Year-End Executive Business Report Template

Modern annual report overview infographic design

It can be hard to keep readers engaged in a long, multi-page document like an annual report. But you don’t have to keep it that long — your report can be a one-page infographic too. Just like this template:

Visual infographic annual report design

Use icons and illustrations to draw the readers’ eyes to certain parts of the page. That could mean including an icon in the page header, using a row of icons to divide off a section of the page, or using illustrations to make concepts easier to understand.

This report template incorporates the peach theme into both the visuals and color scheme:

Peach Weekly Report Infographic Template

Small business budget report design

If one of the pillars of your business is creativity, reflect that in your annual report design. Play around with unusual page layouts and surprising design elements. Our post on presentation layout ideas should help spark your creativity.

Take this annual report template that follows a zig-zag path and uses circles to present data in a quirky way.

Simple Creative Monthly Budget Report Template

Yearly company performance report design

For a more minimalist annual report design, use a neutral background and use bright accent colors to highlight important information. For example, you could use color to highlight keywords, key data points, and header text.

Take a look at how different shades of red and orange are used in this free year-end report template:

This template also uses colors to create a harmonious design — the colors used in the table coordinate with the ones used in the top photo:

Here we’re going to show you loads of examples for nonprofit annual reports , church annual reports, nonprofit annual report infographics, nonprofit treasurer reports, and more. Let’s dive right in!

Colorful gradient nonprofit annual report design

Your nonprofit has a compelling story to tell , but overloading your annual report with images can cause it to get lost in the shuffle.

Instead, consider adopting a more minimalistic design approach and letting your text shine.

This nonprofit annual report template below puts the text front and center with bold, modern typography.

A vibrant gradient overlay prevents the design from looking stale, especially when paired with images. The overall effect is fresh and modern.

Children Community Nonprofit Annual Report Template

Illustrative nonprofit annual report design

When designing a nonprofit annual report, be sure to put what matters to your brand front and center.

This example dedicates a whole page to the people it has helped, and how. Plus it makes use of charts to highlight its financial success.

Simple nonprofit annual report design

One of the most essential inclusions in your nonprofit annual report is the impact of your work. Whether your organization is dedicated to helping people, animals, or the environment, look for opportunities to showcase the difference you’ve made over the past year.

You can always use charts and infographics for data visualization , but your annual report will have a bigger emotional impact by featuring the real people or communities behind the statistics.

The nonprofit annual report template below puts a face to the organization by featuring one of the individuals they’ve supported right on the cover page.

Illustrative church annual report design

When you create your church’s annual report design, ditch the business-y look for something fun and playful.

Aim to reflect your community and space. You can do that with the diverse set of icons from our icon library. Illustrated icons of people and buildings add a playful touch to your design. You can also use icons as labels or headings for different sections.

Don’t forget to add charts and graphs where you need them to visualize your data.

Illustrative Church Annual Report Template

Vibrant church annual report design

You can also take a modern design approach with your church’s annual report. Bold color overlays paired with stock photos are a current trend. That simple touch elevates your report design to that of a professional designer.

This church annual report template stands out through the use of color, stock photos throughout, and icons. The use of purple for overlay, headings, and icon colors helps to tie everything into a cohesive design.

Church engagement annual report design

Infographic reports are a great way to summarize your church’s annual report. These types of infographics highlight the most important takeaways about your church’s performance over the year. An infographic report can be sent out to your email list, included in presentations, or even printed out and shared in meetings.

Here’s an easy-to-edit church infographic annual report, pairing icons with financials to make data jump off the page. One quick scan and your readers have a good idea of how productive the past year was.

Church Engagement Annual Report Template

Modern nonprofit infographic report design

A nonprofit infographic report helps you summarize your nonprofit annual report. You end up with a neat, captivating visual that can be shared with board members, donors, and your social media followers.

To reflect the nonprofit’s entire impact that year, this nonprofit infographic report crunches the numbers and visualizes them.

A great stock photo, high-contrast colors, and a few choice icons help the data jump off the page. Even with a quick scan, readers of the nonprofit infographic report can tell that the past year was a winner.

Modern Nonprofit Infographic Report Template

Nonprofit annual report infographic design

At the heart of every business and organization are the people who built it. Help tell the story of these people by using emotionally evocative photos.

This nonprofit infographic annual report combines the image of a woman holding a child with actual statistics behind their work. A white semi-transparent overlay ensures that both the image and text are visible, while the icons provide visual interest.

Modern Yellow Nonprofit Annual Report Template

Equality nonprofit treasurer report design

Your nonprofit treasurer report design should be anything but boring. You’re sharing important financial information, and want to make sure the information is clear and easy to understand. That’s why the design quality of your treasurer report matters.

A high-quality stock photo makes for a great report cover when it’s the right one. Consider your nonprofit’s mission, and try to tap into the human element, when choosing your cover photo.

This nonprofit treasurer report template uses a photo that shows a sense of togetherness and unity. If your report’s cover photo is generic and unrelated to your organization, it’ll be less likely to engage your audience.

Equality Nonprofit Treasurer Report Template

Purple nonprofit treasurer report design

You can think outside of the box, even with your nonprofit treasurer report design. You can use stock photos and color to create something eye-catching and interesting.

This nonprofit treasurer report template uses stock photos throughout the design and applies a purple overlay on each page to pull the design together. This way, while the content, layout, and visuals change, a single color helps unify the design.

Purple Nonprofit Treasurer Report Template

Simple nonprofit treasurer report design

If toying around with bold and creative designs is outside of your comfort zone (for now), you have nothing to worry about. You can still come up with impressive designs for your reports.

This simple treasurer report template just uses bold colors for each page and flat icons. It’s straightforward, but still eye-catching. The conservative use of text on each page, along with the large fonts and negative space make the report easy to read.

Simple Nonprofit Treasurer Report Template

Simple nonprofit budget report design

Your organization’s operating budget is crucial information. It impacts the entire planning of all your activities for the coming year. So it has to be very clear, simple to understand and accessible to your staff.

You could just share a boring spreadsheet, but that won’t impress anyone. This nonprofit budget report template has an official, on-brand design. It incorporates the organization’s logo, flat colors, and bold fonts for a document that’s super clear. It also highlights important values to make them easier to distinguish from other figures that are listed.

Purple nonprofit annual report design

You don’t have to use super complex data visualizations to make the information engaging. If you’re not a data visualization expert, you run the risk of confusing your readers.

But a simple data visualization can be engaging, and helpful in communicating more clearly , like how this nonprofit template uses half pie charts to show its funding sources and expenses:

Nonprofit impact report design

Make use of contrasting colors and bold text to highlight the impact of your nonprofit organization:

Marketing annual report design templates

Year-end marketing report design.

This annual review design template uses different style charts. Because the colors are repeated, however, the charts look consistent and professional.

For a more in-depth guide to picking the best charts for your data, click here.

Corporate advertising annual report design

If you want to emphasize certain pieces of information or break up an expanse of text on your page, color blocks are an easy fix. Pick a neutral color that will allow text to stand out, like grey or a light shade.

This annual report template uses red and grey color blocks to create various page layouts:

Fun corporate marketing report design

Have fun with your marketing report design.

You can draw creative inspiration from your brand. Consider your brand’s voice or your brand’s visual collateral.

Does your brand use professional stock photos, sophisticated icon art, or playful, illustrated icons? Are the colors in your branded content vibrant, subdued or neutral?

These are all factors that should influence your marketing report design. This corporate marketing report template presents highly relevant information in a way that is aligned with the brand.

Real estate market report design

When you create a detailed, in-depth marketing report , organizing information simply is a challenge. You want to avoid creating a report that is dense and difficult to scan.

This real estate marketing report template is a great example of balancing a lot of content through design. It uses a layout that alternates between text-heavy sections, and sections reserved for data. This helps you create a report that is predictable and manageable for your readers.

Social media marketing report design

In the Venngage editor, you can access massive high-quality stock photo libraries from Pixabay and Unsplash. Whatever you’re looking for, expect to find the perfect stock photo for your design.

Just check out this marketing report template below. This social media marketing report template looks sharp and professional because of the color palette consistency throughout the design – both in the content and the stock photos.

It makes for a very cohesive, finished look that appears less DIY, and more, “professional designer”. Don’t take my word for it, either. Try it out yourself and ask your team what they think of the final product.

Trendy social media campaign report design

This modern annual report template is another great example of choosing a color palette based on your stock photos. The hues of brown and teal tie into the stock photography used in the design.

Plus, since it’s a coffee brand, the warm brown tones make for a very fitting color palette choice.

Dark social media trends report design

Here’s one last, great example of how to use stock photography to inform your design.

This dark social media report template uses a crisp, high-quality photo of a smartphone screen. The title slide doesn’t even use an overlay to subdue existing colors.

The rest of the slide design incorporates black, and other bold colors throughout. This makes for a very commanding, attention-grabbing look. Plus, it’s easier to decide on a color palette once you’ve got the perfect stock photo lined up.

Social media marketing report design

Was your team’s main goal this year to reach for the stars? Did you turn your small team into a village? You can use images in your design to symbolically reflect those themes.

For example, this annual report template uses an engaging cloud background:

Simple Monthly Social Media Report Template

To learn more about marketing strategies for nonprofits and setting goals, check out our Complete Nonprofit Marketing Guide .

Digital marketing report design

Typically, you’re trying to pack a lot of information into your annual report. The readability of your annual report will have a lot to do with the design.

Color coding your information is a simple way to offer visual cues for readers to follow. Pick colors that have a logical association with the information.

For example, this annual report template uses colors to represent each social media channel. The colors reflect the brand colors of each social media channel, making the meaning easily recognizable for readers:

Monthly Digital Marketing Report Template

SAAS email marketing report design

Even with the right use of colors and icons , your page may feel a little blank. It may seem like it’s missing something because there’s so much space.

In those instances, incorporate a border design to create a sense of movement, dynamism, and texture. You can apply a border through the use of the icon library, or you can choose abstract stock photos to create background borders. That’s exactly what this SAAS email marketing report template does.

HR annual report design templates

Employee progress annual report design.

Bright and vibrant colors add a lot of energy and pizzaz to designs, but on a white background don’t stand out well. Rather than switch your color palette of choice, try a light background color. Not only is it a nice change from traditional black and white reports, your colors easily pop from the page.

This annual review template a variety of colors to distinguish multiple categories for employee evaluation . It also uses handy pie charts to visualize key performance metrics.

Colorful Annual Performance Review Template

Year-end human resources report design

Check out this year-end HR report template. The playful icons and tiles are a sharp contrast to the background and grab your attention. The bright accent colors throughout the report design allow individual sections to stand out.

Bright employee annual performance review design

For your employee reviews to be consistent and fair across the board, you need to follow a structure. That’s why it’s a good idea to use an employee review template (check out our blog post with 12 performance review examples for ideas).

A simple table layout works well for this. This annual performance review template below, for example, has a clean and clutter-free design, with clearly labeled spaces to provide feedback to employees.

You can even color-code the sections to make them easier to read and understand. For example, look at this simple employee review template:

Colorful Monthly Digital Marketing Report Template

Modern national agency annual report design

Consistent branding across all of your government communications is important.

One way that you can ensure this is by using not only your company colors but also colors that communicate the “feel” of your company or organization.

This annual report template divides the sections in half and uses the brand color to highlight key information.

Year in review infographic annual report design

Sure, this year may have been a lot of work, but there was some fun to be had too, right? An annual report is the perfect place to highlight how your business has grown, financially and culturally.

This simple one-page annual report template highlights both work and the “fun stuff”:

Red Year in Review Annual Report Template

14 tips on how to design an annual report + more templates

Want to see how visualized reports fare in real life? Here are the top examples of visually appealing and engaging annual reports you can draw inspiration from.

OzHarvest is a nonprofit that redistributes food to charities from restaurants and the like. They wanted to make sure their shareholders saw key numbers like how many meals were saved, their core message, and their mission.

By using big fonts and creative visuals like word clouds and charts, they can bring that key information forward. This is a good lesson in not being afraid to take up lots of space on a page.

Creative Non Profit Annual Report Templates

In another example, a handful of families supported by the St. Louis Children’s Hospital were featured in their annual report. This helps put faces to the names and show that their donors and stakeholders are helping real people with real struggles.

St. Louis Children’s Hospital’s Non Profit Annual Report Example

This annual report example from Maine Tourism uses a ton of colors you would see in nature. If you haven’t been to Maine, the outdoors is a pretty big part of their identity.

All over this annual report, you can see natural colors in the greens and browns, but also the orange in lifejackets and fires, or the blues in lakes and the Maine sky.

Colorful Creative Business Annual Report Template

Also, please note: there is no rule out there that says you have to use lots of colors. As we can see in this annual report example for a real estate company.

The designers used a bold red to bring attention to important charts or trends:

Minimalist White Infographic Annual Report Example

Click here for 35+ simple background images to add impact to your report.

If you want to create a memorable annual report you may need to change the way people look at things. Or in this case, they did it by physically changing the way the annual report was laid out.

Environment Waikato Nonprofit Annual Report Template

As you can see in the example from Environment Waikato, they start this by creating a landscape-oriented report. Then, they take it to the next level by switching the way the text is printed on multiple pages. This causes the reader to change their perspective on the content.

Some annual reports take one of their most important values or mission statement and hide it at the bottom of the page. That means most people will skip over it without even noticing!

That isn’t the case with this annual report example from PEN Canada . They make sure you can’t miss what they stand for.

Bold Black Modern Nonprofit Annual Report Example

Each of these pages celebrates a different part of their vision. By using a large bold font they can illustrate that they aren’t messing around at all. The contrasting colors make it jump off the page as well.

You can also add an interactive or tactile component to your annual report design to make it stand out.

In this annual report example from Craft Victoria, they use their cover to add an extra little surprise for the readers. The cover can be transformed into a tactile experience with small triangular tabs.

Creative Craft Victoria Annual Report Example

The triangle motif also carries throughout the rest of their report, making for a cohesive design.

Now, onto some concrete annual report design tips:

Infuse your company or organization’s culture into your annual report design

Everyone probably knows what U-Haul is (if you don’t, they’re a moving company). The designer incorporated their business’ service into this creative annual report design.

First, it’s delivered like a package to the reader and it looks exactly like a moving box you would find at one of their stores. Plus, there’s bubble wrap! Then the table of contents is modeled after a packing sheet, using the same icons and visuals throughout.

Each page uses images and visuals that remind people that at the heart of everything, they are a moving company.

Create custom illustrations using icons

Creative Government Annual Report Template

When you’re working within a tight budget, commissioning custom illustrations can be pricey. But you can use icons to create custom illustrations.

Pick icons to make up the pieces of your illustration, then arrange them into a little scene. You can use this same tactic when it comes to creating an effective annual report template. Keolis has done this in their annual report design to illustrate statistics.

Our post on icon stories will show you exactly when and how to create them.

Make each page stand on its own with unique designs

I know I just said that you should pick a singular theme and stick to it like a few points ago. But for every rule, there are a few exceptions.

In this annual report example from the STW Group, the theme changed from one page to the next.

This can work in an annual report because you’re covering multiple different topics in one document. That being said, you should still maintain some consistency throughout your annual report design, like the same color scheme or basic page layouts.

