Business Report Format

By: Deon Melchior


Where To Start

You many work a lot to write a report the best way possible. But, after putting all that energy and time in writing it, you discover that those you made it for are hardly interested in the quality of your papers. Why do they do that? The answer is simple: they do not have the necessary time to read it all and they are interested only in some aspects. Most readers will concentrate on the summary, the conclusions and the recommendations.

Some specialists may be interested in reading your report carefully. But most people will not bother to do that. They have interest in only two things when they read your report: that the information they need is easy to find and that is clearly written so they can understand it.

Make an analogy with reading a newspaper. When you open a newspaper, you expect the headlines to be on the front page, the sports page on the back, and other areas of interests in their rightful places. If once, you do not find them where they supposed to be, you will be forced to look for them, an experience that may get you irritated and frustrated. It is a normal reaction that the report readers may experience it as well.

Follow the convention about the order of elements in your report. There is no place to make innovation. Your report will end up in the trash can if you ignore these simple requirements.

The Standard Sections

First, you begin with the title section. If it is a short report, it will include only the front page; for a longer one, you must put here Terms of Reference, Table of Contents and so on. Do not neglect the Summary. It is an important section of your report. Many people, especially senior managers, are not interested in reading all the report. They will concentrate on the Summary, expecting to see there all the main points, the main conclusions and the main recommendations. It is advisable to write this part as a stand alone document. Also, keep the language you use as simple as possible, so anybody can read it and understand it. Avoid copying the points for the Summary directly form the report as it does not work too well.

When making the introduction, concentrate on the background of the problem attacked in your report. Explain why the report is important for the readers. Use simple words and explain how the content of the report is arranged.

Then you pass to the report itself or the main body. Use sections and sub-sections with own subtitles to make this part easy to read. Here you must place the facts and everything that you want to communicate about the subject of the report.

The main body will mostly be read by experts so here you can use the professional jargon. Proceed with care. Arrange the elements in order of priority so the reader follows a logical path when going through your report. You must apply this rule in every section of your report.

A discussion section can be included if you want to show the readers why your findings about the subject are important.

After these sections, it is time for conclusions. Present them in plain English as many people will be interested in reading them. Offer some solutions to the problem. Keep this section short if you already included a discussion section.

Finally, state your recommendations. After working so hard to identify the problems, do not neglect your role of providing recommendations. Explain them in simple terms and in order of their priority.

The report ends with the appendices. Here, you must stock all the information needed by specialists. Include all the details that support your argumentations, but only if they are not already included in the main body of the report.

Final Conclusions and Recommendations

Keep in mind that your readers want to find all the needed information in the traditional places. Do not make their job hard, they will ignore your report and toss it away.

In order to avoid your report ending in the trash can, make use of the generally accepted format which includes: Summary, Introduction, Main Body, Conclusions, Recommendations and Appendices. Then, put things in every section in the order of their priority. Make everything look logic so the readers will find all they need and in the form they understand best.


Deon Melchior is the Editor and Publisher of Article Click. For more FREE articles for your ezine and websites visit - www.articleclick.com