ABSTRACT
Annual reports must feature recent financial information, a year-to-year comparison of financial figures, a description of the organization's upper-level management and a discussion of the company's goals. The legally specified audience for an annual report is a company's stockholders. However, the larger audience includes potential investors, investment analysts, financial journalists, employees, potential employees and government regulators. Some non-profit organizations issue annual reports to inform donors and attract potential donors. The traditional medium for an annual report remains paper and downloadable PDFs, which often look like glossy magazines—but many companies, such as Coca-Cola, also offer annual reports as multimedia websites. The format of an annual report defies concise description. Again, most annual reports have the format and appearance of a glossy magazine: an attractive cover, a table of contents, sections with titles and dozens of pages with type, photographs and charts. Most annual reports close with information about the board of directors and other high-ranking company officials.