Organize your information into sections using borders

Fun Creative Non Profit Annual Report Templates1

If you have multiple topics or components that you want to fit together on one page, using borders or block backgrounds in your annual report templates can help keep your design organized.

For example, take a look at how RLI Corp uses blocks of bold colors to help each section stand out on the page. This makes it easier for readers to scan the page for different topics.

Pick a design motif and use it throughout your entire annual report

This annual report example from Brunel shows how much impact a confident design motif can have on your design. In this case, they used big, red fonts for all of the headers, with the header text overlapping onto the body text.

It’s an unconventional design choice but it works because it’s consistent. If you’re going to use an unusual design motif, commit to it and use it throughout your entire report.

Another creative annual report example is this one from Grupo Bimbo. They use think lines to direct your eye. These direct readers from point to point on the page, which is another way to tell stories visually.

Creative Infographic Annual Report Example

Visual cues like lines and arrows can improve the flow of your page design immensely. They’re useful for any design project you are working on. Whether it be an infographic or an annual report template, these subtle lines are a must-have.

Give your annual report template a thematic motif

Was the year marked by a lot of progress? Did you overcome some major obstacles? Design an annual report that reflects the year’s overarching theme.

If you’re struggling to create your own nonprofit annual report template, try looking at some of the themes that run throughout your company’s mission, product and culture.

The designers at the Hall Family Foundation used their volunteers as inspiration. Most of these people are the lifeblood of any non-profit so it made a lot of sense to start there!

They focused on a handful of action words that helped describe what these volunteers do. As you can see, a visual theme was created from those words that are featured on nearly every page.

Minimalist Hall Family Foundation Non Profit Annual Report

Additionally, the annual report has these words printed on the cover, so the reader notices the theme from the beginning. This is a great way to introduce readers to your company or organization’s values.

Label your graphs, charts, and other data visualizations

Creative Blue Infographic Annual Report Template

Forgetting to label your charts is a common mistake that many writers make. But forgetting to label your charts can make your information confusing or misleading .

The designers at Capaccio Paestum avoided this trap by labeling all of their bubble charts and bar graphs. Additionally, when you use labels as they did, it helps even the newest stakeholder understand them in seconds.

Or take this annual report from Orgalime, which uses very straightforward but beautiful pie charts and bar graphs. Each example tells you what you need to know and makes it easy to compare between data sets. Simple but effective!

Colorful Infographic Annual Report Example

Include full-page data visualizations

Using the same annual report example from the Croatian Post , you can see how big data visualizations can make your annual report just that much more engaging.

If you have a particularly important set of data, like your company’s financial growth over the past year, you can feature that in a creative data visualization. This is an opportunity to incorporate engaging design elements like icons, pictograms, image frames, and bold color schemes.

Mix up your font sizes and weights

Solar-Powered Business Annual Report Example

Consistency is a basic tenet of good design. But you can find ways to add variety to your designs while still maintaining consistency.

The people at Austria Solar mix up their font sizes and weights in this annual report example. But they still maintain consistency by using the same color scheme throughout the report.

Check this guide out if you want to learn more about selecting and using fonts .

Optimize your annual report for digital viewing

While tangible reports are nice, more and more people are opting to publish them and read them online.

The people over at Mailchimp have been doing this for a few years. Seeing as they’re a SaaS company, it fits their brand well and allows their report to reach a wider audience.

Plus, when creating an annual report virtually, you can include things like GIFs, videos, and other moving parts !

Take a look too at what The Warehouse did on a few pages of their annual report. They use an introductory page to lead readers into each new section.

Simple Warehouse Community Annual Report

Like the designer behind this real annual report for the fake company, Ace Airlines did on multiple pages.

Fun Business Infographic Annual Report Example

Seamlessly incorporate photos into your design by making them grayscale

Minimalist Business Annual Report Template

While photos certainly add to your annual report’s story, they can also distract from the text on the page. But if you use grayscale images or images with a color overlay, they can integrate much more seamlessly into the design of the page.

Take a look at how the Associated British Foods’ annual report integrates images into their pages.

Set a visual tone from cover to cover

In this annual report from Target, they set the tone the first time you look at it. On the cover page, they show exactly what the report is going to be all about: freshness.

The designers use pictures of fresh fruit and veggies throughout the report to give it a feeling of abundance. This puts the reader in that frame of mind from the beginning, showing them what to expect from the business.

Here’s another example. The designers from BHA took some of their important stats and combined them with icons. Combined with the primary color backgrounds, the design looks modern and in line with current design trends.

British Hospitality Association Nonprofit Annual Report Example

Additionally, because of the icons they selected, they can prep the reader for what the info is going to be about. For example, using the microphone icon to show that there were 2.7 million voices behind this annual report.

Let your company’s history influence your design

NASA Visual Nonprofit Annual Report Example

Everything about this annual report from Kennedy Space Center looks like it would be at home in the 1970s.

The annual report was published in 2010, but the design calls back to the center’s history, from the color scheme to the retro photos.

It all comes together to create a fantastic annual report example that NASA enthusiasts will love.

Go big or go home with your annual report

HUGE Creative Business Infographic Annual Report Example

This year is all about taking big risks with your design projects. But I wasn’t thinking that would lead to something like Ablynx created for their annual report!

They decided to go big with their data visualizations, literally. Instead of designing them in a design tool like Venngage, they created them in the real world.

Using sticks, yarn, and earth they build the graphs and charts that will adorn their annual report. This is one of those things that their readers won’t forget anytime soon.

Colorful Multipage Infographic Annual Report Example

Another creative way to organize your annual report is to differentiate the sections by using different-sized paper. In this annual report example from GIA, they do just that.

When a reader moves from one section to the next they physically have to change the size of paper they are reading. It’s an unexpected and engaging way to frame your different sections.

Annual report design takeaways

Annual report design isn’t going anywhere. Even if you don’t have any design experience, you can create an appealing annual report by starting with an annual report template and applying some of the following design elements:

Cover images that tell your company’s story
Eye-catching background color to make annual report templates pop
Decorative section headers
Color blocks
Color-coded data
Different style charts
Interesting page layouts
Full-page data visualizations

How do you create an annual report?

The best way to get started is to use an annual report template . This will serve as a handy framework and drastically reduce the amount of time spent creating your report.

If you’re concerned that a template won’t make your annual report design look unique, don’t be! Once you incorporate your information, visuals, color schemes, and fonts, your annual report will look like a custom design.

All of these elements can be customized in the one-page annual report templates above. Plus it’s easy to change the charts and graphs to reflect your data

Read on for annual report design tips and 55+ templates. Click any of our templates to enter our online report maker tool to customize it. No design know-how is required.

What is included in an annual report?

Annual reports typically contain information like:

A company or organization’s mission statement
A company or organization’s growth (financially, product-wise, culture-wise)
Various business segments
Information about the company or organization’s directors and executive officers
A company or organization’s impact on specific communities
Milestones and success stories

The below annual report includes a summary of success stories from the chief, impact on specific communities, and a look to the future:

A lot of that may sound like dry information…but it doesn’t have to be.

If your annual report is visually engaging, it will grab the attention of your readers. You can visualize data, incorporate your branding principles , and express your team’s personality throughout the design.

For a more detailed look at what to include in an annual report, check out our annual report guide.

What is an annual report?

An annual report is an in-depth, comprehensive report that provides an overview of a business’s achievements and key metrics from the preceding year.

Think of it this way: an annual report is a perfect opportunity to tell your business’s story. Your annual report design can help you tell that story.

In some cases annual reports are mandatory, in other instances, they are marketing tools used to generate interest in your brand. Not only are they meant to generate interest among shareholders or investors, but they also present an attractive brand to employees, clients, and broader audiences. Your business is on a journey, and your annual report design helps you tell that story effectively.

For an in-depth guide on what an annual report is, and all the different types, check out our explainer post: What is an Annual Report? .

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Other business template resources:

15+ Project Plan Templates to Visualize Your Strategy, Goals, and Progress
How to Create a Business Plan to Inspire Confidence in Investors (+ Business Plan Templates)

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Annual Planning: Why Is It So Important?

On a personal level, planning is an essential aspect of everyday life. And when it comes to companies, whether small or large, planning is equally essential. Annual planning is one of the most important activities that companies do every year because it provides an opportunity to set the overall direction of a company by discussing goals, metrics, budget, and performance.

What Is Annual Planning?

Annual planning can be defined as the process of defining a business roadmap for your company and your employees. It can also be seen as an organization's financial plan for the year, and it is comprised of a series of milestones that help to carry the plan forward through several tasks that lead to a broader vision of where the company aims to be by the end of the year.

Companies must hold planning sessions to review last year’s performance, as well as specific goals and achievements. These sessions will help to analyze expectations and results from the previous year in order to create an annual plan that gives everyone in the organization a sense of where they’re headed, and where they want to be twelve months from now.

Is Annual Planning the Same as Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is about establishing goals to sustain the company’s vision. Is about creating a strategy where the end product is a long-term plan that includes identifying goals, as well as mapping out how exactly those goals will be met. The process of strategic planning involves choosing a methodology, assessing resources, and receiving feedback from both external and internal stakeholders. A strategic plan can also be implemented during the course of years, and not necessarily within one business year.

To put it simply, the strategic plan will identify the framework for a company to advance on its mission. The annual plan can include goals directly related to the strategic plan but it is largely connected to the budgetary approval process for the next business year, and as such, annual planning is usually conducted by leadership or directors.

Why Is Annual Planning Important?

A well-formulated annual plan is an opportunity to set the overall direction for your company. It can also help to empower the team by providing a sense of direction. Let’s take a look at the most relevant benefits of annual planning:

Annual planning generates efficiency because it circles around performance.
It helps to define what is critical to achieving over the year.
It delivers clear leadership to employees and it helps to keep the workforce united.
Employees gain a clear sense of direction in their departments and roles.
An annual plan can rally an entire organization around goals. It can also provide a stronger connection to the company’s strategic plan.

What Is Included in an Annual Plan?

Generally, an annual plan will contain the following elements:

Goals. Before you can look forward it’s important to look back. For this, it’s a great idea to review your SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound) goals, they can help to clarify ideas, focus efforts and ensure resources are being used in the most productive manner. Remember, your annual plan should also hold a strong connection to your company’s strategic goals.

Budget. Financial elements are key to annual planning, so it’s important to take into consideration projections for the upcoming 12 months. These projections will help you plan resources, cash flow, and decide the best course of action and timing for individual projects.

Expectations, responsibilities, and clear OKRs. Goals need to be clearly specified, indicating which teams, individuals, or departments will be responsible for carrying out tasks. Expectations must be exceptionally clear for collaborators. Also, working with well-defined OKRs can help to keep teams on track because they help to provide visibility into what other teams and individuals are working on. It’s all about maintaining the workforce motivated and crystal clear regarding who’s in charge of what.

Timelines. When measuring performance it’s important to understand how successful your company has been in terms of achieving goals within their deadlines. Split your goals into tasks and set deadlines.

Contingency plans. A well-formulated annual plan will also consider emergencies. It’s always a good idea to think of alternate scenarios, such as what would happen if suddenly your cash flow would become compromised?

Values and mission. It’s also instrumental to keep your company’s aspirational future vision in mind when working on your annual plan.

Annual Planning:

When it comes to managing annual plans and strategic plans , you need to be on top of everything. A strong annual planning strategy can help to build a company’s broader strategic vision and to set the overall direction of a business roadmap for the next 12 months. However, as you may already know, this process entails keeping track of critical information. This can be an exhausting and difficult process, but it gets easier when you use the right tools.

Project management software can be a powerful ally for project managers. Instagantt , for instance, allows you to keep information centralized. You can quickly store, update, share, access, and review important company-related information , all in one single place. With gantt charts , you can keep track of your budget and streamline your business plan, making sure you and your team stay on track. Moreover, you can use the same tool to keep track of your strategic and your annual plans, which will help to increase transparency across the organization, keeping track of the key results you’re trying to achieve, and visualizing progress and performance at all times. With the right tools and processes, you can create and execute a strong annual strategy.

Template: Annual Planning Example

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What Is an Annual Report?

Understanding annual reports, special considerations, mutual fund annual reports, the bottom line.

Corporate Finance
Financial statements: Balance, income, cash flow, and equity

Annual Report Explained: How to Read and Write Them

Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance. Adam received his master's in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology. He is a CFA charterholder as well as holding FINRA Series 7, 55 & 63 licenses. He currently researches and teaches economic sociology and the social studies of finance at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

An annual report is a document that public corporations must provide annually to shareholders that describes their operations and financial conditions. The front part of the report often contains an impressive combination of graphics, photos, and an accompanying narrative, all of which chronicle the company's activities over the past year and may also make forecasts about the future of the company. The back part of the report contains detailed financial and operational information.

Key Takeaways

An annual report is a corporate document disseminated to shareholders that spells out the company's financial condition and operations over the previous year.
It was not until legislation was enacted after the stock market crash of 1929 that the annual report became a regular component of corporate financial reporting.
Registered mutual funds must also distribute a full annual report to their shareholders each year.

Investopedia / Jake Shi

Annual reports became a regulatory requirement for public companies following the stock market crash of 1929 when lawmakers mandated standardized corporate financial reporting. The intent of the required annual report is to provide public disclosure of a company's operating and financial activities over the past year. The report is typically issued to shareholders and other stakeholders who use it to evaluate the firm's financial performance and to make investment decisions.

Typically, an annual report will contain the following sections:

General corporate information
Operating and financial highlights
Letter to the shareholders from the CEO
Narrative text, graphics, and photos
Management's discussion and analysis (MD&A)
Financial statements, including the balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement
Notes to the financial statements
Auditor's report
Summary of financial data
Accounting policies

Current and prospective investors, employees, creditors, analysts, and any other interested party will analyze a company using its annual report.

In the U.S., a more detailed version of the annual report is referred to as Form 10-K and is submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Companies may submit their annual reports electronically through the SEC's EDGAR database . Reporting companies must send annual reports to their shareholders when they hold annual meetings to elect directors. Under the proxy rules, reporting companies are required to post their proxy materials, including their annual reports, on their company websites.

The annual report contains key information on a company's financial position that can be used to measure:

A company's ability to pay its debts as they come due
Whether a company made a profit or loss in its previous fiscal year
A company's growth over a number of years
How much of earnings are retained by a company to grow its operations
The proportion of operational expenses to revenue generated

The annual report also determines whether the information conforms to the generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). This confirmation will be highlighted as an " unqualified opinion " in the auditor's report section.

Fundamental analysts also attempt to understand a company's future direction by analyzing the details provided in its annual report.

In the case of mutual funds, the annual report is a required document that is made available to a fund's shareholders on a fiscal-year basis. It discloses certain aspects of a mutual fund's operations and financial condition. In contrast to corporate annual reports, mutual fund annual reports are best described as "plain vanilla" in terms of their presentation.

A mutual fund annual report, along with a fund's prospectus and statement of additional information, is a source of multi-year fund data and performance, which is made available to fund shareholders as well as to prospective fund investors. Unfortunately, most of the information is quantitative rather than qualitative, which addresses the mandatory accounting disclosures required of mutual funds.

