report is a type of

What is Report Writing: Format, Examples, Types & Process

• Table of Contents

Many professionals struggle to create effective reports due to a lack of understanding of the essential elements and organization required. This can lead to frustration and a failure to communicate key information to the intended audience.

In this blog, we’ll explore what is report writing, the types of reports, essential elements, and tips for creating effective reports to help you communicate your message and achieve your goals.

Definition of report writing? 

According to Mary Munter and Lynn Hamilton, authors of “Guide to Managerial Communication,” report writing is “the process of selecting, organizing, interpreting, and communicating information to meet a specific objective.”

What is report writing? 

Report writing refers to the process of creating a document that represents information in a clear and concise manner. Reports can be written for various purposes, such as providing updates on a project, analyzing data or presenting findings, or making recommendations.

Effective report writing requires careful planning, research, analysis, and organization of information. A well-structured report should be accurate, and objective, and contain a clear introduction, body, and conclusion. It should also be written in a professional and accessible style, with appropriate use of headings, subheadings, tables, graphs, and other visual aids.

Overall, report writing is an important skill for professionals in many fields, as it helps to communicate information and insights in a clear and concise manner.

What is a report? 

A report is a formal document that is structured and presented in an organized manner, with the aim of conveying information, analyzing data, and providing recommendations. It is often used to communicate findings and outcomes to a specific audience, such as stakeholders, or managers. Reports can vary in length and format, but they usually contain a clear introduction, body, and conclusion.

What are the features of report writing

There are several key features of effective report writing that can help ensure that the information presented is clear, concise, and useful. Some of these features include:

1/ Clarity: Reports should be written in clear and concise language, avoiding jargon or technical terms that may be confusing to the reader. 

2/ Objectivity: A report should be objective, meaning that it should be free from bias or personal opinions. This is particularly important when presenting data or analysis.

3/ Accuracy: Reports should be based on reliable sources and accurate data. Information should be verified and cross-checked to ensure that it is correct and up-to-date.

4/ Structure: A report should be structured in a logical and organized manner, with clear headings, subheadings, and sections. 

5/ Visual aids: A report may include visual aids such as charts, tables, and graphs, which can help to illustrate the key points and make the information easier to understand.

6/ Evidence: Reports should include evidence to support any claims or findings, such as statistics, quotes, or references to relevant literature.

7/ Recommendations: Many reports include recommendations or suggestions for future action based on the findings or analysis presented.

Significance of report writing

Report writing is a critical skill that can have a significant impact on individuals, and organizations. In fact, a report by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that the ability to communicate effectively, including report writing, was the most important skill sought by employers.

• Reports provide decision-makers with the information they need to make informed decisions.
• Effective report writing demonstrates professionalism and attention to detail, which can help to build trust and credibility with clients.
• Reports can inform planning processes by providing data and insights that can be used to develop strategies and allocate resources.
• Reports often include recommendations or suggestions for future action, which can help to improve processes, procedures, or outcomes.

Further Reading: What is the significance of report writing

Types of report writing

By understanding the different types of report writing, individuals can select the appropriate format and structure to effectively communicate information and achieve their objectives. However, the kind of report used will depend on the purpose, audience, and context of the report.

1/ Informational reports: These reports provide information about a topic, such as a product, service, or process.

Further Reading : What is an information report

2/ Analytical reports: These reports present data or information in a structured and organized manner, often with charts, graphs, or tables, to help the reader understand trends, patterns, or relationships.

3/ Formal Reports: These are detailed and structured reports written for a specific audience, often with a specific objective. In comparison with informal reports , formal reports are typically longer and more complex than other types of reports. 

4/ Progress reports: These reports provide updates on a project or initiative, detailing the progress made and any challenges or obstacles encountered. 

5/ Technical reports: These reports provide technical information, such as specifications, designs, or performance data, often aimed at a technical audience.

6/ Research reports: These reports present the findings of research conducted on a particular topic or issue, often including a literature review, data analysis, and conclusions.

7/ Feasibility Report: A feasibility report assesses the likelihood of achieving success for a suggested project or initiative.

8/ Business Reports: These reports are used in a business setting to communicate information about a company’s performance, operations, or strategies. Different types of business reports include financial statements, marketing reports, and annual reports.

Structure of report writing 

The structure of a report refers to the overall organization and layout of the report, including the sections and subsections that make up the report, their order, and their relationships to each other. A report can we divided into three parts. 

Preliminary Parts:

• Acknowledgments (Preface or Foreword)
• List of Tables and Illustrations
• Introduction (clear statement of research objectives, background information, hypotheses, methodology, statistical analysis, scope of study, limitations)
• Statement of findings and recommendations (summarized findings, non-technical language)
• Results (detailed presentation of findings with supporting data in the form of tables and charts, statistical summaries, and reductions of data, presented in a logical sequence)
• Implications of the results (clearly stated implications that flow from the results of the study)
• Summary (brief summary of the research problem, methodology, major findings, and major conclusions)

End Matter:

• Appendices (technical data such as questionnaires, sample information, and mathematical derivations)
• Bibliography of sources consulted.

This structure provides a clear and organized framework for presenting a research report, ensuring that all important information is included and presented in a logical and easy-to-follow manner.

Extra Learnings Role of a report structure in report writing  The report structure plays a crucial role in report writing as it provides a clear and organized framework for presenting information in an effective and logical manner. It ensures that the reader can easily understand the purpose and scope of the report, locate and access the relevant information.  The preliminary parts of the report, provide an overview of the report and aid navigation. The main text makes it easier for the reader to comprehend and analyze the information. And The end matter provides additional details and sources for reference. An organized report structure also helps the author to communicate their research and ideas effectively to the intended audience.

What is the report writing format? 

The format of report writing refers to the structure of a formal document that provides information on a particular topic or issue. The format typically includes several components that must be there in the report to provide specific subjects in an organized and structured format. 

8 Essential elements of report writing are: 

1/ Title page: This includes the title of the report, the author’s name, the date of submission, and other relevant information.

2/ Table of contents: The table of contents lists the report’s primary sections and subsections, together with their corresponding page numbers.

3/ Executive summary: An executive summary gives a concise summary of the report, emphasizing the significant conclusions and recommendations.

4/ Introduction: This provides background information on the topic or issue, explains the purpose and scope of the report, and outlines the methodology used.

5/ Main body: This is where the bulk of the information is presented, usually divided into several sections and sub-sections. The main body may include data, analysis, and discussion of the topic or issue.

6/ Conclusion: This Summarizes the primary discoveries of the report and offers conclusions or recommendations accordingly.

7/ References: This lists the sources cited in the report, following a particular citation style such as APA, MLA, or Chicago.

8/ Appendices: This includes any additional materials such as charts, tables, graphs, or other supporting data.

The specific format and structure of a report may vary depending on the purpose, audience, and type of report.

Report writing examples and samples

Example of Progress Report

The essential process of report writing

Report writing requires careful planning, organization, and analysis to ensure that the report effectively communicates the intended message to the audience. Here are the general steps involved in the process of report writing:

Plan and prepare:

• Identify the purpose of the report, the target audience, and the scope of the report.
• Collect and examine data from different sources, including research studies, surveys, or interviews.
• Create an outline of the report, including headings and subheadings.

Write the introduction:

• Start with a brief summary of the report and its purpose.
• Provide background information and context for the report.
• Explain the research methodology and approach used.

Write the main body:

• Divide the report into logical sections, each with a clear heading.
• Present the findings and analysis of the research in a clear and organized manner.
• Use appropriate visual aids, such as tables, graphs, or charts to present data and information.
• Utilize a language that is both clear and Brief, and avoid using unnecessary jargon or technical terminology.
• Cite all sources used in the report according to a specified citation style.

Write the conclusion:

• Summarize the main findings and conclusions of the report.
• Restate the purpose of the report and how it was achieved.
• Provide recommendations or suggestions for further action, if applicable.

Edit and revise:

• Review the report for errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
• Check that all information is accurate and up-to-date.
• Revise and improve the report as necessary.

Format and present:

• Use a professional and appropriate format for the report.
• Include a title page, table of contents, and list of references or citations.
• Incorporate headings, subheadings, and bullet points to enhance the report’s readability and facilitate navigation.
• Use appropriate fonts and sizes, and ensure that the report is well-structured and visually appealing.

Important Principles of report writing

To write an effective report, it is important to follow some basic principles. These principles ensure that your report is clear, concise, accurate, and informative. In this regard, here are some of the key principles that you should keep in mind when writing a report:

1/ Clarity: The report should be clear and easy to understand. 

2/ Completeness: The report should cover all the relevant information needed to understand the topic

3/ Conciseness: A report should be concise, presenting only the information that is relevant and necessary to the topic. 

4/ Formatting: The report should be properly formatted, with consistent fonts, spacing, and margins

5/ Relevance: The information presented in the report should be relevant to the purpose of the report.

6/ Timeliness: The report should be completed and delivered in a timely manner.

7/ Presentation: The report should be visually appealing and well-presented.

Extra Learnings Styles of report writing When it comes to the style of report writing, it’s important to use hard facts and figures, evidence, and justification. Using efficient language is crucial since lengthy reports with too many words are difficult to read. The most effective reports are easy and quick to read since the writer has comprehended the data and formulated practical recommendations. To achieve this, it’s important to write as you speak, avoid empty words, use descending order of importance, use an active voice, and keep sentences short. The goal should be to write to express and not to impress the reader.  It’s also important to get facts 100% right and to be unbiased and open. By following these tips, one can create a well-written report that is easy to understand and provides valuable insights.

Differences between a report and other forms of writing

Reports are a specific form of writing that serves a distinct purpose and have unique characteristics. Unlike other forms of writing, such as essays or fiction, reports are typically focused on presenting factual information and making recommendations based on that information. Below we have differentiated report writing with various other forms of writing.

Essay vs report writing

Project writing vs report writing, research methodology vs report writing, article writing vs report writing, content writing vs report writing, business plan vs report writing, latest topics for report writing in 2023.

The possibilities for report topics may depend on the goals and scope of the report. The key is to choose a topic that is relevant and interesting to your audience, and that you can conduct thorough research on in order to provide meaningful insights and recommendations.  

• A market analysis for a new product or service. 
• An evaluation of employee satisfaction in a company. 
• A review of the state of cybersecurity in a particular industry. 
• A study of the prevalence and consequences of workplace discrimination. 
• Analysis of the environmental impact of a particular industry or company. 
• An assessment of the impact of new technology or innovations on a particular industry or sector. 

Report writing skills and techniques 

Effective report writing requires a combination of skills and techniques to communicate information and recommendations in a clear, and engaging manner.

From organizing information to tailoring the report to the intended audience, there are many factors to consider when writing a report. By mastering these skills and techniques, you can ensure that your report is well-written, informative, and engaging for your audience. Some of the primary ones are: 

1/ Organization and structure: Structure your report in a logical and organized manner with headings and subheadings.

2/ Use of data and evidence: Present objective data and evidence to support your findings and recommendations.

3/ Audience awareness: Tailor your report to the needs and interests of your intended audience.

4/ Effective visuals: Use graphs, charts, or other visuals to communicate complex information in a clear and engaging way.

5/ Editing and proofreading: Carefully edit and proofread your report to ensure it is error-free and professional.

6/ Tone: Use a professional and objective tone to communicate your findings and recommendations.

7/ Time management: Manage your time effectively to ensure you have enough time to research, write, and revise your report.

Tips for effective report writing

• Understand your audience before you start writing. 
• Start with an outline and cover all the important points. 
• Employ clear and concise language.
• Utilize headings and subheadings to organize your report.
• Incorporate evidence and examples to support your points.
• Thoroughly edit and proofread your report before submission.
• Follow formatting guidelines If your report has specific formatting requirements.
• Use visuals to enhance understanding.

What is the ethical consideration involved in report writing 

Ethical considerations play a crucial role in report writing. The accuracy of the information presented in the report is of utmost importance, as it forms the basis for any conclusions or recommendations that may be made. In addition, it is essential to avoid plagiarism by giving credit to the original sources of information and ideas. 

