Kickstarting your annual report and accounts 2026
Purpose, people, and planning
For many organisations, December year-end means one thing: Annual Report and Accounts (ARA) season is approaching.
By March and April, you'll be announcing financial results and releasing one of the most important documents you produce each year.
The 2024 Governance Code encourages companies to focus on outcomes-based reporting—showing how board decisions link to the company’s strategy and stakeholder engagement.
But while reporting season is important, the day job doesn’t stop. Teams are stretched thin; deadlines loom and the pressure to get everything right can feel overwhelming.
This creates three major risks:
1. Compliance issues: Changes to regulations or governance codes get missed leading to false disclosures.
You can’t ensure you’re disclosing the right information in your annual report and accounts document if you don’t have the most up to date detail.
Never fear, we’ve pulled everything you need to know on recent disclosures in this handy downloadable document.
2. Last-minute chaos: Deadlines slip, signoffs are rushed, and quality suffers. Financial strain occurs due to the cost of additional human resource.
3. Flat reporting: Stakeholder messaging lacks clarity and impact and it no longer becomes the valuable tool it could be.
And while it might be tempting to lean on AI to speed things up, it’s rarely the magic “solve-all” it appears to be:
AI often misinterprets tone and nuance in governance language.
It can create plausible but incorrect content, risking reputational damage.
It won’t capture your organisation’s unique story or strategy.
The solution? Start early, with clarity.
Round Governance Services Ltd have years of experience helping businesses like yours with their ARA document.
We remove pressure on internal teams by project managing the process, drafting content and ensuring all disclosures have been captured. Find out more.
Step 1: Ask the right questions
Your annual report has become more than regulatory disclosures. As much as it might irk some of you (us included), it’s actually a strategic storytelling document and the Government tells us that it wants you to disclose material strategic disclosures and to those ends it is a vital tool for engaging shareholders, regulators, employees, and future investors.
Before you even begin drafting, take time to align your decision makers and internal teams around these three critical questions:
1. What story do we want to tell this year?
Your ARA is an opportunity to:
Communicate how your company’s strategy, culture, and purpose drive long-term value.
Share the progress you’ve made and outline future priorities.
Reassure stakeholders of your organisation’s stability and vision.
Ask yourself:
What do we want stakeholders to think and feel after reading our report?
Are we clearly linking our purpose to our performance?
Does our narrative reflect our culture and values as well as our financials?
2. Which stakeholders must we address?
The ARA has multiple audiences, each with different needs:
Investors and analysts seeking clarity and confidence.
Employees looking for transparency and inclusion.
Communities, regulators, and future talent assessing your organisation’s impact.
We find that mapping these audiences early ensures your messaging is inclusive and relevant and avoids siloed content that confuses or alienates key groups.
3. Which governance rules or reporting requirements have changed since last year?
Every year, there are updates to governance codes, financial reporting standards, and regulatory requirements.
Examples include:
UK SRS 2 Climate-related Disclosures (which incorporate the TCFD disclosures)
The updated FRC UK Corporate Governance Code 2024.
Failing to address these early can result in last-minute scrambles, costly rework, and even audit scrutiny.
“Clarity now avoids chaos later.” – Kerry Round
Why this matters:
When you start with clarity on purpose, audience, and compliance, you set the stage for a smooth, successful reporting season.
Round resource: Print this and write down the key messages you want to include in the ARA for the following areas and refer to where in the report you’ll be including this content. This is a handy tool we use to control narrative.
Step 2: Teamwork makes the reporting process work
Even the clearest purpose will fail without the right team to deliver it.
ARA preparation is a cross-functional project involving multiple departments and collaborating with the following teams/roles is key:
Governance / Company Secretariat
Finance
Investor Relations
Legal / Compliance
Design
ESG / Sustainability teams
The key challenge? Governance crossover points — when it’s unclear who owns which content or approvals.
How to avoid confusion:
Map responsibilities early.
Assign clear ownership for every section of the report.
Identify shared responsibilities.
Some disclosures span departments — always collaboration, never duplication.
Create a reporting structure.
Define how drafts, reviews, and sign-offs will flow between teams.
Get this right and you’ll experience a smoother, faster process with fewer gaps, duplication errors, and bottlenecks.
Think of this stage as building your ARA “dream team.” When everyone knows their role, the project becomes far more efficient and less stressful.
Round recommends: Compile a directory that you can quickly refer to. Include all key sections and think who the internal and external stakeholders are.
We tend to start with the contents page from the previous year and go from there!
Step 3: Plan your timeline
Once your purpose is clear and your team is in place, it’s time to create a timeline.
A well-planned schedule is the single biggest factor in avoiding last-minute chaos.
Key milestones to include:
Board sign-offs: Schedule review dates well in advance.
Audit committee approvals: Build in time for back-and-forth discussions.
Regulatory announcements: Align with market deadlines.
Printing and publication: Allow extra time for design, proofing, and mailing.
RGS tip: Build buffer time into every stage to handle unexpected changes or delays.
Build these dates into your plan.
Team annual leave; religious holidays; bank holidays
Sign-offs; Include every single sign-off date and who’s responsible for it.
Key dates where the Board and audit committee members will have sight of the document
Verification process
Audit committee approval
Board approval
Results announcement
Production timeline. i.e. Dates the proof will be sent to the design agency
Print proofs
Mail out date (international mail out date)
Annual General Meeting (think - notice period)
The risk of leaving it too late
Without early planning, teams face a dangerous cycle: Deadlines collide → rushing content creation. Errors creep in → regulators or auditors flag issues. Stakeholders lose trust → reputational damage.
By contrast, when you align purpose, people, and planning, you get clarity because everyone knows what to do and when. You’re more likely to be compliant due to no missed regulatory updates. And, you’ll gain stakeholder confidence when they receive a high-quality, compelling report.
How RGS can help
At RGS, we make reporting season calm, compliant, and coherent. We take stress out of the process by managing workflows so your team isn’t overwhelmed, navigating complex governance and regulatory requirements to ensure nothing is missed, and creating reports that engage and inspire stakeholders while meeting necessary standards.
Our services include:
Drafting content for narrative sections.
Project management and timeline oversight.
Regulatory reviews and governance gap analysis.
Copywriting, proofing, and stakeholder workshops.
For an informal chat about how we work and how we can help you, please get in touch to arrange a discovery call.