All mutual funds that are registered with the SEC are required to send a full report to all shareholders every year. The report shows how well the fund fared over the fiscal year. Information that can be found in the annual report includes:

Table, chart, or graph of holdings by category (e.g., type of security, industry sector, geographic region, credit quality, or maturity)
Audited financial statements, including a complete or summary (top 50) list of holdings
Condensed financial statements
Table showing the fund’s returns for one-, five- and 10-year periods
Management’s discussion of fund performance
Management information about directors and officers, such as name, age, and tenure
Remuneration or compensation paid to directors, officers, and others

How Do You Write an Annual Report?

An annual report has a few sections and steps that must convey a certain amount of information, much of which is legally required for public companies. Most public companies hire auditing companies to write their annual reports. An annual report begins with a letter to the shareholders, then a brief description of the business and industry. Following that, the report should include the audited financial statements: balance sheet, income statement, and statement of cash flows. The last part will typically be notes to the financial statements, explaining certain facts and figures.

Is an Annual Report the Same As a 10-K Filing?

In general, an annual report is similar to the 10-K filing in that both report on the company's performance for the year. Both are considered to be the last financial filing of the year and summarize how the company did for that period. Annual reports are much more visually friendly. They are designed well and contain images and graphics. The 10-K filing only reports numbers and other qualitative information without any design elements or additional flair.

What Is a 10-Q Filing?

A 10-Q filing is a form that is filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that reports the quarterly earnings of a company. Most public companies have to file a 10-Q with the SEC to report their financial position for the quarter.

Public companies must produce annual reports to show their current financial conditions and operations. Annual reports can be used to examine a company's financial position and, possibly, understand what direction it will move in the future. These reports function differently for mutual funds; in this case, they are made available each fiscal year and are typically simpler.

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. " Speech By SEC Commissioner: Remarks Before the Securities Traders Association ."

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. " Annual Report ."

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. " How to Read a 10-K/10-Q ."

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. " Final Rule: Shareholder Reports and Quarterly Portfolio Disclosure of Registered Management Investment Companies ."

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. " Mutual Funds - The Next 75 Years ."

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Annual planning template

Every business needs a clear direction. Create an annual planning template to set clear goals and streamline your yearly planning process—so every level of your organization is aligned on what’s important.

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Annual planning is essential to develop a clear strategy and ensure your company, departments, and individual teams are on the same page. But even though it happens every year, annual planning can feel chaotic—with many different stakeholders, deadlines, and decisions that need to be made.

An annual planning template streamlines the yearly planning process, so you can focus on developing great strategy—not on juggling different planning tasks.

[Product UI] Company goals and milestones project example (Lists)

What is annual planning?

What is an annual planning template .

An annual planning template is a reusable guide that lays out each step in the annual planning process. It helps clarify planning by outlining exactly what you should do—and when you should do it—to craft a successful business plan. For example, your template could include a timeline for strategy sessions, submitting budget and headcount requests, finalizing department objectives, and more.

A great annual planning template also includes space to document company, department, and team goals—so your organization’s North Star is top of mind throughout the annual planning process. With a standardized action plan and visibility into high-level objectives, you can ensure your organization is aligned from the bottom up.

The benefits of a digital annual planning template

Annual planning often happens at the top of an organization and isn’t effectively communicated to everyone. According to our research , only 16% of knowledge workers say their company is effective at setting and communicating company goals, and only 26% of workers have a clear understanding of how their individual work contributes toward those company goals.

A digital annual planning template closes this communication gap by setting and tracking yearly goals where work happens. Instead of gathering dust in a spreadsheet, your team and company goals live right next to the work that needs to be done to achieve them. That way, annual planning isn’t just something that happens at the executive level. Instead, it’s an exercise that helps everyone—from the CEO to the summer intern—set measurable goals for their work that align with other teams and your company objectives.

By consolidating your annual planning process in a work management platform, you can:

Standardize your strategic planning process across departments and teams.

Create a single system of record for the annual planning process, so everyone is on the same page.

Ensure company priorities are top of mind when departments and teams set their own annual goals for the new year.

Map out a concrete timeline for your annual planning process.

Assign tasks with specific due dates, so it’s clear who’s responsible for what, by when.

Toggle between project views to visualize your annual business plan in different ways—as a standard list, Gantt chart , calendar, or Kanban board .

How to create an annual planning template

Annual planning looks different at every company. To create your own custom-built template, first ask yourself the following questions:

Who will be involved in the annual planning process?

What are the major decisions you need to make, and steps you need to take?

Who will be making those decisions?

What is the order in which those decisions need to be made?

Then, use those questions to fill in a rough timeline. As you map out the annual planning process, use these best practices to build out your template:

Organize tasks with sections. Keep annual planning steps organized by bucketing them into different sections—like company planning, department planning, and headcount requests.

Create custom tags to visualize key stages. Annual planning often happens in stages—like pre-planning and strategizing, goal-setting, then allocating resources to achieve those goals. Color-coded custom tags help visualize where each task falls within each annual planning stage.

Indicate which team is responsible for each task. During annual planning, it’s important to know who’s responsible for each step in the process. Label each task with its respective team—like company planning, finance, and HR.

Include your team and company-wide goals. For annual planning to work, you need constant visibility into high-level company objectives. Include space in your template to set and track business, department, and team goals so you can make sure each level of the organization is aligned.

Tracking goals in your annual planning template is a great way for individual teams to stay organized, but you can level up your goal-setting process with Asana’s Goals feature . Goals is an organization-wide tool that helps your entire business set, track, and communicate about goals.

Integrated features

Timeline View . Timeline View is a Gantt-style project view that displays all of your tasks in a horizontal bar chart. Not only can you see each task’s start and end date, but you can also see dependencies between tasks. With Timeline View, you can easily track how the pieces of your plan fit together. Plus, when you can see all of your work in one place, it’s easy to identify and address dependency conflicts before they start, so you can hit all of your goals on schedule.

Custom fields . Custom fields are the best way to tag, sort, and filter work. Create unique custom fields for any information you need to track—from priority and status to email or phone number. Use custom fields to sort and schedule your to-dos so you know what to work on first. Plus, share custom fields across tasks and projects to ensure consistency across your organization.

Milestones . Milestones represent important project checkpoints. By setting milestones throughout your project, you can let your team members and project stakeholders know how you’re pacing towards your goal. Use milestones as a chance to celebrate the little wins on the path towards the big project goal.

Start dates . Sometimes you don’t just need to track when a to-do is due—you also need to know when you should start working on it. Start times and dates give your team members a clear sense of how long each task should take to complete. Use start dates to set, track, and manage work to align your team's objectives and prevent dependencies from falling through the cracks.

Zoom . Asana and Zoom are partnering up to help teams have more purposeful and focused meetings. The Zoom + Asana integration makes it easy to prepare for meetings, hold actionable conversations, and access information once the call is over. Meetings begin in Asana, where shared meeting agendas provide visibility and context about what will be discussed. During the meeting, team members can quickly create tasks within Zoom, so details and action items don’t get lost. And once the meeting is over, the Zoom + Asana integration pulls meeting transcripts and recordings into Asana, so all collaborators and stakeholders can review the meeting as needed.

Vimeo . Text may get the point across, but written words lack tone, emotion, and expression. With video messaging in Asana, powered by Vimeo, you can give your team all the context they need, without having to schedule another meeting. Record short video messages of yourself, your screen—or both—then embed the videos in tasks, projects, messages, and comments to provide additional clarity and context. A transcript of the recording is automatically created by Asana, making it readable and searchable. Give feedback, ask questions, and assign tasks—all without leaving Asana.

Microsoft Teams . With the Microsoft Teams + Asana integration, you can search for and share the information you need without leaving Teams. Easily connect your Teams conversations to actionable items in Asana. Plus, create, assign, and view tasks during a Teams Meeting without needing to switch to your browser.

Google Workplace . Attach files directly to tasks in Asana with the Google Workplace file chooser, which is built into the Asana task pane. Easily attach any My Drive file with just a few clicks.

How should I set goals during the annual planning process? .css-i4fobf{-webkit-transition:-webkit-transform 200ms ease-in-out;transition:transform 200ms ease-in-out;-webkit-transform:rotateZ(0);-moz-transform:rotateZ(0);-ms-transform:rotateZ(0);transform:rotateZ(0);}

There are a variety of goal-setting methodologies you can use, including objectives and key results (OKRs) and SMART goals —objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. Regardless of the method you choose, make sure you identify key success metrics to track and measure results. That way, you can determine if your business strategy is working—or if you need to do something different.

It’s also a good idea to evaluate your performance from the previous year when setting business goals. How you did last year is a great benchmark to determine what’s realistic for you to achieve with your new yearly plan.

What types of teams can benefit from this annual planning template?

If you participate in annual planning, this template can help—regardless of whether you work at a small business, startup, or enterprise-sized company. Every department and team should participate in annual planning, and using a template helps standardize the process across your whole company.

When should I use my annual planning template?

The earlier, the better. Start using your annual planning template as soon as your company kicks off the yearly planning process. This often happens in the third quarter, about four months before the start of the new fiscal year.

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How to Quickly & Effectively Read an Annual Report

Business investor reading an annual report

04 Jun 2020

Intelligent investing requires analyzing a vast amount of information about a company to determine its financial health. Armed with this information, an investor can better understand how much risk might be involved with backing a company based on how well it’s performed historically, in recent quarters, and toward its financial targets.

Exactly where this information comes from depends on the specific company that’s being invested in, but typically requires several financial statements, including a balance sheet, cash flow statement, and income statement.

In addition to these documents, most investors look forward to reviewing a company’s annual report—a collection of financial information and analysis that can prove invaluable in evaluating the health of a company.

If you’re not an investor, but an employee working within a corporation, the annual report can impart valuable information pertinent to your career. Understanding how your company is performing and the impact your actions have had on its business objectives can help you advocate for a promotion or other form of career advancement .

If you’re unfamiliar with what goes into an annual report, there’s some good news: You don’t need to be a financial expert to get value out of the document or understand the messaging in it.

Here’s an overview of the different information you’ll find in an annual report and how you can put it to use.

Access your free e-book today.

What Is an Annual Report?

An annual report is a publication that a public corporation is required by law to publish annually. It describes the company’s operations and financial conditions so that current and potential shareholders can make informed decisions about investing in it.

The annual report is often split into two sections, or halves.

The first section typically includes a narrative of the company’s performance over the previous year, as well as forward-looking statements: Letters to shareholders from the chief executive officer, chief financial officer, and other key figures, as well as graphics, photos, and charts.

The second section strips the narrative out of the picture and presents a variety of financial documents and statements.

Unlike other pieces of financial data—and because they include editorial and storytelling—annual reports are typically professionally designed and used as marketing collateral. Annual reports are sent to shareholders every year before an annual shareholder meeting and election of the board of directors, and often accessible to the public via the company’s website.

Annual Report vs. 10-K Report

Annual reports aren’t the only documents public companies are required to publish yearly. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires public firms also to produce a 10-K report , which informs investors of a business’s financial status before they buy or sell shares.

While there’s similar data in both an annual and 10-K report, the two documents are separate.

10-K reports are organized per SEC guidelines and include full descriptions of a company’s fiscal activity, corporate agreements, risks, opportunities, current operations, executive compensation, and market activity. You can also find detailed discussions of operations for the year, as well as a full analysis of the industry and marketplace.

Because of this, 10-K reports are longer and denser than annual reports, and have strict filing requirements—they must be filed with the SEC between 60 to 90 days after the end of a company’s fiscal year.

If you need to review a 10-K report, you can find it on the SEC website .

What Information Is Contained In An Annual Report?

An annual report typically consists of:

Letters to shareholders: These documents provide a broad overview of the company’s activities and performance over the course of the year, as well as a reflection on its general business environment. An annual report usually includes a shareholder letter from the CEO or president, and may also contain letters from other key figures, such as the CFO.
Management’s discussion and analysis (MD&A): This is a detailed analysis of the company’s performance, as conducted by its executives.
Audited financial statements: These are financial documents that detail the company’s financial performance. Commonly included statements include balance sheets, cash flow statements, income statements, and equity statements.
A summary of financial data: This refers to any notes or discussions that are pertinent to the financial statements listed above.
Auditor’s report: This report describes whether the company has complied with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) in preparing its financial statements.
Accounting policies: This is an overview of the policies the company’s leadership team relied upon in preparing the annual report and financial statements.

What to Look for in an Annual Report

While all the information found in an annual report can be useful to potential investors, the financial statements are particularly valuable, as they provide data that isn’t obscured by any sort of narrative or opinion. Three of the most important financial statements you should evaluate are the balance sheet, cash flow statement, and income statement.

The balance sheet shows a company’s assets, liabilities, and owners’ equity accounts as of a specific date, illustrating its financial position and health.

The income statement shows a company’s revenue and expense accounts for a set period, allowing you to gauge its financial performance. Using trial balances from any two points in time, a business can create an income statement that tells the financial story of the activities for that period.

Cash flow statements provide a detailed picture of what happened to a business’s cash during an accounting period. A cash flow statement shows the different areas in which a company used or received cash, and reconciles the beginning and ending cash balances. Cash flows are important for valuing a business and managing liquidity, and essential to understanding where actual cash is being generated and used. The statement of cash flows gives more detail about the sources of cash inflows and the uses of cash outflows.

These three documents can help you understand the financial health and status of a company, and they’re all included in the annual report. When you read the annual report—including the editorial information—you can gain a better understanding of the business as a whole.

An annual report can help you learn more details about what type of company you work for and how it operates, including:

Whether it’s able to pay debts as they come due
Its profits and/or losses year over year
If and how it’s grown over time
What it requires to maintain or expand its business
Operational expenses compared to generated revenues

All of these insights can help you excel in your role, be privy to conversations surrounding the future of the company, and develop into an effective leader .

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Critical Information for Investors and Employees Alike

Being able to analyze annual reports can help you gain a clearer picture of where a company sits within its industry and the broader economy, illuminating opportunities and threats.

The best part about learning to read and understand financial information is that you don’t need to be a certified accountant to do so. Start by analyzing financial documents over a set period. Then, when the annual and 10-K reports are published, you can review and understand what leadership is saying about the operational and financial health of your company.

If you’re an investor, knowing how to read an annual report can give you more information from which to base your decision on whether to invest in a company. If you’re an employee within an organization, learning how to read and apply the information contained in an annual report is an essential financial accounting skill that can help you understand your company’s goals and capabilities and, ultimately, further your career.

Do you want to take your career to the next level? Explore Financial Accounting and our other online finance and accounting courses , which can teach you the key financial topics you need to understand business performance and potential. Download our free course flowchart to determine which best aligns with your goals.

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Summary of the Corporate Business Plan 2024–25 with perspectives to 2026–27

From: Canada Revenue Agency

Message from the Minister

The Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau

Minister of National Revenue

The Canada Revenue Agency’s (Agency) strategic priorities for 2024–25 support its vision to be a world-class tax and benefits administration that is trusted, fair, and helpful by putting people first. Building upon past achievements and insights, the 2024–25 Corporate Business Plan outlines the Agency’s objectives and commitments.

People know the Agency for its role in collecting taxes, but it also plays an important role in redistributing wealth. The Agency brought in $379 billion in tax revenue in 2022–23, which accounts for about 85% of the Government of Canada’s total annual revenue. As well, the CRA distributed over $46 billion in benefits to support individuals, families, children and caregivers in the same period.