Another crucial ethical consideration is confidentiality, particularly when the report contains sensitive or confidential information. It is important to safeguard this information and prevent its disclosure to unauthorized individuals.

Avoiding bias in report writing is also crucial, as it is essential to present information in an objective and unbiased manner. In cases where research or data collection is involved, obtaining informed consent from human subjects is a necessary ethical requirement.

By taking these ethical considerations into account, report writers can ensure that their work is fair, accurate, and respectful to all parties involved.

Common mistakes in report writing 

There are several common mistakes that students and report writers make in report writing. By avoiding these common mistakes, students as well as report writers can create effective and impactful reports that are clear, accurate, and objective.

1/ Writing in the first person: Often, students and report writers commit an error by writing in the first person and utilizing words such as “I” or “me. In reports, it is recommended to write impersonally, using the passive voice instead.

2/ Using the wrong format: Reports should use numbered headings and subheadings to structure the content, while essays should have a clear line of argument in their content.

3/ Failing to introduce the content: The introduction of the report should introduce the content of the report, not the subject for discussion. It is important to explain the scope of the report and what is to follow, rather than explaining what a certain concept is.

4/ Missing relevant sections: Students and report writers, often miss out on including relevant sections that were specified in the assignment instructions, such as a bibliography or certain types of information. This can result in poor interpretation.

5/ Poor proofreading: Finally, not spending enough time proofreading the reported work can create unwanted mistakes. Therefore, It is important to proofread and correct errors multiple times before submitting the final report to avoid any mistakes that could have been easily corrected.

By avoiding these common mistakes, students and report writers can improve the quality of their reports. 

What are some challenges of report writing and how to overcome them

Report writing can be a challenging task for many reasons. Here are some common challenges of report writing and how to overcome them:

1/ Lack of clarity on the purpose of the report: To overcome this challenge, it is important to clearly define the purpose of the report before starting. This can help to focus the content of the report and ensure that it meets the needs of the intended audience.

2/ Difficulty in organizing ideas: Reports often require a significant amount of information to be organized in a logical and coherent manner. To overcome this challenge, it can be helpful to create an outline or flowchart to organize ideas before beginning to write.

3/ Time management: Writing a report can be time-consuming, and it is important to allow sufficient time to complete the task. To overcome this challenge, it can be helpful to create a timeline or schedule for the various stages of the report-writing process.

4/ Writer’s block: Sometimes writers may experience writer’s block, making it difficult to start or continue writing the report. To overcome this challenge, it can be helpful to take a break, engage in other activities or brainstorming sessions to generate new ideas.

5/ Difficulty in citing sources: It is important to properly cite sources used in the report to avoid plagiarism and maintain credibility. To overcome this challenge, it can be helpful to use citation management tools, such as EndNote or Mendeley, to keep track of sources and ensure accurate referencing.

6/ Review and editing: Reviewing and editing a report can be a challenging task, especially when it is one’s own work. To overcome this challenge, it can be helpful to take a break before reviewing the report and seek feedback from others to gain a fresh perspective.

By being aware of these challenges and taking proactive steps to overcome them, report writers can create effective and impactful reports that meet the needs of their intended audience.

Best Software for writing reports 

Report writing software has made it easier for writers to produce professional-looking reports with ease. These software tools offer a range of features and functionalities, including data visualization, collaboration, and customization options. In this section, we will explore some of the best report-writing software available:

1/ Tableau : This tool is great for creating interactive and visually appealing reports, as it allows users to easily create charts, graphs, and other data visualizations. It also supports data blending, which means that you can combine data from multiple sources to create more comprehensive reports.

2/ Zoho reporting : This tool is designed to help users create and share professional-looking reports quickly and easily. It offers a variety of customizable templates, as well as a drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy to add data and create charts and graphs.

3/ Bold Reports by Syncfusion : This tool is designed specifically for creating reports in .NET applications. It offers a wide range of features, including interactive dashboards, real-time data connectivity, and customizable themes and templates.

4/  Fast Reports : This tool is a reporting solution for businesses of all sizes. It allows users to create reports quickly and easily using a drag-and-drop interface and offers a variety of templates and customization options. It also supports a wide range of data sources, including databases, spreadsheets, and web services.

Further Reading : 10+ Best Report Writing Software and Tools in 2023

What is the conclusion of report writing

The conclusion of report writing is the final section of the report that summarizes the main findings, conclusions, and recommendations. It should tie together all the different sections of the report and present a clear and concise summary of the key points. 

THE UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE has given an inverted introduction framework that can use used for writing effective conclusions for reports. 

Example of conclusion in report writing:

The implication of the above diagram can be explained with the following example:  

1. RETURN TO TOPIC:

Social media has revolutionized the marketing landscape, providing new opportunities for brands to connect with their target audience.

2. RESTATE THESIS:

However, the complexities and limitations of social media mean that it is unlikely to completely replace traditional marketing methods. The role of the marketing professional remains crucial in ensuring that social media strategies align with the company’s overall goals and effectively reach the desired audience.

3. SUMMARY OF IDEAS DISCUSSED:

Automated tools cannot fully account for the nuances of human communication or provide the level of personalization that consumers crave. Therefore, the most effective marketing strategies will likely blend social media tactics with traditional marketing channels.

4. CONCLUDING STATEMENT [restating thesis]:

In conclusion, while social media presents significant opportunities for brands, the expertise of marketing professionals is still essential to creating successful campaigns that achieve desired outcomes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1) what is report writing and example.

Ans: Report writing involves preparing a structured document that delivers information to a particular audience in a clear and systematic manner. An example of a report could be a business report analyzing the financial performance of a company and making recommendations for improvement.

Q2) What is report writing and types of reports?

Ans: The act of presenting information in an orderly and structured format is known as report writing. Reports come in different types, such as analytical reports, research reports, financial reports, progress reports, incident reports, feasibility reports, and recommendation reports.

Q3) What are the 5 steps of report writing

The five steps of report writing, are as follows:

• Planning: This involves defining the purpose of the report, determining the audience, and conducting research to gather the necessary information.
• Structuring: This step involves deciding on the structure of the report, such as the sections and subsections, and creating an outline.
• Writing: This is the stage where the actual writing of the report takes place, including drafting and revising the content.
• Reviewing: In this step, the report is reviewed for accuracy, coherence, and effectiveness, and any necessary changes are made.
• Presenting: This final step involves presenting the report in a clear and professional manner, such as through the use of headings, visuals, and a table of contents.

Q4) What is a report in short answer? 

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A Guide To The Top 14 Types Of Reports With Examples Of When To Use Them

Table of Contents

1) What Is The Report Definition?

2) Top 14 Types Of Reports

3) What Does A Report Look Like?

4) What To Look For In A Reporting Tool

Businesses have been producing reports forever. No matter what role or industry you work in, chances are that you have been faced with the task of generating a tedious report to show your progress or performance.

While reporting has been a common practice for many decades, the business world keeps evolving, and with more competitive industries, the need to generate fast and accurate reports becomes critical. This presents a problem for many modern organizations today, as building reports can take from hours to days. In fact, a survey about management reports performed by Deloitte says that 50% of managers are unsatisfied with the speed of delivery and the quality of the reports they receive. 

With this issue in mind, several BI tools have been developed to assist businesses in generating interactive reports with just a few clicks, enhancing the way companies make critical decisions and service insights from their most valuable data.

But, with so many types of reports used daily, how can you know when to use them effectively? How can you push yourself ahead of the pack with the power of information? Here, we will explore the 14 most common types of reports in business and provide some examples of when to use them to your brand-boosting advantage. In addition, we will see how online dashboards have overthrown the static nature of classic reports and given way to a much faster, more interactive way of working with data.

Let’s get started with a brief report definition.

What Is The Report Definition?

A report is a document that presents relevant business information in an organized and understandable format. Each report is aimed at a specific audience and business purpose, and it summarizes the development of different activities based on goals and objectives.  

That said, there are various types of reports that can be used for different purposes. Whether you want to track the progress of your strategies or stay compliant with financial laws, there is a different report for each task. To help you identify when to use them, we will cover the top 14 most common report formats used for businesses today. 

What Are The Different Types Of Reports?

1. Informational Reports 

The first in our list of reporting types is informational reports. As their name suggests, this report type aims to give factual insights about a specific topic. This can include performance reports, expense reports, and justification reports, among others. A differentiating characteristic of these reports is their objectivity; they are only meant to inform but not propose solutions or hypotheses. Common informational reports examples are for performance tracking, such as annual, monthly, or weekly reports . 

2. Analytical Reports 

This report type contains a mix of useful information to facilitate the decision-making process through a mix of qualitative and quantitative insights as well as real-time and historical insights. Unlike informational reports that purely inform users about a topic, this report type also aims to provide recommendations about the next steps and help with problem-solving. With this information in hand, businesses can build strategies based on analytical evidence and not simple intuition. With the use of the right BI reporting tool , businesses can generate various types of analytical reports that include accurate forecasts via predictive analytics technologies. Let's look at it with an analytical report example.

**click to enlarge**

The example above is the perfect representation of how analytical reports can boost a business’s performance. By getting detailed information such as sales opportunities, a probability rate, as well as an accurate pipeline value forecast based on historical data, sales teams can prepare their strategies in advance, tackle any inefficiencies, and make informed decisions for increased efficiency. 

3. Operational Reports 

These reports track every pertinent detail of the company's operational tasks, such as its production processes. They are typically short-term reports as they aim to paint a picture of the present. Businesses use this type of report to spot any issues and define their solutions or to identify improvement opportunities to optimize their operational efficiency. Operational reports are commonly used in manufacturing, logistics, and retail as they help keep track of inventory, production, and costs, among others. 

4. Product Reports

As its name suggests, this report type is used to monitor several aspects related to product development. Businesses often use them to track which of their products or subscriptions are selling the most within a given time period, calculate inventories, or see what kind of product the client values the most. Another common use case of these reports is to research the implementation of new products or develop existing ones. Let’s see it in more detail with a visual example. 

The image above is a product report that shows valuable insights regarding usage intention, purchase intention, willingness to pay, and more. In this case, the report is based on the answers from a survey that aimed to understand how the target customer would receive a new product. Getting this level of insights through this report type is very useful for businesses as it allows them to make smart investments when it comes to new products as well as set realistic pricing based on their client’s willingness to pay. 

5. Industry Reports 

Next in our list of the most common kinds of reports, we have industry-specific reports. Typically, these reports provide an overview of a particular industry, market, or sector with definitions, key trends, leading companies, and industry size, among others. They are particularly useful for businesses that want to enter a specific industry and want to learn how competitive it is or for companies who are looking to set performance benchmarks based on average industry values. 

6. Department Reports

These reports are specific to each department or business function. They serve as a communication tool between managers and team members who must stay connected and work together for common goals. Whether it is the sales department, customer service, logistics, or finances, this specific report type helps track and optimize strategies on a deeper level. Let’s look at it with an example of a team performance report . 

The image above is a department report created with an online data analysis tool , and it tracks the performance of a support team. This insightful report displays relevant metrics such as the top-performing agents, net promoter score, and first contact resolution rate, among others. Having this information in hand not only helps each team member to keep track of their individual progress but also allows managers to understand who needs more training and who is performing at their best. 

7. Progress Reports

From the brunch of informational reports, progress reports provide critical information about the status of a project. These reports can be produced on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis by employees or managers to track performance and fine-tune tasks for the better development of the project. Progress reports are often used as visual materials to support meetings and discussions. A good example is a KPI scorecard . 

8. Internal Reports

A type of report that encompasses many others on this list, internal reports refer to any type of report that is used internally in a business. They convey information between team members and departments to keep communication flowing regarding goals and business objectives. 

As mentioned above, internal reports are useful communication tools to keep every relevant person in the organization informed and engaged. This healthcare report aims to do just that. By providing insights into the performance of different departments and areas of a hospital, such as in and outpatients, average waiting times, treatment costs, and more, healthcare managers can allocate resources and plan the schedule accurately, as well as monitor any changes or issues in real-time. 