The Agency is applying its “People first” philosophy in all aspects of its activities, such as delivering modern services to Canadians and ensuring that they are delivered in a more efficient, timely, and accessible manner for Canadians. This will reduce how many transactions and contacts Canadians have to make to access Government programs. Identifying ways to collaboratively offer services at events organized with other government departments, such as Service Canada, allows a whole-of-government approach to processing transactions. Increasing the number of in-person and virtual clinics, as well as the number of outreach activities in partnership with other government departments, will continue to positively impact Canadians.

Canadians aspire to live in a fair society. A fair tax and benefits system must help underserved populations, young people and newcomers access the benefits and credits to which they are entitled. At the same time, fairness means ensuring that everyone pays their share. Tax cheating and evasion continue to be obstacles for Canadians and tax administrations globally. Addressing these issues requires concerted efforts and collaboration on an international scale to enhance regulatory frameworks and enforcement measures.

On a national level, the Agency is improving compliance in the real estate sector and the underground economy. The Agency is doing its part to make housing more affordable for Canadians. It will use existing tools to access additional data, identify risk and expand compliance activities like the Underused Housing Tax. Also, the Agency is increasing audit activities in high-risk sectors related to real estate and brokerage firms.

Charities also play a very important role in our society. The Agency will continue to regulate charities fairly so that people have confidence that the processes that govern them are independent and fair.

The goals in this plan are clear and ambitious. Being a world-class tax and benefits administration and executing these plans requires a world-class workforce. I am confident in the abilities and dedication of the Agency’s employees. We will continue making impactful contributions to foster economic growth and a prosperous and sustainable future.

I welcome you to read the Corporate Business Plan in full so you can learn about the Agency’s plans and commitments to taxpayers for 2024–25.

Original signed

Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau, P.C., M.P Minister of National Revenue

Foreword from the Chair

Suzanne Gouin

Chair, Board of Management

In today’s ever-changing technological and economic environment, strategic planning is truly becoming an art form. The fast pace of change requires organizations like the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to take the lessons of the past, examine the current environment, and extrapolate a vision for the future. The 2024–25 Corporate Business Plan does exactly that – it builds on previous successes and lessons learned, while articulating the CRA’s plans to move forward.

The Plan presented below is a continuation of the collaborative work of the CRA and the Board of Management (Board) to advance the CRA’s service agenda. The Board believes that only through setting logical, coordinated, and ambitious objectives and targets will the CRA achieve its long-term vision of being a world-class tax and benefits administration that is trusted, fair, and helpful by putting people first.

While the overall strategic direction for 2024–25 remains the same, the Board understands the importance of staying agile and flexible. Adopting this approach will help the CRA identify challenges and opportunities as they arise, find greater efficiencies, optimize its use of resources, and ultimately improve its results.

Over the next year, the Board will continue to encourage the CRA to adopt a future-oriented way of thinking. The goal is to bring new and modernized services to Canadians, as part of the CRA’s strategic objective to deliver seamless client experiences and tailored interactions that are digital first. The Board will challenge the CRA to rethink its ways of doing business, expand its digital service offerings and enhance horizontality. To accomplish this goal, it is essential that the CRA seeks Canadians’ feedback to have a better understanding of their expectations and experiences interacting with the CRA.

Tax evasion remains a challenge both for Canada and tax administrations around the world. Similar to the previous years, the Board will be kept apprised of the CRA’s efforts to combat aggressive tax planning and tax evasion, including cooperation with international partners.

While change often brings new opportunities, it also comes with challenges. The Board will work with the CRA to ensure that as more and more digital or online tools are adopted, adequate policies, and safeguards are in place to strengthen security and safeguard privacy.

If we are going to meet these important objectives, having a passionate and innovative workforce is no longer a “ nice-to-have, ” it is an operational imperative. Furthermore, the Board believes that through promoting a culture of diversity, inclusion and accessibility, the CRA will benefit from a broader range of perspectives and attract new talent that can foster innovation. The Board will continue to provide guidance to the CRA on nurturing a high-performing, diverse, and inclusive workforce in a modern, flexible, and accessible workplace. We simply must have a workforce that is ready for the challenges of the future.

Times of change can be testing, but with the right people, tools, and mindset, they can also present significant opportunity. In a spirit of collaboration and shared responsibility, the Board will foster constructive and open dialog with the CRA’s executive team towards achieving our common goals. We will continually take the pulse of our dynamic operating environment and work together to meet the needs and expectations of the Canadians we serve.

On behalf of the CRA’s Board of Management, I am pleased to recommend this Plan to the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of National Revenue, and look forward to working with the CRA to achieve its strategic objectives.

Suzanne Gouin Chair, Board of Management

Message from the Commissioner

Bob Hamilton

Commissioner of the Canada Revenue Agency

I am pleased to present the Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA) 2024–25 Corporate Business Plan with perspectives to 2026–27. The Plan outlines the priorities, objectives and commitments that we will focus on as we continue to contribute to the economic and social well-being of Canadians. We will also strive for our vision to be a world-class tax and benefits administration that is trusted, fair, and helpful by putting people first.

We, at the CRA, show our respect for, and honour the ancestral territory of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis, on which the activities described in this plan will be delivered. We are grateful for their past and present contributions in building an inclusive and diverse country. We recognize Canada’s history and the harmful intergenerational effects of colonization. The CRA is dedicated to working towards Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, and we are thankful for the opportunity to work, collaborate, and offer services on these lands.

Our People First philosophy puts people at the centre of everything we do and details our commitment to providing a service experience to Canadians that meets their needs. I take great pride in the ongoing dedication to service demonstrated by the CRA’s employees, and in all that they have enabled our organization to accomplish.

The height of the pandemic is behind us, but in the current economic situation Canadians continue to rely on the benefits available through the tax system. The CRA remains dedicated to ensuring Canadians receive the benefits and credits they qualify for. To help achieve this goal we will continue to increase engagement and support initiatives for hard-to-reach populations and vulnerable Canadians such as the Community Volunteer Income Tax Program (CVITP). Through Budget 2023, the federal government enhanced the eligibility criteria for the File my Return service, to enable more Canadians to quickly and easily auto-file their tax returns. In addition to this, we will pilot a new automatic filing service that will help vulnerable Canadians who currently do not file their taxes, to receive the benefits they qualify for.

Participation in Canada’s self-assessment tax and benefits system is based on Canadians’ confidence in its fairness. Ensuring a fair tax and benefit system that addresses non-compliance remains a top priority for the CRA. We remain committed to improving compliance domestically and with our peers internationally, by combatting aggressive tax planning and tax evasion through educational outreach activities, improved investigation operations, and enhanced audit activities. Additionally, we will continue to ensure compliance with payment obligations by collecting and resolving tax and government programs debt on a timely basis.

Canada’s self-reporting tax system thrives on the trust clients have in the CRA. To strengthen this trust, we are consistently focused on bolstering security, transparency, and accountability. Our dedication to safeguarding taxpayer information remains unwavering. We will continue to invest in cutting-edge technologies and tools, and ensure that they are deployed in a way that upholds the trust of Canadians. These efforts will enable us to proactively detect and mitigate potential threats, whether they stem from within the system or externally, ensuring the privacy and security of taxpayer data. We are also continually seeking out ways to improve transparency and accountability within public institutions. This includes improving how Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) requests are processed and making it easier for clients to access their information.

Diversity is a valuable strength that we must wholeheartedly embrace and integrate into our organization. I am dedicated to fostering a culture of accessibility and inclusiveness in the CRA, guided by the 2022–23 Deputy Minister’s Commitments on Diversity and Inclusion . This year, the CRA will publish its directive on Employment Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in addition to its second progress report on the 2023–2025 Accessibility Plan . We will also be taking deliberate actions to ensure a representative workforce at all groups and levels throughout the CRA and responding to the Clerk’s Call to Action on Anti-Racism, Equity, and Inclusion in the Federal Public Service . The dedicated workforce at the CRA will continue to make a meaningful difference in the lives of millions of Canadians.

As we pursue the priorities and commitments outlined in this plan, we will be closely measuring progress, exchanging best practices with our colleagues and international partners, and drawing valuable lessons from challenges and successes. I have confidence that we will sustain the momentum in bringing our vision to fruition and delivering meaningful results for Canadians.

Bob Hamilton Commissioner of the Canada Revenue Agency

Plans at a glance

This plan describes the CRA’s priorities, objectives, commitments, and associated costs for the upcoming three fiscal years. It is guided by CRA’s Strategic Planning Framework (Annex A), which links the organization’s strategic priorities and guiding principles to its mission, vision, values, and to the ultimate outcomes it seeks to achieve. You can find more information about the CRA’s raison d’être, mandate, role, and operating context on the CRA’s Organization Profile web page.

Key priorities

The CRA’s commitments are presented under the following priorities and objectives:

Priority 1. Deliver seamless experiences and tailored interactions that are digital first

Objectives:

1A. Simplify client interactions and advance more ways to interact digitally

1b. improve access to benefits, particularly for underserved populations, 1c. increase automation for better service delivery.

Priority 2. Combat aggressive tax planning and tax evasion

2A. Combat the most sophisticated and complex cases of aggressive tax planning, evasion, and fraud

2b. promote a fair tax system.

Priority 3. Strengthen security and safeguard privacy

3A. Protect CRA and taxpayer information

3b. provide timely responses to access to information and privacy (atip) requests.

Priority 4. Nurture a high-performing, diverse, and inclusive workforce in a modern, flexible, and accessible workplace

4A. Advance diversity and inclusion

4b. enhance leadership development and learning.

More details about priorities, objectives and the CRA’s commitments can be found in the Strategic priorities and plans to deliver section.

Core responsibilities and results

The CRA’s Results Framework consists of the agency’s core responsibilities, the results it plans to achieve, and the performance indicators that measure progress toward these results as follows:

A. Tax administration: taxpayers comply with Canadian tax obligations, the right tax revenue is secured for Canadians, and Canadians have trust in the CRA.

B. Benefits administration: Canadians receive their rightful benefits.

These core responsibilities are supported by internal services. See GC InfoBase for the full framework and program inventory.

In carrying out its two core responsibilities (tax and benefits administration), the CRA will use 11 indicators (8 for tax administration and 3 for benefits) to measure the results it achieves over this planned period. The CRA is making 41 commitments for fiscal year 2024–25 to support its 4 strategic priorities and achieve its core responsibilities.

Key achievements in 2022–23

The CRA makes a significant contribution to the Government of Canada. The highlights below illustrate the scope and scale of its operations and the value it delivers. This is indicative of the foundation upon which this plan is built.

A presence coast-to-coast-to-coast

Approximately 60,000 Footnote 1 employees representing 55,168 Footnote 2 full-time equivalents (FTEs) in four regions and at headquarters
20 Tax Services Offices
4 Tax Centres
3 National Verification and Collections Centres
3 Northern Service Centres

Collecting taxes

$639.9 billion in revenue and pension contributions administered
$379 billion in tax revenue, approximately 85% of government annual revenue
32.4 million individual tax and benefits returns filed
2.9 million corporation income tax returns filed
649,420 people helped through the Community Volunteer Income Tax Program (CVITP)

Delivering benefits and tax credits

$46.4 billion in benefits issued

Digital by design

92% of individual income tax and benefit returns filed digitally
94% of corporation income tax returns filed digitally
78% of T1 refunds issued by direct deposit

Ensuring fairness

$10.4 billion of tax earned by audit
12 cases referred to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada
$89.1 billion in tax debt resolved

Providing redress

64,711 objections received
1,498 CPP/EI Appeals referred to the Minister
89,689 Taxpayer relief requests received

Making it easy

103,172 online chats answered by agents
300,578 visits to the “Learn about your taxes” page
44,088 businesses contacted via the Liaison Officer service

Core responsibilities and internal services

A. tax administration, description, program inventory, snapshot of planned resources in 2024–25, results and targets.

The CRA’s core responsibility for tax administration is to make sure it sustains Canada’s self-assessment tax system. The CRA does this by:

providing taxpayers with the support and information they need to understand and fulfill their tax obligations;
taking compliance and enforcement actions when necessary to uphold the integrity of the system; and
offering avenues for redress whenever taxpayers may disagree with an assessment or a decision.

The following CRA programs support the core responsibility for tax administration:

Tax services and processing – The CRA helps businesses and individuals to comply with Canada’s tax laws by processing their information and payments, and providing related services.
Returns compliance – The CRA ensures that individuals, businesses, and trusts are compliant with their withholding, remitting, reporting, and filing obligations.
Collections – The CRA collects tax and non-tax debts on behalf of the federal, provincial, and territorial governments, as well as for other government departments and agencies.
Reporting compliance – The CRA protects the integrity of Canada’s self-assessment tax system through education and proactive efforts that are aimed at promoting compliance.
Objections and appeals – The CRA offers an impartial review process for taxpayers who wish to file a formal dispute.
Taxpayer relief – The CRA administers the process under which relief of penalties and interest may be granted to taxpayers under certain circumstances.
Service feedback – The CRA offers clients a process to provide feedback, including complaints, suggestions and compliments, and resolve problems about the service, quality, or timeliness of the CRA work.
Charities – The CRA administers a national program for the regulation of charities, registered Canadian amateur athletic associations, and registered national arts service organizations.
Registered plans – The CRA is responsible for registering and monitoring deferred income and savings plans.
Policy, rulings and interpretation – The CRA offers taxpayers, registrants, and tax intermediaries binding rulings and non-binding interpretations of the acts the CRA administers.

Supporting information on the full description of programs, planned expenditures, human resources, and results related to the CRA’s program inventory is available on GC InfoBase .

Planned spending: $4,237,156,391
Planned full-time resources: 38,754

For each result related to tax administration, the following table shows the approved performance indicators, results from the three most recently reported fiscal years, and the targets to be achieved by March 31, 2025.

Table 1: Performance indicators, results, and targets for tax administration

Financial, human resources and performance information for the CRA’s program inventory is available on GC InfoBase .

More detailed results and explanations are found in the CRA's Departmental Results Reports .

B. Benefits administration

The CRA’s core responsibility for benefits administration is to ensure that Canadians:

get the support and information they need to know what benefits and credits they may be eligible to receive;
receive their benefit and refund payments in a timely manner;
have avenues of redress when they disagree with a decision on their benefit eligibility.

The CRA uses its federal tax delivery infrastructure to administer almost 200 services and ongoing benefits and one-time payment programs for the provinces and territories, including:

Canada child benefit
goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax credit
children’s special allowances
disability tax credit
Canada workers benefit
provincial and territorial programs

These services and benefits contribute directly to the economic and social well-being of Canadians by supporting individuals, families, children, and caregivers.

The following CRA program supports the core responsibility for benefits administration:

Benefits – The CRA ensures that Canadians obtain the support and information they need to know what benefits they may be eligible to receive, that they receive their benefit payments in a timely manner, and have avenues of redress when they disagree with a decision on their benefit eligibility.

Supporting information on planned expenditures, human resources, and results related to CRA’s program inventory is available on GC InfoBase

Planned spending Footnote 4 : $12,294,047,102
Planned full-time resources: 2,360

For each result related to benefits administration, the following table shows the approved performance indicators, results from the three most recently reported fiscal years, and the targets to be achieved by March 31, 2025.

Table 2: Performance indicators, results, and targets for benefits administration

Internal services.

Internal services are the services provided within a department so it can meet its corporate obligations and deliver its programs. There are 11 categories of internal services:

management and oversight
communication
human resource management
financial management
information management
information technology
real property management
material management
acquisition management
Planned spending: 1,043,543,907
Planned full-time resources: 7,565

Strategic priorities and plans to deliver

1. deliver seamless client experiences and tailored interactions that are digital first.

The CRA will ensure that its services are delivered in an efficient, timely, and easily accessible manner for all Canadians in the official language of their choice. This is a continuation of its People First Philosophy and key to improving Canadians’ satisfaction with the CRA’s service and key to improving Canadians’ satisfaction with the CRA’s service and their perception of the CRA. Understanding people’s needs, expectations, and experiences remains crucial in helping the CRA create and improve programs and services, which is making a difference in its culture. An internal service culture survey confirmed that clients’ needs are at the forefront of employees’ minds as they conduct their work.

Continuing to improve services for Canadians requires a digital transformation, to keep pace with technological change and evolve into a modern, digital tax and benefits administration. The CRA is using the Government of Canada’s Digital Standards as an essential part of its digital transformation with the goal of making it easier for Canadians to access information, apply for benefits, and meet tax obligations digitally. The CRA is striving to become an organization where people are equipped and empowered to adapt to new ways of working and thinking, where processes are updated, reimagined, and shared within the CRA. It is also working to make sure the technology is designed and adapted through modern, agile, secure and user-centric approaches.

The CRA is making significant investments in modern information technology (IT) platforms and tools. The evidence coming from web analytics, user feedback, and call centre data has helped the CRA improve online interactions and tasks. In May 2023, web content improvements on Canada.ca made it easier to find, navigate, and use information to settle the taxes of a deceased person. Accelerating the adoption of modern application development practices and experimenting with emerging technologies will continue to advance the CRA’s digital transformation journey.

Additionally, the CRA is continuing the transformation of the Scientific Research & Experimental Development (SR&ED) program to further improve the service experience it provides to businesses. This program is the largest single source of federal government support designed to advance research and development in Canada and provides on average $3.4 billion annually in tax credits to over 17,000 businesses. The SR&ED Program is accelerating the use of digital tools that will make it easier for businesses to access tax incentives. Recent results include:

launching an interactive version of the SR&ED Self-Assessment and Learning Tool (SALT) , and
adding a new feature for claimants to submit their SALT summary results in My Business Account to request pre-claim services.

This work helped to optimize the CRA’s Web presence and client experience by enabling individuals and businesses to easily access clear, timely, and accurate information about incentives, expenditures and investment taxes and credits on Canada.ca.

The CRA is dedicated to providing a simple client experience that meets Canadians’ service expectations. The CRA’s digital transformation will simplify and streamline tax processes for taxpayers and practitioners, making the application process for benefits simpler and online portals easier to access. For example, intuitive and interactive portals, new chatbots, and online chat services with live agents will make it easier for clients to access a wide range of services and information.

The CRA will also create an internal Accessibility Hub, which will house resources for employees to use to design and deliver programs and services that are easy to access by all Canadians, including persons with disabilities. The CRA will implement a performance measurement framework for accessibility, which will assess the CRA’s overall level of accessibility across all aspects of its operations.

The CRA will work to further integrate service delivery for Canadians. The CRA is supporting the Government’s examination of the ways the full suite of government services are delivered for Canadians. It is working closely with Service Canada to identify opportunities to expand the current range of services offered on behalf of the CRA to make life easier for Canadians.

The ePayroll project is a significant project that will simplify client interactions by making them digital. With the support of Employment and Social Development Canada and the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, the CRA has been preparing to build and implement an ePayroll service. The ultimate outcome is envisioned to be a near real-time information service that will modernize and streamline the way Canadian employers provide payroll, employment, and demographic information to multiple departments and agencies of the Government of Canada. This service will improve the speed and accuracy in delivering government services and benefits to Canadians while reducing the administrative burden on Canadian employers and businesses of all sizes. Phase I of the ePayroll project is focused on developing a fully costed implementation plan by March 2024.

Our commitments to Canadians in 2024–25:

Provide accessible and flexible digital options for Canadians to contact the CRA with expanded chat services.
Leverage the current direct deposit service through financial institutions’ technology to enable first time filers to sign up for direct deposit.
Enable clients (individuals, businesses, representatives) to easily track the progress of their requests online through the secure portal and receive electronic notifications of any status changes.
Provide additional digital notification functionality, on an opt-in basis, within My Business Account.
Allow claimants of the SR&ED tax incentives to access simplified information and tools, start to build their claim, and track the status of their submitted claims through a Client Portal.
Improve end-to-end client journeys by enhancing the ways in which CRA collects, responds to and uses client feedback.

One of the CRA’s primary goals is to ensure Canadians are aware of, and receive the benefits and credits they qualify for. The CRA has taken important steps to improve access to benefits for underserved populations and Indigenous communities. This work must continue to recognize the unique challenges some Canadians face. The CRA will intensify its engagement and support initiatives to ensure that Canadians have access to the benefits to which they are entitled.

Through the CVITP, community organizations hold free tax clinics to help modest-income individuals file their income tax and benefit returns. The number of returns filed through the CVITP increased by 15% from 640,000 in 2021 to 738,280 in 2022. The refund, credit and benefits entitlements amounts through the CVITP have increased from approximately $ 1.5 billion in 2021 to $ 1.8 billion in 2022. The CRA is focused on reaching underserved populations and is continuing to work with community organizations to raise awareness about available benefits, and how to access them. For the 2024–25 fiscal year, the CRA plans to increase the number of returns filed through the CVITP by a further 10%.

The CRA has continually worked to help Canadians access the benefits designed to assist them. In 2016–17, the CRA launched the Non-Filer Benefit Letter Initiative to encourage taxpayers (benefit recipients in particular) to file their income tax returns so they can receive the benefits and credits they qualify for. In 2022–23, the CRA sent 197,471 letters, which resulted in 35,673 returns filed, refunds of $21.6 million, and $23.7 million in credits and benefits paid to eligible Canadians.

1B. Improve access to benefits, particularly for underserved populations

Improve how the CRA measures the take-up of benefits for hard-to-reach populations by leveraging data to better understand the characteristics of the population that is not receiving the benefits to which they may be entitled.
Offer free tax help and education for small businesses about their tax obligations by increasing awareness of the Liaison Officer service, with a focus on Indigenous people and newcomers to Canada who are self-employed or operating a small business.
Improve access to benefits for vulnerable Canadians by increasing the number of clients served through the CRA’s CVITP.
Support reconciliation by implementing the CRA’s Indigenous Strategy (2024–2027), which outlines initiatives that build long-lasting and meaningful relationships with Indigenous communities and tailor services for Indigenous clients.

Many low-income Canadians miss out on valuable benefits and support they are entitled to, such as the Canada child benefit and the guaranteed income supplement. To ensure more low-income Canadians are able to quickly and easily auto-file their tax returns, Budget 2023 announced that the federal government will increase the number of Canadians eligible to use the File my Return service. The CRA will also pilot a new automatic filing service that will help vulnerable Canadians who currently do not file their taxes, to receive the benefits they qualify for.

Since 2018, the CRA has delivered a free and simple File my Return service. This service allows eligible Canadians to auto-file their tax return over the phone after answering a series of short questions. The CRA sends Canadians with simple tax situations and lower or fixed income an invitation letter to use the services. For the 2022 tax filing season, approximately 53,000 returns were filed using this service.

Our commitment to Canadians in 2024–25:

Ensure more low-income Canadians are able to quickly and easily auto-file by increasing the number of persons eligible for File my Return (SimpleFile by phone).

Perspectives to 2026–27 and beyond:

Enable individuals and businesses to easily access clear, timely, and accurate information about taxes, benefits, and credits on Canada.ca by optimizing the CRA’s Web presence and client experience.
Enable secure, two-way, fully electronic communication and service delivery to Canada’s registered plans sector by implementing the Registered Plans Application Suite Portal.
Identify opportunities to reduce the burden of some government services for Canadians by better leveraging in-person Service Canada centres.

Quality of life impacts

In its role as the administrator of benefits and credits, the CRA contributes to the Household income and Financial well-being of individuals and families’ quality of life indicators. These contributions can lead to poverty reduction, impacting the Poverty indicator, by providing vulnerable populations and Indigenous communities with better access to the benefits and credits to which they are entitled.

The CRA continually monitors its internal and external environments for events that could affect whether it achieves its strategic priorities and objectives.

The CRA has identified that there is a risk that its services and client interactions may not meet the expectations of those it serves, both internally and externally. The rapid growth of digital options throughout the Canadian economy over the past few years has raised clients’ expectations for similarly modern, digital options when they deal with the CRA.

To mitigate this risk, the CRA is leveraging user research, further enhancing its secure online portals, and optimizing content on Canada.ca to enable clients to find information more easily and quickly. The CRA is also continuing to improve telephone services at its call centres by decreasing wait times and offering other service channels to reduce call volumes.

Gender-based Analysis Plus

A full GBA Plus analysis was conducted for the CRA’s Chat Services Project. As a result of this analysis, there were groups identified who would not be able to fully benefit from the use of general digital services. To mitigate potential impacts, the CRA will maintain the availability of non-digital service delivery channels including phones, paper correspondence and filing, and the Community Volunteer Income Tax Program (CVITP), to ensure the needs of all Canadians are met.

The CRA will also continue to develop and implement comprehensive communications products and strategies related to digital services, and will continue to raise awareness of the support and tools that are available among vulnerable groups of Canadians. Additionally, detailed research into accessibility requirements for persons with disabilities has been conducted and accessibility features will be implemented in the digital services offered through the Chat Services Project.

The CRA performs GBA Plus analysis and applies GBA Plus principles through the development and enhancement of its online portals to ensure inclusive outcomes for Canadians.

The CRA is working toward the following goals when designing its programs and services:

Inclusive Design Process: using GBA Plus to include persons with disabilities in the design or redesign of programs and services, reducing or removing barriers for inclusive access.
Accessibility Plan for Client Service: developing an Accessibility Plan for client service to ensure that GBA Plus is applied in creating programs and services, aligning with the priority of delivering seamless digital experiences.

The CRA undertook a GBA Plus analysis and research through an economic study to assess the level of participation in the tax system of Canadians and various segments of the population including Indigenous Peoples. Further GBA Plus factors were explored. The results of these analyses will be used to prioritize outreach activities and communications products.

Sustainable development

The CRA will continue to work with all of its partners to advance Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 1 and 10 in support of the strategic priority to deliver seamless client experiences and tailored interactions that are digital first.

The CRA supports the reduction of poverty through the delivery of the Canada Child Benefit, the CVITP, and the Benefits Outreach Program.
The development of CRA’s first Indigenous Strategy will support reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples and assist in the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act .

More information on the CRA’s contributions to Canada’s Federal Implementation Plan on the 2030 Agenda and the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy can be found in its Departmental Sustainable Development Strategy .

2. Combat aggressive tax planning and tax evasion

The CRA recognizes that tax evasion and aggressive tax planning are complex issues as they often revolve around secrecy and hiding assets, transactions, income, and wealth. The reasons of these actions can range from deliberate misrepresentation to elaborately coordinated avoidance and evasion schemes. The CRA is aware of the cost of these actions to the treasury and works diligently to ensure that those who choose to break the law face consequences for their actions. Catching tax cheats and ensuring a level playing field is an important driver of Canadians’ perception of the CRA, and their willingness to voluntarily comply with their tax obligations.

The CRA continues to identify and shut down tax schemes and illegitimate tax shelters through increased audits of tax promoters and advisors, improved intelligence gathering, and better communication with taxpayers. Those who choose to participate in or promote these schemes may face serious consequences, including penalties, court-imposed fines, and possibly even jail time. The CRA issues regular warnings about tax schemes to taxpayers through tax alerts, news releases, fact sheets, media advisories, forms, and publications. The CRA received funding in the 2020 Fall Economic Statement to increase audit resources and improve the business intelligence used to identify the highest-risk files within the high net worth (HNW) population. The HNW population is capable of hiding their residency status and their assets offshore, creating significant challenges for the CRA when gathering information. This funding has allowed the CRA to increase its technical expertise, risk assessment data, and to identify the highest risks of non-compliance. With these improvements, the CRA will continue to make efforts to ensure that everyone pays the taxes they owe, and increase the visibility of its compliance activities.

The CRA is continuing its efforts to combat schemes designed to obtain unwarranted GST/HST refunds. Carousel schemes involve complex networks of entities working together to create a fictitious supply chain which are difficult to detect. Through investments, the CRA is implementing measures to better target its resources and expand its business intelligence and data analytics tools to combat these schemes. As part of its multifaceted strategy, the CRA reviews accounts early in the filing history to close suspicious accounts, effectively disrupting schemes early in their lifecycle. Additionally, the CRA collaborates with domestic and international partners to inform its strategy and prevent organized schemes from persisting.

Continued international collaboration through the Forum on Tax Administration (FTA) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) enables the CRA to effectively address non-compliance. Through the FTA, over 50 tax administrations work together on issues of mutual interest to share best practices and improve compliance by putting in place global standards that help to ensure greater tax certainty, transparency, and fairness, as well as prevent tax evasion and avoidance.

With increased transparency and the exchange of financial data under initiatives such as the Common Reporting Standard , Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act , electronic funds transfer data, Country-by-Country Reporting and the Automatic Exchange of Information , it has become more challenging for individuals and corporations to hide assets offshore and evade taxes. New agreements are being negotiated and new tools are being developed to exchange information and support more venues to share best practices. This will give the CRA additional mechanisms to combat these issues.

From Budget 2021, the CRA received an investment of $230 million to improve its ability to collect outstanding taxes; in particular, to collect an additional $5 billion over five years. The targets established, from this investment, for 2021–22 and 2022–23 were exceeded by $274 million, and a total of $1.495 billion in additional outstanding taxes was collected. With the help of this multi-year investment, the CRA will continue to make progress on reducing the tax debt.

The CRA uses a multifaceted and robust approach to combat sophisticated and complex cases of tax planning, evasion, and fraud. The CRA remains dedicated to maintaining the integrity of Canada’s tax system and ensuring that all taxpayers fulfill their obligations. When appropriate, the CRA will refer the cases to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC) for possible criminal prosecution. For the five-year period from April 1, 2018, to March 31, 2023, the courts convicted 144 taxpayers for evading the payment of more than $35.1 million in federal tax combined. In 2022–23, all 12 cases referred to PPSC resulted in a conviction. The CRA publicizes criminal convictions and other high-profile enforcement actions through enforcement notifications .

The Government of Canada has made significant investments in recent years to strengthen the CRA’s audit programs. As a result, the CRA has increased its ability to identify and target aggressive tax planning, and increased the volume of its gross audit reassessments. A total of 62,660 audits, excluding all other compliance interventions were completed in 2022–23 which had a fiscal impact Footnote 6 of $14.3 billion. These investments have also given the CRA the opportunity to fund new initiatives and extend existing programs. Some notable initiatives include the GST/HST agile risk assessments and aggressive GST/HST audits, increased audit coverage of the GST/HST Large Business Audit Program, mitigating the risk from the rapid growth in trusts, and strengthening controls in the real estate sector.

Underground Economy (UE) activity negatively affects economic growth in Canada because compliant businesses struggle to compete with those that do not fully comply. These activities can also reduce funding for public programs from healthcare to parks. The 2022+ Underground Economy Strategy puts the CRA in a position to continually identify, prevent, and address UE activities. The CRA does this by monitoring the environment, addressing new and emerging UE-related risks as they occur, and evaluating and improving how it addresses UE activities in Canada.