9. External Reports

Although most of the reports types listed here are used for internal purposes, not all reporting is meant to be used behind closed doors. External reports are created to share information with external stakeholders such as clients or investors for budget or progress accountability, as well as to governmental bodies to stay compliant with the law requirements.

The image above is the perfect example of an external client report from an IT project. This insightful report provides a visual overview of every relevant aspect of the project's development. From deadlines, budget usage, completion stage, and task breakdown, clients can be fully informed and involved in the project. 

10. Vertical & Lateral Reports 

Next, in our rundown of types of reports, we have vertical and lateral reports. This reporting type refers to the direction in which a report travels. A vertical report is meant to go upward or downward the hierarchy, for example, a management report. A lateral report assists in organization and communication between groups that are at the same level of the hierarchy, such as the financial and marketing departments.

11. Research Reports

Without a doubt, one of the most vital reporting types for any modern business is centered on research. Being able to collect, collate, and drill down into insights based on key pockets of your customer base or industry will give you the tools to drive innovation while meeting your audience’s needs head-on.

The image above is a market research analytics report example for customer demographics. It serves up a balanced blend of metrics that will empower you to boost engagement as well as retention rates. Here, you can drill down into your audience’s behaviors, interests, gender, educational levels, and tech adoption life cycles with a simple glance.

What’s particularly striking about this dashboard is the fact that you can explore key trends in brand innovation with ease, gaining a working insight into how your audience perceives your business. This invaluable type of report will help you get under the skin of your consumers, driving growth and loyalty in the process.

12. Strategic Reports

Strategy is a vital component of every business, big or small. Strategic analytics tools are perhaps the broadest and most universal of all the different types of business reports imaginable.

These particular tools exist to help you understand, meet, and exceed your most pressing organizational goals consistently by serving up top-level metrics on a variety of initiatives or functions.

By working with strategic-style tools, you will:

• Improve internal motivation and engagement
• Refine your plans and strategies for the best possible return on investment (ROI)
• Enhance internal communication and optimize the way your various departments run
• Create more room for innovation and creative thinking

13. Project Reports

Projects are key to keeping a business moving in the right direction while keeping innovation and evolution at the forefront of every plan, communication, or campaign. But without the right management tools, a potentially groundbreaking project can become a resource-sapping disaster.

A project management report serves as a summary of a particular project's status and its various components. It's a visual tool that you can share with partners, colleagues, clients, and stakeholders to showcase your project's progress at multiple stages. Let’s look at our example and dig a little deeper.

To ensure consistent success across the board, the kinds of reports you must work with are based on project management. 

Our example is a project management dashboard equipped with a melting pot of metrics designed to improve the decision-making process while keeping every facet of your company’s most important initiatives under control. Here, you can spot pivotal trends based on costs, task statuses, margins, costs, and overall project revenue. With this cohesive visual information at your fingertips, not only can you ensure the smooth end-to-end running of any key project, but you can also drive increased operational efficiency as you move through every significant milestone.

14. Statutory Reports

It may not seem exciting or glamorous, but keeping your business's statutory affairs in order is vital to your ongoing commercial health and success.

When it comes to submitting such vital financial and non-financial information to official bodies, one small error can result in serious repercussions. As such, working with statutory types of report formats is a water-tight way of keeping track of your affairs and records while significantly reducing the risk of human error.

Armed with interactive insights and dynamic visuals, you will keep your records clean and compliant while gaining the ability to nip any potential errors or issues in the bud.

What Does A Report Look Like?

Now that we’ve covered the most relevant types of reports, we will answer the question: what does a report look like? 

As mentioned at the beginning of this insightful guide, static reporting is a thing of the past. With the rise of modern technologies like self-service BI tools , the use of interactive reports in the shape of business dashboards has become more and more popular among companies.

Unlike static reports that take time to be generated and are difficult to understand, modern reporting tools are intuitive. Their visual nature makes them easy to understand for any type of user, and they provide businesses with a central view of their most important performance indicators for an improved decision-making process. Here, we will cover 20 useful dashboard examples from different industries, functions, and platforms to put the value of dashboard reporting into perspective. 

1. Financial Report

Keeping finances in check is critical for success. This financial report offers an overview of the most important financial metrics that a business needs to monitor its economic activities and answer vital questions to ensure healthy finances. 

With insights about liquidity, invoicing, budgeting, and general financial stability, managers can extract long and short-term conclusions to reduce inefficiencies, make accurate forecasts about future performance, and keep the overall financial efficiency of the business flowing. For instance, getting a detailed calculation of the business's working capital can allow you to understand how liquid your company is. If it's higher than expected, it means you have the potential to invest and grow—definitely, one of the most valuable types of finance reports.

2. Marketing Report 

Our following example is a marketing report that ensures a healthy return on investment from your marketing efforts. This type of report offers a detailed overview of campaign performance over the last 12 weeks. Having access to this information enables you to maximize the value of your promotional actions, keeping your audience engaged by providing a targeted experience. 

For instance, you can implement different campaign formats as a test and then compare which one is most successful for your business. This is possible thanks to the monitoring of important marketing metrics such as the click-through rate (CTR), cost per click (CPC), cost per acquisition (CPA), and more. 

The visual nature of this report makes it easy to understand important insights at a glance. For example, the four gauge charts at the top show the total spending from all campaigns and how much of the total budget of each campaign has been used. In just seconds, you can see if you are on target to meet your marketing budgets for every single campaign. 

3. Sales Report

An intuitive sales dashboard like the one above is the perfect analytical tool to monitor and optimize sales performance. Armed with powerful high-level metrics, this report type is especially interesting for managers, executives, and sales VPs as it provides relevant information to ensure strategic and operational success. 

The value of this sales report lies in the fact that it offers a complete and comprehensive overview of relevant insights needed to make smart sales decisions. For instance, at the top of an analysis tool, you get important metrics such as the number of sales, revenue, profit, and costs, all compared to a set target and to the previous time period. The use of historical data is fundamental when building successful sales strategies as they provide a picture of what could happen in the future. Being able to filter the key metrics all in one screen is a key benefit of modern reporting. 

4. HR Report 

Our next example of a report is about human resources analytics . The HR department needs to track various KPIs for employee performance and effectiveness. But overall, they have to ensure that employees are happy and working in a healthy environment since an unhappy workforce can significantly damage an organization. This is all possible with the help of this intuitive dashboard. 

Providing a comprehensive mix of metrics, this employee-centric report drills down into every major element needed to ensure successful workforce management. For example, the top portion of the dashboard covers absenteeism in 3 different ways: yearly average, absenteeism rate with a target of 3.8%, and absenteeism over the last five years. Tracking absenteeism rates in detail is helpful as it can tell you if your employees are skipping work days. If the rate is over the expected target, then you have to dig deeper into the reasons and find sustainable solutions. 

On the other hand, the second part of the dashboard covers the overall labor effectiveness (OLE). This can be tracked based on specific criteria that HR predefined, and it helps them understand if workers are achieving their targets or if they need extra training or help. 

5. Management Report

Managers must monitor big amounts of information to ensure that the business is running smoothly. One of them being investor relationships. This management dashboard focuses on high-level metrics that shareholders need to look at before investing, such as the return on assets, return on equity, debt-equity ratio, and share price, among others. 

By getting an overview of these important metrics, investors can easily extract the needed information to make an informed decision regarding an investment in your business. For instance, the return on assets measures how efficiently are the company's assets being used to generate profit. With this information, investors can understand how effectively your company deploys available resources compared to others in the market. Another great indicator is the share price; the higher the increase in your share price, the more money your shareholders are making from their investment. 

6. IT Report 

Just like all the other departments and sections covered in this list, the IT department is one that can especially benefit from these types of reports. With so many technical issues to solve, the need for a visual tool to help IT specialists stay on track with their workload becomes critical. 

As seen in the image above, this IT dashboard offers detailed information about different system indicators. For starters, we get a visual overview of the status of each server, followed by a detailed graph displaying the uptime & downtime of each week. This is complemented by the most common downtown issues and some ticket management information. Getting this level of insight helps your IT staff to know what is happening and when it is happening and find proper solutions to prevent these issues from repeating themselves. Keeping constant track of these metrics will ensure robust system performance. 

7. Procurement Report

The following example of a report was built with intuitive procurement analytics software , and it gives a general view of various metrics that the procurement department needs to work with regularly. 

With the possibility to filter, drill down, and interact with KPIs, this intuitive procurement dashboard offers key information to ensure a healthy supplier relationship. With metrics such as compliance rate, the number of suppliers, or the purchase order cycle time, the procurement team can classify the different suppliers, define the relationship each of them has with the company, and optimize processes to ensure it stays profitable.

8. Customer Service Report

Following our list of examples of reports is one from the support area. Armed with powerful customer service KPIs , this dashboard is a useful tool to monitor performance, spot trends, identify strengths and weaknesses, and improve the overall effectiveness of the customer support department. 

Covering aspects such as revenue and costs from customer support as well as customer satisfaction, this complete analysis tool is the perfect tool for managers who have to keep an eye on every little detail from a performance and operational perspective. For example, by monitoring your customer service costs and comparing them to the revenue, you can understand if you are investing the right amount into your support processes. This can be directly related to your agent’s average time to solve issues; the longer it takes to solve a support ticket, the more money it will cost and the less revenue it will bring. If you see that your agents are taking too long to solve an issue, you can think of some training instances to help them reduce this number. 

9. Market Research Report 

This list of report types examples would not be complete without a market research report . Market research agencies deal with a large amount of information coming from surveys and other research sources. Taking all this into account, the need for reports that can be filtered for deeper interaction becomes more necessary for this industry than any other. 

The image above is a brand analytics dashboard that displays the survey results about how the public perceives a brand. This savvy tool contains different charts that make it easy to understand the information visually. For instance, the map chart with the different colors lets you quickly understand in which regions each age range is located. The charts can be filtered further to see the detailed answers from each group for a deeper analysis. 

10. Social Media Report 

Last but not least, we have a social media report .  This scorecard format dashboard monitors the performance of 4 main social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, and it serves as a perfect visual overview to track the performance of different social media efforts and achievements. 

Tracking relevant metrics such as followers, impressions, clicks, engagement rates, and conversions, this report type serves as a perfect progress report to show to managers or clients who need to see the status of their social channels. Each metric is shown in its actual value and compared to a set target. The colors green and red from the fourth column let you quickly understand if a metric is over or under its expected target. 

11. Logistics Report

Logistics are the cornerstone of an operationally fluent and progressive business. If you deal with large quantities of goods and tangible items, in particular, maintaining a solid logistical strategy is vital to ensuring you maintain your brand reputation while keeping things flowing in the right direction.

A prime example of the types of data reporting tool designed to improve logistical management, our warehouse KPI dashboard is equipped with metrics required to maintain strategic movement while eliminating any unnecessary costs or redundant processes. Here, you can dig into your shipping success rates across regions while accessing warehouse costs and perfect order rates in real-time. If you spot any potential inefficiencies, you can track them here and take the correct course of action to refine your strategy. This is an essential tool for any business with a busy or scaling warehouse.

12. Manufacturing Report

Next, in our essential types of business reports examples, we’re looking at tools made to improve your business’s various manufacturing processes.

Our clean and concise production tool is a sight to behold and serves up key manufacturing KPIs that improve the decision-making process regarding costs, volume, and machinery.

Here, you can hone in on historical patterns and trends while connecting with priceless real-time insights that will not only help you make the right calls concerning your manufacturing process at the moment but will also help you formulate predictive strategies that will ultimately save money, boost productivity, and result in top-quality products across the board.

13. Retail Report

As a retailer with so many channels to consider and so many important choices to make, working with the right metrics and visuals is absolutely essential. Fortunately, we live in an age where there are different types of reporting designed for this very reason.

Our sales and order example, generated with retail analytics software , is a dream come true for retailers as it offers the visual insights needed to understand your product range in greater detail while keeping a firm grip on your order volumes, perfect order rates, and reasons for returns.