Following the Minister’s mandate letter , the CRA created its Real Estate Action Plan to expand its capacity to audit real estate transactions. The actions of this plan will help contribute to the Government of Canada’s goal of creating a healthy, competitive, and stable Canadian housing market. This multi-year plan focuses on key activities such as data analytics, increasing the number of data sources used to examine the real estate sector, equipping auditors with tools and training, establishing a program to focus on the platform economy, increasing how many audit activities the CRA conducts, and working with all partners.

Expand capacity to investigate tax evasion, tax fraud and benefit fraud, both domestically and internationally by continuing to develop new tools, increase resources, improve training and guidance, and build on partnerships.
Improve risk assessment and screening processes by integrating additional approaches to identify and address potential willful non-compliance in SR&ED tax incentive claims.
Identify and combat aggressive tax planning arrangements involving charities.
Recover $250 million in unwarranted GST/HST refund and rebate claims through investments in new analytical tools using new technology, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI).
Combat aggressive tax planning by designing and developing additional teams, tools and methodologies that enhance audit activities of economic entities and non-residents.
Reduce tax non-compliance in sectors known for UE activity by focusing on various activities that identify, prevent and address transactions in goods or services which are unreported.
Expand compliance activities regarding real estate transactions by acquiring additional real estate data and more widely disseminating and applying real estate data across the CRA.
Improve voluntary compliance and tax awareness by expanding outreach and education activities with particular focus on the real estate sector and UE.

The CRA recognizes that voluntary compliance is more cost-effective than enforcement, and that Canadians’ participation in Canada’s self-assessment system is based on their confidence in its fairness. The CRA plays a central role in maintaining tax fairness by administering tax law and regulations impartially, conducting audits, and taking appropriate actions against tax evasion and fraud.

In support of the Minister’s mandate and the CRA’s People First philosophy, the CRA designed the Assisted Compliance Program . This program provides a tailored, client-centric experience by using an education-first approach and addressing non-compliance as early as possible with the appropriate level of intervention. The CRA launched the program in 2022 as a pilot project to bridge the gap between traditional outreach and audits. Since the launch, the program has contacted 2,374 taxpayers.

The CRA is also improving the transparency of the assessment process and tax audits on charities. This work is intended to build trust in the CRA’s work on charities, and to fully demonstrate impartiality in decision-making.

The Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) was introduced at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to help businesses keep their workforce by partially offsetting their payroll-related costs. At its height, the CEWS was supporting over 5 million employees across Canada, and it provided $100.3 billion in support to 460,000 employers. One hundred percent of CEWS applications went through an automated prepayment validation and reviews to ensure eligibility. CRA audits conducted of the CEWS amounts claimed show that almost 95% of claims were compliant with the legislation. The CRA continues to conduct post-payment audits of the subsidies paid, and expects that it will audit $16.3 billion in claim amounts. Aggressive non-compliance, such as suspected fraud, will be pursued fully by the CRA. The CRA denied or decreased over $37 million in preparer-linked claims and charged more than $14 million in penalties to these files.

The CRA collects tax and non-tax debts on behalf of the federal, provincial, and territorial governments, as well as for other government departments and agencies. It continues to evaluate new approaches to strengthen and streamline tax collection activities, facilitated by improved IT and data analysis, which allow a more targeted and risk-based approach. During the fiscal year 2022–23, the CRA resolved Footnote 7 a total of $89.1 billion in tax debt. The CRA will continue its robust verification and compliance activities to ensure the integrity of the tax and benefits system for all Canadians.

Improve the CRA’s ability to use tax gap research and support data-driven decision-making.
Develop tailored educational products to assist taxpayers in their reporting obligations and prioritize automation in order to minimize administrative burdens by designing the Reporting Fees for Services (RFS) program.
Ensure compliance with payment obligations by collecting and resolving tax and government programs debt on a timely basis.
Resolve an additional $1.20 billion in outstanding tax debt as a result of Budget 2021 incremental investments supporting a tax system that promotes fairness.
Ensure compliance with registration, filing, remitting, and accurate reporting requirements through effective risk assessment.
Ensuring the integrity of pandemic subsidies by conducting post-payment audits on the CEWS using a risk-based approach, and pursuing suspected cases of willful non-compliance and/or aggressive non-compliance .
Continue to work towards reforming the international tax system as it applies to large multinational enterprises by engaging with the CRA’s international and domestic partners (including Government of Canada departments, and OECD members) on working towards implementing Pillar One and Pillar Two , and being ready to administer a Digital Services Tax (DST) pursuant to the Government’s longstanding plan for legislation to enact a DST in Canada to ensure that businesses pay their fair share of taxes and that Canada is not at a disadvantage relative to other countries.
Implement the OECD international framework for the Model Rules for Reporting by Platform Operators with respect to Sellers in the Sharing and Gig Economy .
Increase awareness of the compliance continuum for charities through publications and promotion of updated web content, as well as targeted messages to the sector.
Establish and provide training on the management of information for investigations to enhance referrals to the PPSC, and develop new tools and training to ensure investigators and forensic specialists keep pace with sophisticated tax crime.
Continue to deliver compliance activities focusing on addressing emerging aggressive tax planning and on promoters and advisors in the high net wealth population.
Modernize risk assessment systems to better manage data and facilitate data-driven decision-making in identifying high-risk files for compliance interventions.
Develop information technology solutions to provide audit operations with tools that will allow for the ingestion of large volumes of data to help link accounts to complete economic entity audits.

The CRA faces risks as a result of tax practitioners, promoters, and advisors aiding aggressive tax planning schemes, the taxation of crypto-asset transactions, and high net-worth individuals avoiding or evading taxes using aggressive tax planning schemes.

To continue to make sure Canadians trust the CRA to ensure that everyone pays their fair share of taxes, the CRA is taking steps to mitigate these risks. The CRA is engaging with internal and external partners within the tax community to help taxpayers understand how different crypto-asset events affect their tax obligations. As well, the CRA is exploring how to work with third parties to identify crypto-asset holders. The CRA is also performing more audits to better understand the platform economy and ensure that taxpayers are complying with their obligations.

The CRA will continue to use GBA Plus to analyze compliance activities by gender and other diversity factors, where possible, to ensure fair and inclusive outcomes for Canadians. The CRA will analyze algorithms designed through business rules and machine learning to monitor for undue bias. If undue bias is found, the CRA will take steps to mitigate the bias through changes to risk assessment and workload development processes.

The CRA will include descriptive analysis when conducting strategic research. For example, research on the tax gap will include demographic analysis which could expand capacity to report on gender and diversity. The results of this research will be used to make adjustments to CRA programs to improve gender equality, diversity and inclusiveness in order to achieve more inclusive outcomes.

3. Strengthen security and safeguard privacy

The CRA has one of the largest holdings of personal information in Canada and it takes its role in safeguarding this information very seriously. The CRA makes every effort to provide taxpayers with the confidence that it will keep their information safe and secure in a constantly changing threat landscape. Giving Canadians confidence that their personal information is protected improves their perception of the CRA and their participation in the self-assessment tax and benefits system.

Funding from Budget 2021 enabled the CRA to invest in new technologies, tools and resources to proactively monitor internal and external security threats, and it continues to dedicate funding to enhance the protection of taxpayers’ information.

Supported by significant financial investments, the CRA’s IT infrastructure and applications have made sure that its services remain secure, reliable and accessible by design. This includes updating or replacing aging applications as part of the Application Sustainability Program. Since 2009, this program has invested nearly $100 million into safeguarding and securing CRA's applications and has contributed to the CRA's strong application health performance.

More recently, the CRA launched the Application Security Program to proactively and consistently enhance its security posture by investing in secure coding and threat modelling, security tooling, and IT-wide training. This program has already shown improvements to the security of CRA’s software applications, and it is expected that it will continue to bring real benefits as the program matures.

By strategically using financial investments, advanced technology, well-informed and trained personnel, and proactive monitoring, the CRA can significantly strengthen its security and safeguards, fostering public trust in the integrity of its operations.

Safeguarding taxpayer information is not only a legal and ethical duty, but also an essential part of maintaining a stable and reliable tax and benefit system. When taxpayers trust that the CRA protects their personal information, they are more likely to comply with their tax obligations. This is why the CRA has strict measures in place to analyze, identify, and mitigate potential threats, prevent unauthorized changes to taxpayers’ accounts, and protect sensitive data.

In 2022, the CRA created a dedicated Security Branch which centralized its security programs to better integrate security and more effectively respond to security threats and incidents. The CRA is dedicated to maturing this newly established branch through new strategic initiatives. To improve the protection of CRA systems and data against evolving cyber threats, and to foster a strong security culture, the CRA is adopting industry leading technology, enhanced personnel training, and robust policies.

Further improve the protection of CRA systems, processes and data from evolving threats and vulnerabilities by adopting IT and people focused solutions.
Strengthen the CRA’s security stance and safeguard the privacy of taxpayer information by improving its guidance on information and data management.
Strengthen identity protection services by continuing to enhance processes for detection, reporting and resolution of potential identity theft cases for individual and business accounts threatened by increasingly sophisticated methods of fraudulent access.
Ensure that AI solutions that are developed and used by the CRA to strengthen operations are designed and deployed in a manner that maintains the trust of Canadians.

The CRA supports transparency and accountability in public institutions. Understanding that Canadians expect to receive requested information quickly and securely, the CRA recognizes that it can improve how it processes incoming ATIP requests to ensure they are dealt with in a timely manner, to meet expectations. The CRA is currently on track to eliminate 189 of its oldest backlog files, all of which the CRA received between April 1, 2020, and March 31, 2021.

Identify opportunities for taxpayers to receive their information proactively through cost-effective channels other than the ATIP program.
Close all backlog ATIP requests received before March 31, 2022, by March 31, 2025.
Improve the standardization of the CRA’s identity management practices to both strengthen and simplify identity verification for Canadians.

The CRA and its clients are at risk of having their information exposed to cyber threats. Trust that the CRA is safeguarding private information is vital to Canadians’ participation in the tax and benefits system. With more and more information being communicated online, the importance of safeguarding the information, assets, and systems it holds remain a priority.

The CRA closely monitors all risks related to cybersecurity, privacy, and fraud, and takes steps to mitigate these risks. For example, the CRA significantly enhanced its strategic planning to integrate new technologies and solutions, and design security into new systems from the start. The CRA is fortifying its capacity to monitor, detect, and analyze emerging suspicious account activity and external fraud risks. As well, the CRA is providing employees with the necessary fraud risk management tools and training.

The CRA is aligning itself with the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat’s strategic direction and policies on ATIP which have integrated GBA Plus philosophies.

GBA plus considerations have been integrated into the CRA’s Directive on AI, and is a component of the AI Stewardship Process.

4. Nurture a high-performing, diverse, and inclusive workforce in a modern, flexible, and accessible workplace

The CRA strives to provide a workplace that is respectful, free of discrimination and harassment, one that values diversity, inclusion, and equitable opportunity. These are at the core of the CRA’s People First philosophy and its four enduring values: collaboration, professionalism, respect, and integrity.

In 2024–25, the CRA will publish its directive on employment equity, diversity, and inclusion. The directive will ensure the CRA establishes equity, diversity, and inclusion in all areas of its business. The CRA will also publish its second progress report on the 2023–2025 Accessibility Plan, in line with the Accessible Canada Act . This progress report will identify barriers to accessibility for employees and clients and help eliminate and prevent those barriers.

The CRA has begun the development of a people strategy, as it looks to the future of tax administration. Aligned with the CRA’s People First philosophy that details how it will provide Canadians with a seamless, empathetic and client-centric service experience, the people strategy will be centred on a thriving employee experience and will help equip employees in a time of accelerated transformation. The employee experience plays a vital role in supporting our aspirations as a world-class organization and achieving the ultimate agency outcome of enhancing the economic and social well-being of Canadians.

As the CRA develops its people strategy, a key focus will be to ensure that all employees are equipped with the essential tools, digital practices, and opportunities for networking, to maximize the effectiveness of the hybrid model of work. With this in mind, the CRA is modernizing by providing a flexible workplace that enables employees to work remotely, on-site, or a combination of both while meeting the requirements of on-site presence. It is a workspace that is supportive, well equipped, and adaptable that strives to meet the needs of its employees. The CRA is using various methods, like surveys, to gain employee insights into employees’ perspectives on the hybrid experience, ultimately informing, and helping to ensure a resilient organization that is ready to meet the challenges of the future. In addition, the CRA plans to review its implementation of this hybrid work model for any effects on diverse groups of employees. The review will show the CRA how to minimize impacts and identify barriers. By nurturing an inclusive workplace, the CRA continues to make progress towards building a fair and representative organization that reflects the rich diversity of Canada.

Applying a structured change management approach to prepare, equip, and support employees through their change journey is instrumental in ensuring project and transformation success. It increases the CRA’s overall capacity for managing change effectively while anticipating and reducing risks and resistance.

The CRA remains devoted to attracting, developing, and keeping a diverse and representative workforce. Over the past number of years, the CRA has increased the diversity of its workforce, and employment equity group members (women, persons with disabilities, visible minorities and Indigenous peoples) are generally well represented within the organization. Within the executive group, the CRA has full representation for women, persons with disabilities and visible minorities. However, areas of underrepresentation exist, particularly for the Indigenous peoples group. Although the CRA has made progress in increasing Indigenous peoples representation within the executive group, its work in this area must and will continue.

To further advance diversity and inclusion, the CRA will keep its focus on removing barriers throughout each phase of the employment cycle. This includes supporting equal access to career opportunities for members of equity-deserving groups. By regularly consulting persons with disabilities, the CRA can confidently take action to address accessibility barriers in a way that is informed by the lived experiences, insights, and challenges faced by those who are most directly affected by these barriers. The CRA also focuses on creating a culture that values and celebrates differences by providing training on unconscious bias and cultural awareness. These initiatives help employees to understand their biases and encourages open dialogue about diversity-related topics. The CRA aims to eliminate national employment equity gaps by 2024.

Strengthen the accessibility of the CRA’s external and internal programs, services, and operations by delivering upon actions committed to through the CRA’s first Accessibility Plan.
Implement the anti-racism framework, which is composed of six key elements: engagement, data, anti-discrimination policies, talent management, learning and development, and monitoring at the agency level.
Publish a directive on equity, diversity, and inclusion to further address systemic and attitudinal barriers surrounding employment opportunities at the CRA.
Increase the representation of Indigenous peoples within non-executive groups.
Increase the representation of Indigenous peoples in the executive group.

The CRA is looking at new initiatives that will empower its leaders to inspire, motivate, and drive positive change to elevate a high-performing workforce that has the commitment, competencies and character to lead it into the future.

Continual learning and development help the CRA’s workforce adapt to evolving challenges, embrace innovative approaches, and foster a culture of continuous improvement. Character leadership, which the CRA implemented in 2017, embraces the values, virtues, and traits that lead to excellence of character, and elevates character alongside the technical competencies required to lead. The CRA has since been actively integrating character leadership into its activities. This has included assessing character leadership when staffing executive positions, delivering a character leadership development program for not only current leaders but also employees of all levels, and providing employees with relevant tools and resources.