Gaining access to these invaluable insights in one visually presentable space will allow you to track increases or decreases in orders over a set timeframe (and understand whether you’re doing the right things to drive engagement) while plowing your promotional resources into the products that are likely to offer the best returns.

Plus, by gaining an accurate overview of why people are returning your products, you can omit problem items or processes from your retail strategy, improving your brand reputation as well as revenue in the process.

14. Digital Media Report

The content and communications you publish are critical to your ongoing success, regardless of your sector, niche, or specialty. Without putting out communications that speak directly to the right segments of your audience at the right times in their journey, your brand will swiftly fade into the background.

To ensure your brand remains inspiring, engaging, and thought-leading across channels, working with media types of a business report is essential. You must ensure your communications cut through the noise and scream ‘quality’ from start to finish—no ifs, no buts, no exceptions.

Our content quality control tool is designed with a logical hierarchy that will tell you if your content sparks readership, if the language you’re using is inclusive and conversational, and how much engagement-specific communications earn. You can also check your most engaged articles with a quick glance to understand what your users value most. Armed with this information, you can keep creating content that your audience loves and ultimately drives true value to the business.

15. Energy Report

In the age of sustainability and in the face of international fuel hikes, managing the energy your business uses effectively is paramount. Here, there is little room for excess or error, and as such, working with the right metrics is the only way to ensure successful energy regulation.

If your company has a big HQ or multiple sites that require power, our energy management analytics tool will help you take the stress out of managing your resources. One of the most striking features of this dashboard is the fact that it empowers you to compare your company’s energy usage against those from other sectors and set an accurate benchmark.

Here, you can also get a digestible breakdown of your various production costs regarding energy consumption and the main sources you use to keep your organization running. Regularly consulting these metrics will not only help you save colossal chunks of your budget, but it will also give you the intelligence to become more sustainable as an organization. This, in turn, is good for the planet and your brand reputation—a real win-win-win.

16. FMCG Report

The fast-moving consuming goods (FMCG) industry can highly benefit from a powerful report containing real-time insights. This is because the products handled in this sector which are often food and beverages, don’t last very long. Therefore, having a live overview of all the latest developments can help decision-makers optimize the supply chain to ensure everything runs smoothly and no major issues happen. 

Our report format example above aims to do just that by providing an overview of critical performance indicators, such as the percentage of products sold within freshness date, the out-of-stock rate, on-time in full deliveries, inventory turnover, and more.  What makes this template so valuable is the fact that it provides a range of periods to get a more recent view of events but also a longer yearly view to extract deeper insights. 

The FMCG dashboard also offers an overview of the main KPIs to help users understand if they are on the right track to meet their goals. There, we can observe that the OTIF is far from its target of 90%. Therefore, it should be looked at in more detail to optimize it and prevent it from affecting the entire supply chain. 

17. Google Analytics Report

Regardless of the industry you are in, if you have a website then you probably require a  Google Analytics report. This powerful tool helps you understand how your audience interacts with your website while helping you reach more people through the Google search engine. The issue is that the reports the tool provides are more or less basic and don’t give you the dynamic and agile view you need to stay on top of your data and competitors. 

For that reason, at datapine, we generated a range of Google Analytics dashboards that take your experience one step further by allowing you to explore your most important KPIs in real-time. That way, you’ll be able to spot any potential issues or opportunities to improve as soon as they occur, allowing you to act on them on the spot. 

Among some of the most valuable metrics you can find in this sample are the sessions and their daily, weekly, and monthly development, the average session duration, the bounce rate by channel and by top 5 countries, among others.

18. YouTube Report

So far, we’ve covered examples for various industries and sectors. Now, we will dive a bit deeper into some templates related to popular platforms businesses use in their daily operations. With the rise in video-related content, we could not leave YouTube outside of the list. This popular platform hides some valuable insights that can help you improve your content for your current audience but also reach new audiences that can be interested in your products or services. 

This highly visual and dynamic sample offers an interactive view of relevant KPIs to help you understand every aspect of your video performance. The template can be filtered for different videos to help you understand how each type of content performs. For instance, you get an overview of engagement metrics, such as likes, dislikes, comments, and shares, that way, you can understand how your audience interacts with your content.

Additionally, you also get more detailed charts about the number of views, the average watch time per day, and audience retention. These indicators can help you understand if something needs to be changed. For instance, audience retention goes down a lot after one minute and a half. Therefore you either need to make sure you are making the rest of the video a bit more interesting or offering your product or service or any other relevant information in the first minute.

19. LinkedIn Report

Another very important platform that companies use, no matter their size or industry, is LinkedIn. This platform is the place where companies develop and showcase their corporate image, network with other companies, and tell their clients and audience about the different initiatives they are developing to grow and be better. Some organizations also use LinkedIn to showcase their charity or sustainability initiatives. 

The truth is LinkedIn has become an increasingly relevant platform, and just like we discussed with YouTube, organizations need to analyze data to ensure their strategies are on the right path to success. 

The template above offers a 360-degree view of a company page's performance. With metrics such as the followers gained, engagement rate, impressions vs unique impressions, CTR, and more. Decision-makers can dive deeper into the performance of their content and understand what their audience enjoys the most. For instance, by looking at the CTR of the last 5 company updates, you can start to get a sense of what topics and content format your audience on the platforms interact with the most. That way, you’ll avoid wasting time and resources producing content without interaction.

20. Healthcare Report

Moving on from platform-related examples, we have one last monthly report template from a very relevant sector, the healthcare industry. For decades now, hospitals and healthcare professionals have benefited from data to develop new treatments and analyze unknown diseases. But, data can also help to ensure daily patient care is of top quality. 

Our sample above is a healthcare dashboard report that tracks patient satisfaction stats for a clinic named Saint Martins Clinic. The template provides insights into various aspects of patient care that can affect their satisfaction levels to help spot any weak areas. 

Just by looking at the report in a bit more detail, we can already see that the average waiting time for arrival to a bed and time to see a doctor are on the higher side. This is something that needs to be looked into immediately, as waiting times are the most important success factors for patients. Additionally, we can see those lab test turnarounds are also above target. This is another aspect that should be optimized to prevent satisfaction levels from going down.

If you feel inspired by this list and want to see some of the best uses for business reports, then we recommend you take a look at our dashboard examples library, where you will find over 80+ templates from different industries, functions, and platforms for extra inspiration! 

What You Should Look For In A Reporting Tool

As you learned from our extensive list of examples, different types of reports are widely used across industries and sectors. Now, you might wonder, how do I get my hands on one of these reports? The answer is a professional online reporting tool. With the right software in hand, you can generate stunning reports to extract the maximum potential out of your data and boost business growth in the process. 

But, with so many options in the market, how do make sure you choose the best tool for your needs? Below we cover some of the most relevant features and capabilities you should look for to make the most out of the process. 

• Pre-made reporting templates

To ensure successful operations, a business will most likely need to use many types of reports for its internal and external strategies. Manually generating these reports can become a time-consuming task that burdens the business. That is why professional reporting software should offer pre-made reporting templates. At datapine, we offer an extensive template library that allows users to generate reports in a matter of seconds—allowing them to use their time on actually analyzing the information and extracting powerful insights from it. 

• Multiple visualization options

If you look for report templates on Google you might run into multiple posts about written ones. This is not a surprise, as written reports have been the norm for decades. That being said, a modern approach to reporting has developed in the past years where visuals have taken over text. The value of visuals lies in the fact that they make the information easier to understand, especially for users who have no technical knowledge. But most importantly, they make the information easier to explore by telling a compelling story. For that reason, the tool you choose to invest in should provide you with multiple visualization options to have the flexibility to tell your data story in the most successful way possible. 

• Customization 

While pre-made templates are fundamental to generating agile reports, being able to customize them to meet your needs is also of utmost importance. At datapine, we offer our users the possibility to customize their reports to fit their most important KPIs, as well as their logo, business colors, and font. This is an especially valuable feature for external reports that must be shown to clients or other relevant stakeholders, giving your reports a more professional look. Customization can also help from an internal perspective to provide employees who are uncomfortable with data with a familiar environment to work in. 

• Real-time insights 

In the fast-paced world we live in today, having static reports is not enough. Businesses need to have real-time access to the latest developments in their data to spot any issues or opportunities as soon as they occur and act on them to ensure their resources are spent smartly and their strategies are running as expected. Doing so will allow for agile and efficient decision-making, giving the company a huge competitive advantage. 

• Sharing capabilities 

Communication and collaboration are the basis of a successful reporting process. Today, team members and departments need to be connected to ensure everyone is on the right path to achieve general company goals. That is why the tool you invest in should offer flexible sharing capabilities to ensure every user can access the reports. For instance, at datapine, we offer our users the possibility to share reports through automated emails or password-protected URLs with viewing or editing rights depending on what data the specific user can see and manipulate. A great way to keep everyone connected and boost collaboration. 

Types Of Reporting For Every Business & Purpose 

As we’ve seen throughout our journey, different report formats are used by businesses for diverse purposes in their everyday activities. Whether you’re talking about types of reports in research, types of reports in management, or anything in between, these dynamic tools will get you where you need to be (and beyond).

In this post, we covered the top 14 most common ones and explored key examples of how different report types are changing the way businesses are leveraging their most critical insights for internal efficiency and, ultimately, external success.

With modern tools and solutions, reporting doesn’t have to be a tedious task. Anyone in your organization can rely on data for their decision-making process without needing technical skills. Rather, you want to keep your team connected or show progress to investors or clients. There is a report type for the job. To keep your mind fresh, here are the top 14 types of data reports covered in this post: 

• Informational reports 
• Analytical reports 
• Operational reports  
• Product reports 
• Industry reports 
• Department reports 
• Progress reports 
• Internal reports 
• External reports 
• Vertical and lateral reports 
• Strategic reports
• Research reports
• Project reports
• Statutory reports

Now, over to you. Are you ready? If you want to start building your own types of reports and get ahead of the pack today, then you should try our BI reporting software for 14 days for free ! 

• 8.3 Glance at Genre: Informal and Formal Analytical Reports
• 1 Unit Introduction
• Introduction
• 1.1 "Reading" to Understand and Respond
• 1.2 Social Media Trailblazer: Selena Gomez
• 1.3 Glance at Critical Response: Rhetoric and Critical Thinking
• 1.4 Annotated Student Sample: Social Media Post and Responses on Voter Suppression
• 1.5 Writing Process: Thinking Critically About a “Text”
• 1.6 Evaluation: Intention vs. Execution
• 1.7 Spotlight on … Academia
• 1.8 Portfolio: Tracing Writing Development
• Further Reading
• Works Cited
• 2.1 Seeds of Self
• 2.2 Identity Trailblazer: Cathy Park Hong
• 2.3 Glance at the Issues: Oppression and Reclamation
• 2.4 Annotated Sample Reading from The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois
• 2.5 Writing Process: Thinking Critically about How Identity Is Constructed Through Writing
• 2.6 Evaluation: Antiracism and Inclusivity
• 2.7 Spotlight on … Variations of English
• 2.8 Portfolio: Decolonizing Self
• 3.1 Identity and Expression
• 3.2 Literacy Narrative Trailblazer: Tara Westover
• 3.3 Glance at Genre: The Literacy Narrative
• 3.4 Annotated Sample Reading: from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
• 3.5 Writing Process: Tracing the Beginnings of Literacy
• 3.6 Editing Focus: Sentence Structure
• 3.7 Evaluation: Self-Evaluating
• 3.8 Spotlight on … The Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives (DALN)
• 3.9 Portfolio: A Literacy Artifact
• Works Consulted
• 2 Unit Introduction
• 4.1 Exploring the Past to Understand the Present
• 4.2 Memoir Trailblazer: Ta-Nehisi Coates
• 4.3 Glance at Genre: Conflict, Detail, and Revelation
• 4.4 Annotated Sample Reading: from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain
• 4.5 Writing Process: Making the Personal Public
• 4.6 Editing Focus: More on Characterization and Point of View
• 4.7 Evaluation: Structure and Organization
• 4.8 Spotlight on … Multilingual Writers
• 4.9 Portfolio: Filtered Memories
• 5.1 Profiles as Inspiration
• 5.2 Profile Trailblazer: Veronica Chambers
• 5.3 Glance at Genre: Subject, Angle, Background, and Description
• 5.4 Annotated Sample Reading: “Remembering John Lewis” by Carla D. Hayden
• 5.5 Writing Process: Focusing on the Angle of Your Subject
• 5.6 Editing Focus: Verb Tense Consistency
• 5.7 Evaluation: Text as Personal Introduction
• 5.8 Spotlight on … Profiling a Cultural Artifact
• 5.9 Portfolio: Subject as a Reflection of Self
• 6.1 Proposing Change: Thinking Critically About Problems and Solutions
• 6.2 Proposal Trailblazer: Atul Gawande
• 6.3 Glance at Genre: Features of Proposals
• 6.4 Annotated Student Sample: “Slowing Climate Change” by Shawn Krukowski
• 6.5 Writing Process: Creating a Proposal
• 6.6 Editing Focus: Subject-Verb Agreement
• 6.7 Evaluation: Conventions, Clarity, and Coherence
• 6.8 Spotlight on … Technical Writing as a Career
• 6.9 Portfolio: Reflecting on Problems and Solutions
• 7.1 Thumbs Up or Down?
• 7.2 Review Trailblazer: Michiko Kakutani
• 7.3 Glance at Genre: Criteria, Evidence, Evaluation
• 7.4 Annotated Student Sample: "Black Representation in Film" by Caelia Marshall
• 7.5 Writing Process: Thinking Critically About Entertainment
• 7.6 Editing Focus: Quotations
• 7.7 Evaluation: Effect on Audience
• 7.8 Spotlight on … Language and Culture
• 7.9 Portfolio: What the Arts Say About You
• 8.1 Information and Critical Thinking
• 8.2 Analytical Report Trailblazer: Barbara Ehrenreich
• 8.4 Annotated Student Sample: "U.S. Response to COVID-19" by Trevor Garcia
• 8.5 Writing Process: Creating an Analytical Report
• 8.6 Editing Focus: Commas with Nonessential and Essential Information
• 8.7 Evaluation: Reviewing the Final Draft
• 8.8 Spotlight on … Discipline-Specific and Technical Language
• 8.9 Portfolio: Evidence and Objectivity
• 9.1 Breaking the Whole into Its Parts
• 9.2 Rhetorical Analysis Trailblazer: Jamil Smith
• 9.3 Glance at Genre: Rhetorical Strategies
• 9.4 Annotated Student Sample: “Rhetorical Analysis: Evicted by Matthew Desmond” by Eliana Evans
• 9.5 Writing Process: Thinking Critically about Rhetoric
• 9.6 Editing Focus: Mixed Sentence Constructions
• 9.7 Evaluation: Rhetorical Analysis
• 9.8 Spotlight on … Business and Law
• 9.9 Portfolio: How Thinking Critically about Rhetoric Affects Intellectual Growth
• 10.1 Making a Case: Defining a Position Argument
• 10.2 Position Argument Trailblazer: Charles Blow
• 10.3 Glance at Genre: Thesis, Reasoning, and Evidence
• 10.4 Annotated Sample Reading: "Remarks at the University of Michigan" by Lyndon B. Johnson
• 10.5 Writing Process: Creating a Position Argument
• 10.6 Editing Focus: Paragraphs and Transitions
• 10.7 Evaluation: Varied Appeals
• 10.8 Spotlight on … Citation
• 10.9 Portfolio: Growth in the Development of Argument
• 11.1 Developing Your Sense of Logic
• 11.2 Reasoning Trailblazer: Paul D. N. Hebert
• 11.3 Glance at Genre: Reasoning Strategies and Signal Words
• 11.4 Annotated Sample Reading: from Book VII of The Republic by Plato
• 11.5 Writing Process: Reasoning Supported by Evidence
• 12.1 Introducing Research and Research Evidence
• 12.2 Argumentative Research Trailblazer: Samin Nosrat
• 12.3 Glance at Genre: Introducing Research as Evidence
• 12.4 Annotated Student Sample: "Healthy Diets from Sustainable Sources Can Save the Earth" by Lily Tran
• 12.5 Writing Process: Integrating Research
• 12.6 Editing Focus: Integrating Sources and Quotations
• 12.7 Evaluation: Effectiveness of Research Paper
• 12.8 Spotlight on … Bias in Language and Research
• 12.9 Portfolio: Why Facts Matter in Research Argumentation
• 13.1 The Research Process: Where to Look for Existing Sources
• 13.2 The Research Process: How to Create Sources
• 13.3 Glance at the Research Process: Key Skills
• 13.4 Annotated Student Sample: Research Log
• 13.5 Research Process: Making Notes, Synthesizing Information, and Keeping a Research Log
• 13.6 Spotlight on … Ethical Research
• 14.1 Compiling Sources for an Annotated Bibliography
• 14.2 Glance at Form: Citation Style, Purpose, and Formatting
• 14.3 Annotated Student Sample: “Healthy Diets from Sustainable Sources Can Save the Earth” by Lily Tran
• 14.4 Writing Process: Informing and Analyzing
• 15.1 Tracing a Broad Issue in the Individual
• 15.2 Case Study Trailblazer: Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
• 15.3 Glance at Genre: Observation, Description, and Analysis
• 15.4 Annotated Sample Reading: Case Study on Louis Victor "Tan" Leborgne
• 15.5 Writing Process: Thinking Critically About How People and Language Interact
• 15.6 Editing Focus: Words Often Confused
• 15.7 Evaluation: Presentation and Analysis of Case Study
• 15.8 Spotlight on … Applied Linguistics
• 15.9 Portfolio: Your Own Uses of Language
• 3 Unit Introduction
• 16.1 An Author’s Choices: What Text Says and How It Says It
• 16.2 Textual Analysis Trailblazer: bell hooks
• 16.3 Glance at Genre: Print or Textual Analysis
• 16.4 Annotated Student Sample: "Artists at Work" by Gwyn Garrison
• 16.5 Writing Process: Thinking Critically About Text
• 16.6 Editing Focus: Literary Works Live in the Present
• 16.7 Evaluation: Self-Directed Assessment
• 16.8 Spotlight on … Humanities
• 16.9 Portfolio: The Academic and the Personal
• 17.1 “Reading” Images
• 17.2 Image Trailblazer: Sara Ludy
• 17.3 Glance at Genre: Relationship Between Image and Rhetoric
• 17.4 Annotated Student Sample: “Hints of the Homoerotic” by Leo Davis
• 17.5 Writing Process: Thinking Critically and Writing Persuasively About Images
• 17.6 Editing Focus: Descriptive Diction
• 17.7 Evaluation: Relationship Between Analysis and Image
• 17.8 Spotlight on … Video and Film
• 17.9 Portfolio: Interplay Between Text and Image
• 18.1 Mixing Genres and Modes
• 18.2 Multimodal Trailblazer: Torika Bolatagici
• 18.3 Glance at Genre: Genre, Audience, Purpose, Organization
• 18.4 Annotated Sample Reading: “Celebrating a Win-Win” by Alexandra Dapolito Dunn
• 18.5 Writing Process: Create a Multimodal Advocacy Project
• 18.6 Evaluation: Transitions
• 18.7 Spotlight on . . . Technology
• 18.8 Portfolio: Multimodalism
• 19.1 Writing, Speaking, and Activism
• 19.2 Podcast Trailblazer: Alice Wong
• 19.3 Glance at Genre: Language Performance and Visuals
• 19.4 Annotated Student Sample: “Are New DOT Regulations Discriminatory?” by Zain A. Kumar
• 19.5 Writing Process: Writing to Speak
• 19.6 Evaluation: Bridging Writing and Speaking
• 19.7 Spotlight on … Delivery/Public Speaking
• 19.8 Portfolio: Everyday Rhetoric, Rhetoric Every Day
• 20.1 Thinking Critically about Your Semester
• 20.2 Reflection Trailblazer: Sandra Cisneros
• 20.3 Glance at Genre: Purpose and Structure
• 20.4 Annotated Sample Reading: “Don’t Expect Congrats” by Dale Trumbore
• 20.5 Writing Process: Looking Back, Looking Forward
• 20.6 Editing Focus: Pronouns
• 20.7 Evaluation: Evaluating Self-Reflection
• 20.8 Spotlight on … Pronouns in Context

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Determine purpose and audience expectations for an analytical report.
• Identify key features of informal and formal reports.
• Define key terms and characteristics of an analytical report.

It is important to understand the purpose of your report, the expectations of the audience, any specific formatting requirements, and the types of evidence you can use.

Defining a Specific Purpose

Your purpose is your reason for writing. The purpose of a report is to inform; as the writer, you are tasked with providing information and explaining it to readers. Many topics are suitable for informative writing—how to find a job, the way a disease spreads within a population, or the items on which people spend the most money. Some textbooks are examples of informative writing, as is much of the reporting you find on reputable news sites.

An analytical report is a type of report. Its purpose is to present and analyze information. An assignment for an analytical report will likely include words such as analyze , compare , contrast , cause , and/or discuss , indicating the specific purpose of the report. Here are a few examples:

• Discuss and analyze potential career paths with strong employment prospects for young adults.
• Compare and contrast proposals to reduce binge drinking among college students.
• Analyze the Cause-and-effect of injuries on construction sites and the effects of efforts to reduce workplace injuries.
• Discuss the Effect of the 1965 Voting Rights Act on voting patterns among U.S. citizens of color.
• Analyze the success and failure of strategies used by the major political parties to encourage citizens to vote.

Tuning In to Audience Expectations

The audience for your report consists of the people who will read it or who could read it. Are you writing for your instructor? For your classmates? For other students and teachers in professional fields or academic disciplines? For people in your community? Whoever your readers are, they expect you to do the following:

• Have an idea of what they already know about your topic, and adjust your writing as needed. If readers are new to the topic, they expect you to provide necessary background information. If they are knowledgeable about the topic, they will expect you to cover the background quickly.
• Provide reliable information in the form of specific facts, statistics, and examples. Whether you present your own research or information from other sources, readers expect you to have done your homework in order to supply trustworthy information.
• Define terms, especially if audience members may be unfamiliar with your topic.
• Structure your report in a logical way. It should open with an introduction that tells readers the subject and should follow a logical structure.
• Adopt an objective stance and neutral tone, free of any bias, personal feelings, or emotional language. By demonstrating objectivity, you show respect for your readers’ knowledge and intelligence, and you build credibility and trust, or ethos , with them.
• Present and cite source information fairly and accurately.

Informal Reports

An informal analytical report will identify a problem, provide factual information about the problem, and draw conclusions about the information. An informal report is usually structured like an essay, with an introduction or summary, body paragraphs, and a conclusion or recommendations. It will likely feature headings identifying key sections and be presented in academic essay format, such as MLA Documentation and Format or APA Documentation and Format . For an example of an informal analytical report documented in APA style, see Trevor Garcia’s paper on the U.S. response to COVID-19 in 2020 in the Annotated Student Sample .

Other types of informal reports include journalism reports. A traditional journalism report involves a reporter for a news organization reporting on the day’s events—the results of an election, a political crisis, a plane crash, a celebrity marriage—on TV, on radio, or in print. An investigative journalism report, on the other hand, involves reporters doing original research over a period of weeks or months to uncover significant new information, similar to what Barbara Ehrenreich did for her book Nickel and Dimed . For sample traditional and investigative journalistic reports, visit the website of a reliable news organization or publication, such as the New York Times , the Washington Post , the Wall Street Journal , the Economist , the New Yorker , or the Atlantic .

Formal Reports

Writers in the social sciences, the natural sciences, technical fields, and business often write formal analytical reports. These include lab reports, research reports, and proposals.

Formal reports present findings and data drawn from experiments, surveys, and research and often end with a conclusion based on an analysis of these findings and data. These reports frequently include visuals such as graphs, bar charts, pie charts, photographs, or diagrams that are captioned and referred to in the text. Formal reports always cite sources of information, often using APA Documentation and Format , used in the examples in this chapter, or a similar style.