The CRA has embedded elements of character leadership within all its national leadership development programs, including the Agency Leadership Development Program, the new National Leadership Learning Program set to launch in 2024, and the SponsorMe Plus program. It also includes other programs aimed at developing current and future leaders. By investing in leadership development, the CRA is ensuring that its workforce has essential skills, such as communication, empathy, and strategic thinking, leading to stronger decision-making and better outcomes.

Create a national leadership development strategy.
Make it easier for employees to increase their understanding and use of the digital standards by expanding digital training resources, to build a robust and nimble workforce with modern skills and mindset.
Develop and implement a process to both identify and manage workplace risks concerning well-being for individual employees, teams, and the organization as a whole.

The CRA faces the risk of employees becoming less engaged and productive if it does not continue to address employee health, well-being, and safety. Maintaining positive qualities in a hybrid work model is also important. In particular, technical skill sets are in high demand as the world becomes increasingly digitized, and the CRA must be able to continue to recruit from this candidate pool.

The CRA is working to ensure that its current employees receive the opportunities needed to maintain and upgrade their skills. In addition, the CRA remains committed to providing 24/7 mental health services to its employees and their families. Overall, the CRA continues to work hard to ensure its workforce feels supported by providing guidance to employees and managers about its implementation of the hybrid work model.

To correct any gender-based discrimination for employees in jobs that women hold, the CRA will publish a pay equity plan in line with the Pay Equity Act . This tailored plan will address any gender-based discrimination that may be in the CRA’s pay practices and systems.

The CRA will review its implementation of this hybrid work model for any effects on diverse groups of employees. The review will show the CRA how to minimize impacts when possible and identify barriers that may be affecting the CRA’s goal of advancing diversity and inclusion.

The CRA will continue to work with its partners to advance Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 10 and 13 in support of the strategic priority for nurturing a high performing, diverse, and inclusive workforce in a modern, flexible, and accessible workplace.

The development of CRA’s first Indigenous Strategy will support reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples and assist in the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act . The CRA is also taking action on inequality by applying a diversity and inclusion lens on programs and working to remove barriers for all equity-deserving groups.
The CRA is working to transition to net-zero and climate-resilient operations by 2050. To do this the CRA will develop a climate change adaptation plan, reducing its greenhouse gas emissions from air travel, and renewing the Sustainable Development Policy with updated practices and policies.

More information on the CRA’s contributions to Canada’s Federal Implementation Plan on the 2030 Agenda and the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy can be found in our Departmental Sustainable Development Strategy .

CRA staffing principles related to a successful staffing program

Staffing is flexible and responsive to the changing circumstances and to the unique or special needs of the organization.

Staffing is planned and carried out taking into consideration time and cost, and it is linked to business requirements.

Staffing is equitable, just, and objective.

Staffing results in the required number of competent people being appointed to conduct the CRA’s business.

Communications about staffing are open, honest, respectful, timely, and easy to understand.

CRA staffing principles related to an effective workforce

The workforce possesses the attributes required for effective job performance.

The workforce and staffing decisions must be free from political and bureaucratic influence.

The composition of our workforce reflects the labour market availability of employment equity designated groups.

Planning for contracts awarded to Indigenous businesses

In line with the Government of Canada’s priorities, the CRA is dedicated to strengthening its economic relationship with Indigenous businesses and communities by providing more opportunities to First Nations, Inuit and Métis businesses through its procurement activities. This supports reconciliation efforts and ensures fair, open and transparent procurement practices that result in a supplier base that is more diverse, inclusive and representative of the Canadian population. To increase opportunities for Indigenous businesses, the CRA is using a proactive approach:

Internal alignment of policy direction and processes : In 2024–25, the CRA will continue to review and refine its policy direction and strengthen accountability to better fulfill its obligations under the Procurement Strategy for Indigenous Business.
continuing to direct specific commodities such as IT end-user devices to Indigenous technology resellers;
continuing to review incoming procurement requirements to determine strategies for increasing opportunities for Indigenous businesses, as applicable (such as those who may not be able to offer national coverage);
continuing to incorporate a conditional Indigenous clause into competitive solicitations that indicates that if two or more bids are received from Indigenous businesses, only they will be considered;
reviewing the terms of reference and guidance material for the CRA’s senior management Procurement Review and Oversight Committee to strengthen the committee’s focus on social procurement considerations, including Indigenous procurement.
Outreach and activities: The CRA will build upon the success of the previous client outreach activities, including the annual Contracting Awareness Month first held in 2022, and will develop and deliver awareness sessions focused on social procurement commitments, including Indigenous procurement.
Training: All procurement officers, existing or new (including procurement policy and oversight officers) will complete the mandatory course Indigenous Considerations in Procurement from the Canada School of Public Service.

Table 3: Contracts awarded to Indigenous businesses

The following table shows how the department plans to achieve awarding at least 5% of the total value of contracts to Indigenous businesses annually.

Note : The 2022–23 fiscal year was an exceptional year with a higher-than-normal need for certain goods procured from Indigenous businesses.

Refocusing government spending

In Budget 2023, the government committed to reducing spending by $14.1 billion over the next five years, starting in 2023–24, and by $4.1 billion annually after that.

As part of meeting this commitment, the CRA is planning the following spending reductions.

Table 4: Spending reductions (dollars)

The CRA will achieve these reductions by doing the following:

Implement efficiency opportunities in eligible spending which focus on programs and operations where there might be duplication, lower value for money activities, or a misalignment with government priorities.

The figures in this plan reflect these reductions.

Taxpayer Bill of Rights

The Taxpayer Bill of Rights describes and defines 16 rights and builds on the CRA’s corporate values of integrity, professionalism, respect, and collaboration. It describes the treatment taxpayers are entitled to when dealing with the CRA. The Bill also sets out five commitments to small businesses to ensure the CRA interacts with them as efficiently and effectively as possible.

The CRA integrates the Bill in its core responsibilities and across all its daily activities. Rights 5 and 6, 9 to 11, and 13 to 15 (identified with an asterisk below) are service rights that govern the CRA’s relationship with taxpayers. General concepts such as fairness, transparency, and courtesy influence those service rights. The CRA promotes widespread understanding of those rights to make sure it integrates them into how it delivers programs and services, and interacts with its clients.

You have the right to receive entitlements and to pay no more and no less than what is required by law
You have the right to service in both official languages
You have the right to privacy and confidentiality
You have the right to a formal review and a subsequent appeal
You have the right to be treated professionally, courteously, and fairly*
You have the right to complete, accurate, clear, and timely information*
You have the right, unless otherwise provided by law, not to pay income tax amounts in dispute before you have had an impartial review
You have the right to have the law applied consistently
You have the right to lodge a service complaint and to be provided with an explanation of the CRA findings*
You have the right to have the costs of compliance taken into account when administering tax legislation*
You have the right to expect the CRA to be accountable*
You have the right to relief from penalties and interest under tax legislation because of extraordinary circumstances
You have the right to expect the CRA to publish its service standards and report annually*
You have the right to expect the CRA to warn you about questionable tax schemes in a timely manner*
You have the right to be represented by a person of your choice*
You have the right to lodge a service complaint and request a formal review without fear of reprisal

Commitment to small business

The CRA is committed to administering the tax system in a way that minimizes the costs of compliance for small businesses
The CRA is committed to working with all governments to streamline service, minimize cost, and reduce the compliance burden
The CRA is committed to providing service offerings that meet the needs of small businesses
The CRA is committed to conducting outreach activities that help small businesses comply with the legislation we administer
The CRA is committed to explaining how we conduct our business with small businesses.

Planned spending and human resources

This section gives an overview of the CRA’s planned spending and human resources for the next three fiscal years. It also compares the CRA’s planned spending for 2024–25 with its actual spending for the current year and the previous year.

Future-oriented condensed statement of operations

Human resources.

The following chart summarizes the CRA's planned spending by core responsibility.

Figure 1: CRA’s planned spending by core responsibility. Text version in table 5 below.

Table 5: Planned spending by core responsibility in 2024–25

The benefits core responsibility includes spending associated with benefits compliance, client service, and program administration as well as $12 billion in forecasted statutory transfer payments related to the distribution of fuel charge proceeds to the province or territory of origin, primarily through the Canada Carbon Rebate, as well as for the Children's Special Allowances which provides payments to federal, provincial and territorial agencies and institutions that care for children.

Actual spending summary for core responsibilities and internal services (dollars)

The following table shows information on spending for each of the CRA’s core responsibilities and for its internal services for the three previous fiscal years. Amounts for the current fiscal year are forecasted based on spending to date.

Table 6: Actual spending for core responsibilities and internal services (dollars)

Budgetary planning summary for core responsibilities and internal services (dollars).

The following table shows information on spending for each of the CRA’s core responsibilities and for its internal services for the upcoming three fiscal years.

Table 7: Budgetary planning summary for core responsibilities and internal services (dollars)

A significant portion of the increase in the CRA’s overall budget is attributable to its statutory appropriations, in particular to spending associated with the Canada Carbon Rebate. The CRA is responsible for the administration of the fuel charge in jurisdictions that do not meet the federal carbon pricing benchmark. This includes the delivery of the Canada Carbon Rebate which returns the majority of the direct proceeds from the fuel charge to individuals and families of the province in which the proceeds are raised.

Actual and forecast spending under the CRA’s voted appropriations for fiscal years 2021–22 to 2023–24 also includes technical adjustments such as the carry-forward from the previous year and funding for severance payments, parental benefits, and vacation credits. In 2023–24, a significant portion of the increase in forecast spending is a result of retroactive payments associated with collective bargaining adjustments for employees represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada – Union of Taxation Employees and the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada. The 2023–24 fiscal year also reflects higher spending related to the administration of measures announced in the 2021 and 2022 federal budget and economic statements as well as funding to address the post-pandemic sustainability of CRA contact centres. This is partially offset by a reduction in spending on measures associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the planning period, the reduction in the CRA’s voted appropriations, from $4.655 billion in 2024–25 to $4.572 billion in 2026–27 is a result of a decrease or sunsetting of funding to implement and administer various measures announced in the federal budgets and economic statements as well as those associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. It also reflects the impact of the CRA’s contribution to the Refocusing government spending measures as announced in Budget 2023.

2024–25 budgetary gross and net planned spending summary (dollars)

The following table reconciles gross planned spending with net spending for 2024–25.

Table 8: 2024–25 budgetary gross and net planned spending summary (dollars)

Planned revenues netted against expenditures represent amounts to be recovered by the CRA for the provision of services to Employment and Social Development Canada for the administration of the Canada Pension Plan and the Employment Insurance Act .

Agency spending 2021–22 to 2026–27

The following graph presents planned spending (voted and statutory expenditures) over time.

Figure 2: CRA’s voted and statutory actual, forecasted and planned spending trends. Text version in table 9 below.

Table 9: Actual, forecasted and planned spending trends (voted and statutory)

Estimates by vote.

Information on the CRA's organizational appropriations is available in the 2024–25 Main Estimates .

The Condensed Future Oriented Statement of Operations provides a general overview of the CRA's operations. The forecast of financial information on expenses and revenues is prepared on an accrual accounting basis to strengthen accountability and to improve transparency and financial management.

The forecast and planned spending amounts presented in other sections of the plan are prepared on an expenditure basis; as a result, amounts may differ.

A more detailed Future Oriented Statement of Operations and associated notes, including a reconciliation of the net cost of operations to the requested authorities, are available on the CRA’s departmental Web page .

Table 10: Future-oriented condensed statement of operations for the year ending March 31, 2025 (dollars)

Actual human resources summary for core responsibilities and internal services.

The following table shows information on human resources, in FTEs, for each of the CRA’s core responsibilities and for its internal services for the previous three fiscal years. Human resources for the current fiscal year are forecasted based on year to date.

Table 11: Actual human resources summary for core responsibilities and internal services

Human resources planning summary for core responsibilities and internal services.

The following table shows information on human resources, in FTEs, for each of the CRA’s core responsibilities and for its internal services planned for 2024–25 and future years.

Table 12: Human resources summary for core responsibilities and internal services

The increase in actual and forecast FTEs in 2022–23 and 2023–24 is largely attributable to the administration of measures announced in the 2021 and 2022 federal budget and economic statements as well as those associated with addressing the post-pandemic sustainability of CRA contact centres. Incremental funding for CRA contact centres was received for a two-year period.

Over the planning period, the reduction in FTEs from 48,714 in 2024–25 to 46,371 in 2026–27, is primarily as a result of a decrease or sunsetting of funding to implement and administer various measures announced in the federal budgets and economic statements as well as those associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. It also reflects the impact of the CRA’s contribution to the Refocusing government spending measures as announced in Budget 2023.

Corporate information

Organizational profile.

Minister: The Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, P.C., M.P.

Chair, Board of Management: Suzanne Gouin

Institutional head: Bob Hamilton

Ministerial portfolio: National Revenue

Enabling instrument: Canada Revenue Agency Act

Year of commencement: 1999

Organizational contact information

Mailing address:

Connaught building 555 MacKenzie Avenue Ottawa ON K1A 0L5

Telephone: 613-957-3688

Fax: 613-952-1547

Website: Canada Revenue Agency

Supplementary information tables

The following supplementary information tables are available on the CRA’s Departmental Web page :

Details on transfer payment programs
Up front multi-year funding

Information on CRA’s sustainable development strategy can be found on the CRA’s Sustainable Development Web page .

Federal tax expenditures

The tax system can be used to achieve public policy objectives through the application of special measures such as low tax rates, exemptions, deductions, deferrals and credits. The Department of Finance Canada publishes cost estimates and projections for these measures each year in the Report on Federal Tax Expenditures . This report also provides detailed background information on tax expenditures, including descriptions, objectives, historical information and references to related federal spending programs as well as evaluations and GBA Plus of tax expenditures.

Annex A: Strategic Planning Framework

The CRA’s Strategic Planning Framework links the CRA’s strategic priorities and guiding principles to its mission, vision, values, and ultimate outcomes. It directs CRA planning in both the short to medium term, with the Departmental Plan, and also helps set the long-term direction for the organization.

Looking farther into the future, aligned with the direction of the Government of Canada’s Digital Ambitions to develop services and policies that are simple to use and build trust, the CRA is drawing inspiration from the OECD TA 3.0: Digital Transformation of Tax Administration s to chart a course towards a future where the CRA meets people where they are, and make tax and benefits just happen.

A continuation of the CRA’s People First approach, advancing toward this aspirational future requires accelerating the use of digital tools and processes, emerging technology and data to increasingly embed tax and benefit administration into the systems Canadians already use every day. This will provide a more seamless service experience and make it easier for Canadians to comply with their tax obligations and access benefits designed to assist them, in addition to making it harder to shirk tax obligations.

ePayroll, cited in the preceding plan, is a good example of this future state. The CRA is working with public and private sector partners on an electronic payroll information service to provide a seamless experience for employers.

Using modern digital solutions to securely integrate more directly in the payroll systems companies are using, should the Government decide to proceed with the project, ePayroll will simplify reporting of payroll, employment, and demographic information using a “tell-us-once” approach. This approach will enable employers to report information in near real time to one government entity who will then distribute it to various departments for use in their programs and service delivery. This will reduce the administrative burden on employers by eliminating the need to report the same information to multiple departments in a variety of formats, and ensure that the Government of Canada receives the information it needs to process benefit payments faster and more accurately for Canadians.