If you are assigned a formal report in a class, follow the instructions carefully. Your instructor will likely explain the assignment in detail and provide explicit directions and guidelines for the research you will need to do (including any permission required by your college or university if you conduct research on human subjects), how to organize the information you gather, and how to write and format your report. A formal report is a complex, highly organized, and often lengthy document with a specified format and sections usually marked by headings.

Following are the components of a formal analytical report. Depending on the assignment and the audience, a formal report you write may include some or all of these parts. For example, a research report following APA format usually includes a title page, an abstract, headings for components of the body of the report (methods, results, discussion), and a references page. Detailed APA guidelines are available online, including at the Purdue University Online Writing Lab .

Components of Formal Analytical Reports

• Letter of transmittal . When a report is submitted, it is usually accompanied by a letter or email to the recipient explaining the nature of the report and signed by those responsible for writing it. Write the letter of transmittal when the report is finished and ready for submission.
• Title page . The title page includes the title of the report, the name(s) of the author(s), and the date it was written or submitted. The report title should describe the report simply, directly, and clearly and should not try to be too clever. For example, The New Student Writing Project: A Two-Year Report is a clear, descriptive title, whereas Write On, Students! is not.
• Acknowledgments . If other people and/or organizations contributed to the report, include a page or paragraph thanking them.
• Table of contents . For long reports (10 pages or more), create a table of contents to help readers navigate easily. List the major components and subsections of the report and the pages on which they begin.
• Executive summary or abstract . The executive summary or abstract is a paragraph that highlights the findings of the report. The purpose of this section is to present information in the quickest, most concentrated, and most economical way possible to be useful to readers. Write this section after you have completed the rest of the report.
• Introduction or background . The introduction provides necessary background information to help readers understand the report. This section also indicates what information is included in the report.
• Methods . Especially in the social sciences, the natural sciences, and technical disciplines, the methods or procedures section outlines how you gathered information and from what sources, such as experiments, surveys, library research, interviews, and so on.
• Results . In the results section, you summarize the data you have collected from your research, explain your method of analysis, and present this information in detail, often in a table, graph, or chart.
• Discussion or Conclusion . In this section, you interpret the results and present the conclusions of your research. This section also may be called “Discussion of Findings.”
• Recommendations . In this section, you explain what you believe should be done in response to your research findings.
• References and bibliography . The references section includes every source you cited in the report. The bibliography contains, in addition to those cited in the report, sources that readers can consult to learn more.
• Appendix . An appendix (plural: appendices ) includes documents that are related to the report or contain information that can be culled but are not deemed central to understanding the report.

The following links take you to sample formal reports written by students and offer tips from librarians posted by colleges and universities in the United States. These samples may help you better understand what is involved in writing a formal analytical report.

• Product review report , from the University/College Library of Broward College and Florida Atlantic University
• Business report , from Wright State University
• Technical report , from the University of Utah
• Lab report , from Hamilton College
• Field report , from the University of Southern California

Exploring the Genre

The following are key terms and characteristics related to reports.

• Audience : Readers of a report or any piece of writing.
• Bias : A preconceived opinion about something, such as a subject, an idea, a person, or a group of people. As a reader, be attentive to potential bias in sources; as a writer, be attentive to your own biases.
• Body : The main part of a report between the introduction and the conclusion. The body of an analytical report consists of paragraphs in which the writer presents and analyzes key information.
• Citation of sources: References in the written text to sources that a writer has used in a report.
• Conclusion and/or recommendation : The last part of a report. In this section, the writer summarizes the significance of the information in the report or offers recommendations—or both.
• Critical thinking : The ability to look beneath the surface of words and images to analyze, interpret, and evaluate them.
• Ethos : The sense that the writer or other authority is trustworthy and credible; also known as ethical appeal .
• Evidence : Statements of fact, statistics, examples, and expert opinions that support the writer’s points.
• Facts : Statements whose truth can be proved or verified and that serve as evidence in a report.
• Introduction : The first section of a report after any front matter, such as an abstract or table of contents. In an analytical report, the writer introduces the topic to be addressed and often presents the thesis at the end of the introduction.
• Logos : The use of facts as evidence to appeal to an audience’s logical and rational thinking; also known as logical appeal .
• Objective stance : Writing in a way that is free from bias, personal feelings, and emotional language. An objective stance is especially important in report writing.
• Purpose : The reason for writing. The purpose of an analytical report is to examine a subject or issue closely, often from multiple perspectives, by looking at causes and effects, by comparing and contrasting, or by examining problems and proposing solutions.
• Statistics : Factual statements that include numbers and often serve as evidence in a report.
• Synthesis : Making connections among and combining ideas, facts, statistics, and other information.
• Thesis : The central or main idea that you will convey in your report. The thesis is often referred to as the central claim in argumentative writing.
• Thesis statement : A declarative sentence (sometimes two) that states the topic, the angle you are taking, and the aspects of the topic you will cover. For a report, a thesis indicates and limits the scope of the report.

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• Unito home /
• 10 Types of Reports (And What They’re For)

No matter what type of role you have, chances are that if you work in an office environment you’ll encounter some type of report from time to time. While you may think that reports are all pretty much the same, there’s actually a different type of report for every business need.

Whether you need to show your boss your social media growth or provide an update on the status of a project, there’s a specific report that can help you do that. Continue reading to discover ten different types of reports, what they’re for, and the tools you can use to create them. 

Social Media Report

Social media managers have to track and manage huge amounts of data every day. From follower growth to IGTV views, there are a number of different metrics they need to be actively monitoring and reporting on. 

A social media report gives social media managers a way to track and analyze their data and prove the ROI of their efforts. Just like there are a variety of types of reports in general, there are various kinds of social media reports. A social media report prepared for the social media manager’s boss, for example, would look different than one they’ve put together solely for their own reference and goal-setting needs. 

Tools and Examples

A social media report can also be something a social media manager creates themselves (based on data they monitor) or generated through a native social media platform or scheduling tool. 

For example, a social media manager can use Facebook’s Insights feature and export their Facebook and Instagram analytics for their report, or use a tool like Hootsuite’s Analytics to collect data and create a report for one or multiple social media accounts at once, from one dashboard.

Google Analytics Report

A Google Analytics Report can help you track how users and customers interact with your website over time. With a Google Analytics (GA) Report, you’re able to see various GA metrics all from one dashboard. While there are hundreds of metrics you could track using Google Analytics, the reporting tools available ensure you’re able to see the most important data and information for your business at a glance.

There are a number of standard preset reports you can use within Google Analytics, including Realtime, Audience, Acquisition, Behavior, and Conversions reports. For example, an Audience Report will show you data such as who is coming to your site and how long their sessions are as well as page views and bounce rates. In addition to these standard reports, you can also create custom reports within Google Analytics. 

This type of report can either be created natively within Google Analytics itself, using an Excel spreadsheet or Google Sheet, or through an external automated reporting tool. 

For example, if you want to create a report on the number of page views your site has, you can use Google Analytics’ built-in reporting tool. Here you’d get a breakdown of the pages on your site that get the most visits, the audience member’s average time on page, bounce rate, and the monetary value of each page. From here, you can then export this data and include it in a greater Google Analytics report, or use it as your sole reporting document. 

Proposal Report

A proposal report is a document created to show how one business can help another business. Proposal reports are usually prepared in response to a business or organization issuing an RFP, or Request for Proposal. 

A proposal report must show the recipient exactly how the sender can help them meet their business needs. It must outline the project, propose a solution, and clearly define the anticipated outcome. Usually, organizations are receiving numerous proposal reports from a variety of businesses competing to “win” the project or client, so it’s important that a proposal report is completed thoroughly. 

Proposal reports can take many different forms depending on your industry. For example, a branding agency responding to an RFP may create a PDF from a presentation deck in Google Slides or Microsoft Powerpoint as their proposal report. 

Alternatively, businesses can use tools such as PandaDoc that enable them to create, send, and eSign client-facing proposal reports with pre-built templates and CRM integration . 

Informational Report

As its name implies, this type of report conveys information between two parties. That can be two businesses, two teams, or even two individuals. The data included and shared in an informational report is meant to be objective. 

An informational report is not meant to propose solutions to problems or present hypotheses, but rather to bring forth information and facts that can help inform any necessary decisions in the future or as a result. 

Informational reports can be formal or informal and as such, can come in many different forms. The tools used to convey information and data can be as simple as something like Microsoft Word (ie. for an informational report sharing annual general meeting minutes) or more complex like Quickbooks (ie. for financial reports). 

Other examples of informational reports include annual reports , monthly financial reports and earnings, and real estate appraisals.

Periodic Report

When a report is referred to as a “periodic report,” this simply means that it is being provided at regular intervals. These are used to share the performance status of various items within a business or organization to clients or more senior individuals. 

Many other report styles can also be classified as periodic reports. For example, if your client requests a Google Analytics report every week, this can also be considered a periodic report. 

As periodic reports can be used across all industries, the sky’s the limit when it comes to the tools you can use to create this type of report. For example, periodic reports can include email marketing reports, project progress reports, incident reports, social media reports, Google Analytics reports, or feasibility reports. 

Let’s take a sales report as an example. Here, you might use a tool like HubSpot to gather insights and create a regularly occurring report for both your team and upper management to view. HubSpot’s sales report tool offers more than 90 prebuilt report templates so you can easily and consistently provide regular and reliable sales reports to anyone across your organization. 

Try these popular Unito integrations:

• HubSpot + Airtable
• HubSpot + Jira
• HubSpot + Trello
• HubSpot + Azure DevOps
• HubSpot + Google Sheets

Long Report

Any report that is greater than ten pages in length is considered a “long report.” These are used to share in-depth information that requires the inclusion of extensive detail and context. 

Long reports are typically more formal in tone and content. They follow a more structured format, avoid any subjectivity, and any other potentially distracting or bias-inducing elements such as personal pronouns (I, we, us). 

Examples of long reports include white papers, legal reports (such as court proceedings), feasibility reports, business proposals, research reports, and business plans. 

The majority (if not all) of these types of reports will be created in word processing software such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs. Some examples of a business plan, a form of long report, can be found here and here . 

Project Health Report

A project health report is used to update stakeholders with high-level information about a project, as well as provide them with its overall status. These help keep stakeholders and the project team aligned on the goals, purpose, and direction of the project. 

If a big project is only shown to stakeholders once all of the work is done, chances are there will be edits and feedback to implement. With regular project health reports, stakeholders and project managers are able to course correct when necessary — before the majority of the work is done. 

While you technically could create a project health report manually through something like Excel or Google Docs, it’s best to streamline the process in accordance with your project management tool of choice. 

With project management software such as Asana , for example, you’re able to view information in a Gantt Chart, Kanban board, spreadsheet-style view, or calendar and create project health reports with a single click.  

• Airtable + Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft Excel + Asana
• Microsoft Excel + ClickUp
• Google Sheets + Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft Excel + Trello

External Report

Not all reports are solely for sharing internally. External reports are created with the intention of being shared beyond the organization. They’re often used to share information with the general public or shareholders. External reports help the public understand the financial health of an organization, can help attract future investors, work to boost brand awareness, or fulfill the rights of citizens within a governmental body.

External reports can be voluntary; released by an organization for the purpose of accountability. They can also be made mandatory, usually by some legal requirement, such as financial reporting from publicly traded companies. 

Any report that is created for the purpose of being shared publicly is an external report. This type of report includes audit reports for government agencies, financial statements for publicly traded businesses, and any reports that include findings relevant to the broader public. For example, Apple provides its quarterly financial statements in the form of external reports in its investor relations portal online. 

Vertical and Lateral Reports

The labels “vertical” and “lateral” refer to the direction a report is traveling. Vertical reports are created for those either above or below someone in the organization’s hierarchy. For example, a report created for an employee by a manager, or by a manager to a senior level of the executive team. 

Lateral reports are created and shared between members at the same level in an organization. An example of this would be a report from a marketing director shared with the creative director within the same business. 

Examples of vertical reports include a performance review shared by a manager to their direct reports, an email marketing campaign results report shared by an employee to their superiors, or a project health report sent by a project manager to upper management and senior stakeholders.

 Lateral reports can include time tracking reports sent between project managers and working team managers (at the same seniority level), informational reports sent between members of a working team, or a financial report sent from the accounting department to the production team. 

As the classification of vertical and lateral refers to the movement of the report within an organization and not the format of the report, a wide variety of tools can be used in their creation. For example, an agile report created by a project manager in Jira and shared with the working team lead (of equal seniority) is a type of lateral report. 

• Notion + Jira
• Jira + Trello
• Jira + Zendesk
• Jira + Jira Service Management
• Jira + Asana

Analytical Reports 

When it comes to sharing data and insights, an analytical report is your best bet. Analytical reports help organizations understand the overall health of the business through documents that share information such as statistics and research findings. 

While similar to an informational report, analytical reports go one step further to include predictions and solutions meant to help inform business decisions. Based on the data included in an analytical report, stakeholders in an organization can identify areas of the business that require more attention, and which are performing or exceeding expectations. 

With an analytical report, you can either gather information from software or tools and combine it with insights manually, or use a tool that will create a report that includes both the data and insights in one. Examples of analytical reports include pay-per-click reports, marketing campaign results reports, budget reports, and feasibility reports. 

For example, you can create an analytical report in a tool like Tableau that provides both the raw data and statistics you need, paired with valuable insights. Using Tableau, you’re not only able to see the results of digital media spending, website performance, customer journeys, and social media analytics — but understand what this data means for your business. 

Learn more in Unito’s Report on Reporting

Because reporting is such an important workflow, we wanted to get the lay of the land before building dedicated integrations for it. What are some of the biggest headaches that come with reporting? What tools do people use? How can these problems be solved?

That’s why we surveyed 150 knowledge workers from a variety of industries, asking them about their reporting workflows and their tool stack.

We poured through the data and broke it down in Unito’s Report on Reporting . Click the link below to get your free copy.

Ge t the ebook here

There’s a type of report for everyone.

While reports are a vital part of any business or organization, it’s important to know the different types of reports — and when to use them. With the examples above, as well as the tools you can use to create them, it’s clear that generating reports doesn’t need to be a headache. Whether you want to create a long and formal report or provide a brief status update on a project, the right report can communicate what you need, when you need it. 

Want to learn more?

With a project reporting workflow powered by Unito, automate reporting and save time and effort

Learn more about this workflow

Trello vs. ClickUp: Which PM Tool Does Your Team Need?

Not sure how to pick between Trello and ClickUp? Here’s a full guide from Unito that’ll help you make the right choice.

How to Create a Project Brief (With a Template)

No good project can start without a brief. Here’s your guide to writing a project brief that’ll get your work approved and keep it headed in the right direction.

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Informal Lab Reports, Short Memo or Letter Reports

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

This resource is an updated version of Muriel Harris’s handbook Report Formats: A Self-instruction Module on Writing Skills for Engineers , written in 1981. The primary resources for the editing process were Paul Anderson’s Technical Communication: A Reader-Centered Approach (6th ed.) and the existing OWL PowerPoint presentation, HATS: A Design Procedure for Routine Business Documents.

This resource provides guidance on reporting tests and experiments conducted in a variety of lab settings.

In Academic Settings

Short reports are written for teachers who want to evaluate the accuracy and completeness of your work. You may be asked to include some or all of these parts or others not included here:

• Introduction: the purpose, problem, and scope
• Apparatus: the equipment and/or tools used (This section is included only when needed because something beyond the usual apparatus is required.)
• Procedures: the methods (These are described in detail only if asked for or if unusual.)
• Body: the data obtained, discussed and evaluated
• Conclusions and recommendations

In Industry and Government

Short reports are written for readers who need to know the results of your work so that they can make a decision. Include your conclusions and recommendations only if they are specifically asked for. Be as brief as possible, preferably one page or less.

Short Memo or Letter Reports

Use either stationery with the company letterhead or printed forms with standard headings such as To, From, Subject, Date, and other information that a company may wish to include, for example, reference numbers, names of people who receive carbon copies (cc:), and so on. State the subject clearly and concisely, and put the most important words at the beginning of the subject line in the heading.

Introductory statement:

State the general problem first to give the reader a context or “big picture.” Then explain the specific question or task arising from that problem that you will be dealing with. Finally, explain why the report is being submitted or what it is intended to do. This brief, but crucially important overview should usually be no longer than two or three sentences.

Findings or results:

Present your findings clearly and concisely, in whatever method is most appropriate (a list, a table, and so on, with adequate explanation). Arrange your results so that the ones most important to the project or the reader are placed first. Present the rest of your results in descending order of importance. Since your findings are usually the major reason for the memo, this section may be the longest part of the report.

Conclusions and recommendations:

Determine and present the most significant implications or recommendations for action. You may need to put this section before the findings, or you may not need to include this section at all unless it is requested. Company policy usually dictates whether or not this section is included.

Format considerations:

• Use headings and mark your key points so that your readers can survey the contents and can quickly find what they want.
• Place your strongest arguments first when your purpose is to persuade.

Evaluating a Short Memo Report

When evaluating a short memo, the writer should follow a very specific format to keep their document standard. This format includes questions that the writer should ask themselves, the different parts of the memo, headings that should be used as wells as arguments to add. These aspects allow the creation of a short memo to be easy as the formatting will eventually become second nature.

Listed below are the basic questions every report writer should ask himself or herself before writing the report:

• Who will read the report?
• What do they want to know?
• How should the report be structured?

Heading : Lists information such as To, From, Subject, Date, and so on, and states the subject clearly and concisely with the most important words at the beginning of the subject line.

• Is all the relevant information included?
• Is the subject stated clearly and concisely?
• Are the important words first?

Introductory Statement : States the general problem first, then explains the specific question or task being dealt with in the memo, and then explains why the report is being submitted or what it is intended to do.

• Are all three parts of the introductory statement included and stated clearly?

Findings or Results : Presents the findings clearly and concisely with the most important results first. Tables and other information not needed by all readers are, of course, attached separately.

• Are the findings or results clearly indicated and easy to locate on the page?

Conclusions and Recommendations : Presents the significant implications and recommendations for action (if—and only if—conclusions and recommendations have been asked for).

• If the report contains conclusions and recommendations, are they clearly presented and easily located on the page?

Format Considerations: Make headings and mark your key points so that your readers can quickly survey the contents and find what they want.

• Are the headings throughout the report adequate?
• Are key points marked?
• Are your strongest arguments first when writing a persuasive document?

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A report is a specific form of writing that is organised around concisely identifying and examining issues, events, or findings that have happened in a physical sense, such as events that have occurred within an organisation, or findings from a research investigation.

These events can also pertain to events or issues identified within a body of literature. A report informs the reader simply and objectively about all relevant issues. There are three features that characterise report writing at a very basic level: a pre-defined structure, independent sections, and reaching unbiased conclusions.

Pre-defined structure

Report structures vary widely. So, check your guidelines to ensure that you are following the structure that has been specified.

At a very basic level, a report can be distinguished from an essay by headings which are used to organise information.

Headings typically indicate sections within a report, such as an introduction, discussion, and conclusion.

Within the discussion section, which usually makes up the main body of a report, you can often add sub-sections according to the literature you have sourced, your development of ideas, and the assigned task. The difference between main sections and sub-sections may be indicated through numbering and/or heading font style. You will need to check the assignment instructions to see whether this is appropriate.

1. Introduction 2. Discussion 2.1 Technological benefits 2.1.1 Efficiency 2.1.2 Access to monitoring 2.2 Technological weaknesses 2.2.1 Disconnections 2.2.2 Lack of face-to-face support 3. Conclusion 4. References

You may find that you do not need linking sentences as the headings provide a link between sections, although including a linking sentence from time-to-time may assist the reader's understanding.

Overall, a report is a highly structured piece of work and typically, the course co-ordinator or lecturer identifies the main sections required or indicates that you should follow a standard structure (such as a business report structure ). You are often given more guidance on how to write the assignment, with respect to its structure and section, compared to an essay where you decide the order of information in the essay body.

While you may have more freedom in structuring an essay, it may be more difficult to decide how to order information within your essay. In contrast, a report provides you with that structure before you begin to answer the question, while still allowing you some flexibility and freedom in deciding on the organisation of sub-sections.

Unbiased conclusions

Another element of report writing (in fact, all academic writing ) is that it is an unbiased and objective form of writing.

However, while essays put forward a particular position or argument at the very beginning, summarised in the thesis statement and then backed up in the body, a report's focus is slightly different.

A report sways more towards the process of identifying and reviewing the range of issues in the body of the report, and then reaching an objective conclusion or position at the end, sometimes with recommendations based on the discussion and conclusions.

Of course, you can always have in mind a particular point of view when you begin your report, but try to give the impression that you have come to your conclusion via an objective and methodical review of the issues involved.

Sometimes you will need to briefly summarise the report's findings in your introduction. Alternatively, sometimes you might need to provide an overview of your report in an executive summary or abstract . Report structures vary so this is something you need to check with your assignment instructions or course coordinator. Nevertheless, try to ensure that the conclusion is where you give emphasis to your findings and the recommendations or decisions you have arrived at after a careful analysis of all the issues. It should be clear to the reader that your conclusion is reasoned logically from the discussion of the issues and the evidence you have presented in the body of the report.

Page authorised by Director - Centre for Learner Success Last updated on 11 June, 2019

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Report writing An overview and comparison with essays

There are many forms of writing which you may have to undertake at university, from reflective journals to extended researched assignments. The two most common forms of writing are reports and essays . This page describes what a report is , outlines the main types of report you may need to write, and summarises the differences between reports and essays .

What is a report?

For another look at the same content, check out the video on YouTube (also available on Youku ).

A report is a clearly structured form of writing which presents and analyses information clearly and briefly for a particular audience. The information is usually the result of an experiment, investigation, or some other form of primary research such as a questionnaire or survey. It will contain headings and sub-headings, as well as graphics such as graphs, charts and tables. Reports often use the information they contain to present recommendations for future action. They are common not only at university, but also in industry and government. For more information on what a report is, see the section below which compares reports to essays .

Types of report

There are many different types of reports which can be written, though the type you will write at university depends very much on your course of study. Each report will have a different format and writing conventions, though the structure and language used are broadly similar for all reports. The following are some of the main reports written at university.

• Laboratory report . This type of report explains and analyses the results of an experiment. It may also be called lab report , experimental report , or science report .
• Business report . This analyses a situation and uses business theory to provide solutions or recommendations. It includes many types, e.g. market research report , marketing report , and financial report .
• Case study report . This examines a real-world situation (the 'case') and analyses it using appropriate theory (the 'study').
• project report . This reports on project work which has been conducted.
• Research report . This gives the results of research which has been conducted, for example through surveys (via questionnaires or interviews).
• progress report . This informs a supervisor about progress on a project over a certain period of time.
• Design report . This report describes and evaluates a design used to solve a particular problem.
• Field report . This combines theory and practice by describing an observed person, place or event and analysing the observation.

Other types of report are possible, such as a systems analysis report , a maths report , a feasibility study and a client case work report . Some disciplines, especially business, may require you to write an essay with headings. This is not a report, since all the other features, aside from the headings, are the same as a conventional essay.

Reports vs. essays

Although many of the writing skills required for essays also apply to reports, such as use of topic sentences , cohesion and citations , reports are quite unlike essays in several regards. The table below summarises the main differences. These are divided into three categories: general areas, structure, and content.

Charles Darwin University (2013) Report . Available from http://learnline.cdu.edu.au/studyskills/studyskills/reports.html (Access date 19 July, 2015).

Massey University (2012) Business Report . Available from http://owll.massey.ac.nz/assignment-types/business-report.php (Access date 20 July, 2015).

Monash University (2015) Report Writing . Available from http://www.monash.edu.au/lls/llonline/writing/general/report/index.xml (Access date 20 July, 2015).

Purdue University (2015) Purposes and Types of Report Format . Available from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/726/02/ (Access date 20 July, 2015).