Strategic Planning Framework

Administer tax, benefits, and related programs, and ensure compliance on behalf of governments across Canada, thereby contributing to the ongoing economic and social well-being of Canadians.

A world-class tax and benefits administration that is trusted, fair, and helpful by putting people first.

Professionalism
Collaboration

Ultimate Outcomes

Taxpayers comply with Canadian tax obligations
The right tax revenue is secured for Canadians
Canadians receive their rightful benefits
Canadians have trust in the CRA

Strategic priorities

Deliver seamless client experiences and tailored interactions that are digital first
Combat aggressive tax planning and tax evasion
Strengthen security and safeguard privacy
Nurture a high-performing, diverse, and inclusive workforce in a modern, flexible and accessible workplace

Guiding principles

Apply a user-centric approach to the design and delivery of programs and services
Enhance enterprise-wide and data-driven approaches to planning, decision-making, and performance measurement
Drive effectiveness through collaboration and partnerships

Annex B: Strategic Priorities for 2024–25 and their commitments

1. deliver seamless client experiences and tailored interactions that are digital first, 1a. simplify client interactions and advance more ways to interact digitally, 1c. increase automation for better service delivery.

Ensure more low-income Canadians are able to quickly and easily auto-file by increasing the number of persons eligible for File my Return (SimpleFile by phone).

2. Combat aggressive tax planning and tax evasion

2a. combat the most sophisticated and complex cases of aggressive tax planning, evasion, and fraud.

Recover $250 million in unwarranted GST/HST refund and rebate claims through investments in new analytical tools using new technology, machine learning, and AI.

2B. Promote a fair tax system

Resolve an additional $1.20 billion in outstanding tax debt as a result of Budget 2021 incremental investments supporting a tax system that promotes fairness.
Ensuring the integrity of pandemic subsidies by conducting post-payment audits on the CEWS using a risk-based approach, and pursuing suspected cases of willful non‑compliance and/or aggressive non‑compliance.

3. Strengthen security and safeguard privacy

3a. protect cra and taxpayer information.

Ensure that AI solutions that are developed and used by the CRA to strengthen operations are designed and deployed in a manner that maintains the trust of Canadians.

3B. Provide timely responses to access to information and privacy (ATIP) requests

Identify opportunities for taxpayers to receive their information proactively through cost‑effective channels other than the ATIP program.
Close all backlog ATIP requests received before March 31, 2022 , by March 31, 2025 .

4. Nurture a high-performing, diverse, and inclusive workforce in a modern, flexible, and accessible workplace

4a. advance diversity and inclusion, 4b. enhance leadership development and learning.

Make it easier for employees to increase their understanding and use of the digital standards by expanding digital training resources, to build a robust and nimble workforce with modern skills and mindset.

Annex C: Definitions

For Departmental Plans and Departmental Results Reports, planned spending refers to those amounts presented in Main Estimates.

A department is expected to be aware of the authorities that it has sought and received. The determination of planned spending is a departmental responsibility, and departments must be able to defend the expenditure and accrual numbers presented in their Departmental Plans and Departmental Results Reports.

Page details

Money blog: Victorian island forts - complete with helipads and nightclubs - up for sale

Two Victorian island forts that were used to defend the Portsmouth dockyards during the Second World War have been listed for auction for £1m each. Read this and the rest of today's consumer news in the Money blog.

Friday 7 June 2024 20:55, UK

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Ask a question or make a comment

Ever wanted to own your own Victorian island fort?

Well now you can - with two being listed with a guide price of £1m.

Spitbank Fort in Hampshire and No Man's Land Fort off the Isle of Wight have been listed for auction and can be bought separately - or as a pair if you can't pick between the two.

During the Second World War, the forts were used to defend the Portsmouth dockyards.

No Man's Fort is substantially bigger and probably presents itself more as a business opportunity, but Spitbank offers nine large bedroom suites across three floors and could potentially work as a private home to the right buyer.

No Man's Fort has its own traditional English pub, a nightclub, and a helipad, while Spitbank Fort naturally boasts a wine cave plus a swimming pool and spa complex.

"Throughout my career as an auctioneer I've seen several sea forts hit the market that have achieved impressive prices as buyers have sought to pursue these trophy assets," said Robin Howeson, head of Savills Auctions.

"Having been carefully restored by the current owners, No Man's and Spitbank Fort represent exceptional market value, each guided at £1m.

"Both offer an opportunity like no other; a waterfront location, up to 99,000sq ft of space and a chance to champion the heritage and legacy of these iconic maritime structures."

The auction takes place on 18 June.

The BBC's content arm is among the suitors vying to buy the television production company which owns the rights to The Gruffalo.

Sky News has learnt that BBC Studios is participating in a sale process for Magic Light Pictures, which has won three BAFTAs and secured a quartet of Oscar nominations.

The auction is being run by Gotham Street, a specialist media deals boutique.

A number of other bidders are also said to be involved in the process given the quality of Magic Light's content library, which includes a number of works by The Gruffalo's creators, Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.

The Gruffalo has become one of Britain's best-known children's characters, telling the story of an adventurous mouse that fends off a series of would-be predators by telling them about a supposedly imaginary creature called a gruffalo.

In the 2011 sequel, The Gruffalo's Child, the mouse then scares off a young gruffalo by using shadows to project a giant version of itself.

The two films have been distributed internationally by Magic Light, and along with the original Gruffalo books have sparked substantial merchandising revenues as well as a theme park attraction at Chessington World of Adventures.

The woman alleged to be the inspiration for the stalker in hit Netflix series Baby Reindeer is suing the streaming platform for $170m (£133m).

The show is said to be based on the real-life experiences of writer Richard Gadd, who plays himself as he copes with stalker Martha Scott.

Fiona Harvey, 58, claims she is the inspiration for Martha, who begins stalking Gadd after he serves her a free cup of tea in the pub where he works.

In the lawsuit, Ms Harvey has accused Netflix of spreading "brutal lies", including that she is a "twice convicted stalker who was sentenced to five years in prison".

"Defendants told these lies, and never stopped, because it was a better story than the truth, and better stories made money," it states.

"As a result of defendants' lies, malfeasance and utterly reckless misconduct, Harvey's life had been ruined."

Sky News's US partner network NBC News reports the lawsuit described the show's claim "this is a true story" as "the biggest lie in television history".

"Netflix destroyed a woman, claiming, among many allegations, that she was a convicted woman," Richard Roth, a lawyer for Ms Harvey, wrote in an email.

"It never contacted her. It never checked the facts. It never made any effort to understand the truth of its 'true story!'"

The lawsuit seeks actual damages and compensatory damages at $50m (£39m) each, punitive damages at $20m (£16m); as well as "all profits" from Baby Reindeer at $50m (£39m).

A Netflix spokesperson told Sky News: "We intend to defend this matter vigorously and to stand by Richard Gadd's right to tell his story."

Administrators to The Body Shop are aiming to clinch a sale of the stricken cosmetics retailer by the end of the month, even as its former owner veers away from making an offer for it.

Sky News' city editor Mark Kleinman has learnt that FRP Advisory, which was appointed to handle the chain's insolvency in January, has asked for indicative bids by next Tuesday.

British entrepreneur Mike Lynch has been cleared of all charges by a US jury in the high-profile fraud case related to the sale of his software company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011.

Dr Lynch, who was extradited to the US to face trial just over a year ago, was acquitted alongside a former finance executive Stephen Chamberlain who had faced the same charges.

They were accused of conspiracy and attempted fraud over the £8.3bn sale to HP - a deal that has been the subject of costly legal action since.

Labour is promising to get more young people on the housing ladder as it announces its "freedom to buy" scheme on Friday.

The party is pledging to make the existing mortgage guarantee scheme - which sees the government act as a guarantor for people unable to save big deposits - into a permanent fixture if it wins the election on 4 July.

Meanwhile, the Tories are promising a tax cut for parents by raising the threshold for when families have to pay a levy on their child benefit.

The current system means if either parents or a parent's partner earns more than £60,000, they begin paying the high income child benefit tax charge, and lose the benefit altogether when a salary hits £80,000.

But if the Tories win the election on 4 July, they have promised to increase the threshold to £120,000 before any tax is paid, and to £160,000 before the benefit is withdrawn, as well as base it on a household income, rather than an individual.

If you missed out on the general sales but want to bag yourself a last-minute ticket to Taylor Swift's show in Edinburgh tonight , it could set you back a whopping £4,000.

Not to fear, however, as it is currently possible to land yourself a ticket for as little as £271 - if you settle for a somewhat restricted view.

We've checked resale giant Viagogo for the latest prices, accurate as of 10.30am.

As is often the case with popular tours listed on resale sites, many of the tickets are sold individually - so if you're happy to go alone tonight, you're more likely to get a ticket.

For context, a ticket at general sale cost somewhere between £80-£160 depending on where you sit/stand.

As it stands, the cheapest seat with an unrestricted view of the stage is currently up for sale at £323.

Just one ticket is up for £271, but has a "restricted view".

Bringing a crowd

If you're looking to take someone with you, the cheapest pair of tickets without any restricted view will cost you a combined £1,706.

However, if you're happy with a restricted or limited view, you can pay the cheaper price of £538 for the pair (£269 each).

You can buy up to four tickets in the same area for £303 each (£1,212 together) for a restricted view, or £555 each (£2,220 together) for an unobstructed view of the stage.

Getting closer to the action

Standing tickets are much sought after given their proximity to the stage.

As alluded to at the top of this post, one frankly optimistic reseller has listed four general admission tickets for a staggering £4,256 each (in the "floor" section shown in the map below).

However, you can get even closer - with one ticket remaining in the separate section to the left of the stage at £651 and another to the right at £559.

A word of caution

Ticket resale sites, including Viagogo, have previously been accused of "ripping off" consumers amid concerns customers could be turned away at venues because of restrictions on some resold tickets.

The company was told in 2019 that it was required to make a number of changes to the way it collects and presents information about tickets on its site.

It has since pledged to be compliant with UK watchdogs and now offers a "100% order guarantee [which] covers both buyers and sellers".

If you're happy paying over the odds for last-minute tickets, make sure you're buying through a site with such a guarantee and always beware of scams!

House prices in the UK dropped by 0.1% between April and May, data from mortgage lender Halifax shows.

Analysts had expected a drop of around 0.2%, while last week, rival lender Nationwide said its measure of house prices rose in May after falling in the previous two months.

In the 12 months to May, prices rose by 1.5%, Halifax said - faster than the median forecast in a Reuters news agency poll for an annual increase of 1.2%.

"Market activity remained resilient throughout the spring months, supported by strong nominal wage growth and some evidence of an improvement in confidence about the economic outlook," Halifax's head of mortgages, Amanda Bryden, said.

The stable picture for property prices over the last three months was likely to give more confidence to buyers and sellers, she added.

Sir Keir Starmer will shortly promise to get more young people on the housing ladder as Labour announces its "freedom to buy" policy.

We've now got some reaction from business leaders, who've been speaking to Newspage.

Justin Moy, managing director at EHF Mortgages, was not impressed.

"Freedom to buy looks great on the first read, but then you realise it’s actually been in place since 2021 and many lenders don't use it anyway," he said.

"Labour are effectively promoting something that already exists and isn't used," he added.

Andrew Montlake, managing director at Coreco, disagreed, saying it marked a "promising" first offering from Labour.

"This can allow lenders to take a longer-term approach in their offerings and ensure that competitive products are continually available for those with lower deposits.

"Whilst it doesn't solve the long-term housing issues overnight, Labour have at least shown they understand them and have already shown they are willing to speak and engage with those on the front lines, which is more promising for the housing market as a whole should the next government be a red one."

However, many more had a negative outlook.

Lewis Shaw, owner of Shaw Financial Services, was scathing in his assessment, saying: "This policy is about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

"Prior to the pandemic, 95% loan-to-value mortgage lending was the norm.

"It happened without any political interference or putting the taxpayer on the hook - has everyone forgotten that?

"If Labour really wants to help young people buy a home, then do the things that we all know are needed: Tax the super-rich, reduce wealth inequality and build more houses. It's not rocket science."

Katy Eatenton, mortgage and protection specialist at Lifetime Wealth Management, said it was "yet another scheme with no real substance", which was echoed by Stephen Perkins, managing director at Yellow Brick Mortgages.

"This policy will not hugely impact the property market," he said.

Shortly, we're expecting Sir Keir Starmer to promise to get more young people on the housing ladder as Labour announces its "freedom to buy".

He's set to speak in the coming hours.

The party will pledge to make the existing mortgage guarantee scheme - which sees the government act as a guarantor for people unable to save big deposits - into a permanent fixture if it wins the election on 4 July.

Sir Keir will also commit to an overhaul of the planning system, including reintroducing housing targets, claiming his measures will see 1.5 million more homes built over the next five years.

Among the planning changes, the party will promise to tax foreign buyers "pricing out young people" from the housing market in order to pay for new planning officers, which it claims will help increase projects being signed off.

It will bring back house-build targets - scrapped by the Tories in 2022 - as well as fast-track permissions to build on brownfield sites, and reform compulsory purchase orders to "stop speculators frustrating housebuilding".

They will also promise to offer "first dibs" on new developments to local people looking for a home and reiterate their pledge to create "the next generation" of new towns.

Read more in our dedicated Politics Hub :

GAME are set to end their long-running rewards programme on 31 July and have urged customers to use their remaining credit whilst they still can.

Both the company's standard GAME Reward scheme and their Elite membership tier will cease to exist, while no further reward points will be earned from purchases made in store or online after July 15.

You can currently redeem 400 reward points for £1 off of a purchase. The end of GAME Elite will mean the end of its monthly offers and prize draws. Any outstanding paid Elite membership months will be eligible for a refund.

"We would strongly urge you to redeem your GAME reward points prior to the closure date on purchases in store or online to avoid disappointment," said GAME.

"After the closure date, GAME reward points will be reset to zero and the GAME reward account will be closed, you will no longer be able to access it and you will no longer be able to redeem your GAME reward points."

The end of GAME's reward programme is the latest move from the company to make changes to their business model.

The chain has already closed several of their own bespoke high street stores and instead taken up residence within Sports Direct and other Fraser Group outlets.

By Sarah Taaffe-Maguire , business reporter

We've now had the first interest rate cut in the UK, US and EU for years.

Yesterday the European Central Bank (ECB) brought down the cost of borrowing in the countries using the euro - the first reduction since 2019.

Sterling stayed roughly where it has been against the euro for the last two weeks - one pound buys more euro than it has done for most of the last year, €1.1740.

Oil prices have ticked up through the week but are still just below $80 a barrel for Brent crude, the benchmark price.

That's cheaper than the vast majority of this year and good news for motorists.

Signs of stabilisation can be seen in the housing market with the news that house prices fell just 0.1% in May, equivalent to a £170 drop in the average house, according to mortgage lender Halifax.

But renting is still becoming more expensive, just at a slightly slower rate than before, according to property portal Zoopla.

The average rent costs £80 more a month compared with a year earlier.

Higher housing costs have also shown through in a market update from British homebuilder Bellway, which said it expects to sell houses at a higher price point than it previously thought.

The company is a constituent of the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) 250 index of 101st to 350th most valuable companies on the London Stock Exchange which is down 0.22% this morning.

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