Queensland University of Technology (2014) Writing a report Available from http://www.citewrite.qut.edu.au/write/report.jsp (Access date 19 July, 2015).

RMIT University (2007) Differences between Essays, Reports and Journals . Available from https://www.dlsweb.rmit.edu.au/lsu/content/2_assessmenttasks/assess_pdf/diffbet_reportsessays.pdf (Access date 19 July, 2015).

Unilearning (2000) Comparison: reports and essays . Available from http://unilearning.uow.edu.au/report/1b.html (Access date 19 July, 2015).

University of Queensland (2015) Types of assignment . Available from http://www.uq.edu.au/student-services/learning/types-of-assignments (Access date 20 July, 2015).

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Compare & contrast essays examine the similarities of two or more objects, and the differences.

Cause & effect essays consider the reasons (or causes) for something, then discuss the results (or effects).

Discussion essays require you to examine both sides of a situation and to conclude by saying which side you favour.

Problem-solution essays are a sub-type of SPSE essays (Situation, Problem, Solution, Evaluation).

Transition signals are useful in achieving good cohesion and coherence in your writing.

Reporting verbs are used to link your in-text citations to the information cited.

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20 Types of Reports and When to Use Them (Plus Templates)

If the many types of business reports make you want to scream, you’re not alone.

It can get overwhelming – from internal reports about sales activities to reports you must submit for external collaborators. 

However, the reality of modern business is that they require several business report types to achieve success. 

A  Unito report revealed that over 75% of respondents said reports provide valuable insights almost every time.

The chances are high that you’ve had to write certain types of reports, whether you realize it or not. Irrespective of your role, you’ll likely need to write reports, whether occasionally or once in a while.

And to ensure you’re writing the appropriate report for specific situations, you need to recognize the different types of reports and how to write them.

Below, you’ll discover an exhaustive list of business report types, what they do, and when you need them, plus examples and templates. 

Let’s get into it. 

Table of contents

• What is report writing?

1. Formal report

2. informal report , 3. audit report, 4. marketing report, 5. progress or periodic report, 6. trend report, 7. analytical report, 8. evaluation report, 9. client report, 10. sales report, 11. proposal report, 12. survey report , 13. research report, 14. financial report, 15. incident report, 16. project report, 17. annual report, 18. lateral report.

• 19. Vertical report

20. Event report

Make beautiful, engaging reports with Piktochart. Try it for free .

What is report writing? 

Do you remember those report cards you received at the end of every school session? The details of how well you perform academic and extracurricular activities during the year.

This is what reports do. 

Reports are documents detailing the results or findings from a process, project, or investigation. They can also refer to a well-detailed analysis of specific data sets or situations.

In business communications, report writing is the process of preparing formal documents that elaborate on a specific topic. Report writing often uses facts, tables,  graphs , charts, diagrams , etc., to explain its findings for easy comprehension.

Since any report aims to educate and inform through scientific research, preparing the  perfect report  focusing on the target audience is crucial. Some reports also present available options and recommendations based on their findings.

20 types of reports, examples, and templates 

While businesses use numerous types of reports, these are the most common ones we’ve seen used almost daily.

Formal reports often carry objective information that is in-depth and straight to the point without personal references. These reports require careful structuring based on the organization’s style and purpose.

Formal report classification includes accounting reports, functional reports, and other lengthy reports.

Informal reports are the opposite of a formal reports. It lacks strict structuring, contains short messages, and uses casual language. Businesses intending to pass quick critical information often use informal reports. Informal reports pay more attention to fast and effective communication than formal structuring.

Again, other types of informal reports fall into this category, including digital postings, emails, memo reports, and some forms of internal reports.

An audit report is a formal report created by an auditor about the financial status of an organization. Audit reports are written using generally accepted auditing standards.

However, these formats may vary slightly depending on the audit’s circumstances. An example is an end-of-the-year audit report for an organization.

Marketing reports give detailed information about marketing campaigns, from on-ground to social media campaigning . They are used for monitoring marketing activities and informing about marketing strategies that work or require improvements.

Progress reports , or periodic reports, are generated at specific intervals. Depending on the needs for the performance reports, they could be daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual reports or they may even use regularly scheduled dates. 

Progress reports are used to supply progress or performance information. Other business report types could also qualify as periodic reports if they are made available at intervals. 

Examples of progress reports include analytical reports, Google analytics reports, and inventory reports.

Sometimes called trend analysis reports, trend reports analyze everyday business operations and compare them to forecasts.

This report helps businesses discover recent industry trends and how they can benefit organizations. They also reveal important details about marketing campaigns and tell you the reach of your messages and their influences on marketing.

Examples include Google Analytics reports, surveys, and statistical reports.

Analytical reports have gained prominence in recent years due to the growing importance of business data analysis. 

The last few years have seen data analysis ingrained as part of standard business practices, and the industry expects to  reach $68 billion in annual revenue  by 2025.

Organizations leverage data-driven insights that make analytical reports one of the most common reports used. Analytical reports can suggest recommendations to improve businesses by leveraging data insights to evaluate performance.

When an organization rolls out products, services, campaigns, or processes, it must evaluate the success periodically or after the program.

An evaluation report documents a product’s effectiveness if a service meets expectations or if a campaign is successful.

Evaluation reports also highlight findings and make recommendations based on the performance. It is a formal, in-depth report, sometimes including background information, definitions, results, forecasts, and recommendations.

This report can assist with the decision-making process and show transparency to stakeholders.

Since businesses deal with clients, they need a client report detailing their relationship with each client and their work activities. Client reports clarify projects’ progress and help the business make management decisions.

Client reports are created and delivered according to the agreed time frame. For example, it could be weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc. This makes the report a periodic report.

Meetings and discussions with clients could also accompany it to explain the content. As a result, client reporting helps a business build trust.

The sales department reports a business’ sales performance to executives and the board through the sales reports. Members of the sales team could also make a sales report for other group members or the team manager.

A sales report details the performance of a business for a specified period. They can also reveal happenings on the field to inform decisions.

This type of report highlights sales volume, revenue from the sales, leads, etc. They may be used to set key performance indicators or formulate an entire business target.

Examples of sales reports include periodic reports that track sales performance for the specified period. For instance, a weekly or monthly sales report will detail sales, revenue, leads, and other metrics for the specified time periods.

Businesses go into partnerships and other forms of business relationships. But before this happens, they establish the specifics of the relationship through a proposal report.

Proposal reports are official documents highlighting how a business intends to help another.

Proposal reports are sent in response to a Request for Proposal or RFP. They contain specific steps the business will undertake to assist the recipient business.

Since a company usually receives business proposals from many businesses, aim for thorough and precise proposal reports.

Survey reports are documents that help a business highlight the findings from a survey. It does its best to summarize the responses of a survey and objectively present the information while using visuals like tables, graphs, charts, and infographics to make reports easy to read .

Research reports are documents created to communicate the findings from the research – whether business or scientific – related to the company. Experts in the field usually do it. Sometimes, a research report can uncover information requiring urgent attention.

The content in a research report includes the research process, findings, conclusions, recommendations, and limitations.

It will inform a business about essential market needs they need to attend to and how their products or service affects the public. For example, some social media platforms are looking into how they influence young people.

Financial reports and budget reports are often used interchangeably, but they are not necessarily the same.

Production and finance departments are typically in charge of these reports. Financial reports are formal documents that explain a business’s financial status and performance. Examples of budget reports include weekly or monthly financial reports that detail the economic activities for the period specified.

On the other hand, budget reports are concerned with the pre-set budget conditions and how they compare with the company’s financial situation. They help businesses make proper financial decisions and can be used to compare milestones over a specific period.

Although businesses put measures to prevent accidents and other undesirable incidents, they can still happen in the workplace. And when these incidents occur, additional steps may be required to avoid a reoccurrence. An incident report is an informational report that details the facts of an incident.

Incident reports may also reveal unusual occurrences, safety and health issues, security breaches, near misses, damage, etc.

It highlights the cause, exact occurrence, and ways to prevent incidents in the future. Specific industries like insurance companies and security agencies may also require them.

Also known as a project health report, project reports help the organization give information about specific projects.

Businesses generally embark on projects, and making reports about each allows them to track progress and assess performance effectively.

Project reports contain the objectives, which can help ensure compliance from everyone overseeing the project. Such reports also make it easy for stakeholders to give feedback, edit, assess financial requirements, and implement necessary actions.

Annual reports are comprehensive longer reports that give in-depth details about a business in the preceding year. It details the financial statements and achievements for the specific year. 

They could qualify as external reports since many organizations release their annual reports to the public. In some instances, releasing annual reports may be a mandate for some businesses.

However, companies mainly  design annual reports  to review the company’s business during the year. They help stakeholders become aware of the performance and inform shareholders and others about the financial performance.

Vertical and lateral reports are terms used when referring to the direction of a report. Compared to other reports, lateral reports describe those that move between members at the same organizational level.

Examples of these types of reports are informational reports exchanged between team managers, short reports between members of a team, or comprehensive reports between departments.

19. Vertical report 

Vertical reports comprise a document prepared in a report form shared between different organizational hierarchies. It could be from a higher level to a lower level or vice versa.

Examples include business reports from employees members of an executive team or managers to their team members.

Businesses organize many events, and event reports analyze each event’s success.

Event managers prepare these short reports and work by comparing event results to the set goals. It determines an event’s success and serves as a blueprint for future events.

Make beautiful, engaging, and different types of reports with Piktochart 

Understanding the different types of reports is crucial to using them for the growth and organization of your business. 

Not only report vital, but they can also help a business identify pain points and forecast future occurrences when appropriately used.

However, this isn’t always the case because many business report types often confuse employees and owners.

The way out is to use  report-writing tools  like Piktochart. Piktochart is an all-in-one business communication tool that helps businesses create reports, presentations, infographics, and various other business designs.

Pick a template, input your data, and watch your report come alive. Writing reports will be a breeze once you work from professional templates.  Create a free Piktochart account  to get started now!

Create your own report with a few clicks.

Start with a report template designed by experts and customize it with your fonts and brand colors. Upload your own photos or choose from our free library of royalty-free images. Add charts or maps and quickly get to a professionally-looking report.

Jessica La is a writer with over six years in the SEO, AI, and content industry. In her blog ByJessicaLa.com , she explores all things marketing and is passionate about the unique ways businesses can improve, innovate and grow. You can reach her at [email protected]

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• Research Report: Definition, Types + [Writing Guide]

One of the reasons for carrying out research is to add to the existing body of knowledge. Therefore, when conducting research, you need to document your processes and findings in a research report. 

With a research report, it is easy to outline the findings of your systematic investigation and any gaps needing further inquiry. Knowing how to create a detailed research report will prove useful when you need to conduct research.  

What is a Research Report?

A research report is a well-crafted document that outlines the processes, data, and findings of a systematic investigation. It is an important document that serves as a first-hand account of the research process, and it is typically considered an objective and accurate source of information.

In many ways, a research report can be considered as a summary of the research process that clearly highlights findings, recommendations, and other important details. Reading a well-written research report should provide you with all the information you need about the core areas of the research process.

Features of a Research Report 

So how do you recognize a research report when you see one? Here are some of the basic features that define a research report. 

• It is a detailed presentation of research processes and findings, and it usually includes tables and graphs. 
• It is written in a formal language.
• A research report is usually written in the third person.
• It is informative and based on first-hand verifiable information.
• It is formally structured with headings, sections, and bullet points.
• It always includes recommendations for future actions. 

Types of Research Report 

The research report is classified based on two things; nature of research and target audience.

Nature of Research

• Qualitative Research Report

This is the type of report written for qualitative research . It outlines the methods, processes, and findings of a qualitative method of systematic investigation. In educational research, a qualitative research report provides an opportunity for one to apply his or her knowledge and develop skills in planning and executing qualitative research projects.

A qualitative research report is usually descriptive in nature. Hence, in addition to presenting details of the research process, you must also create a descriptive narrative of the information.

• Quantitative Research Report

A quantitative research report is a type of research report that is written for quantitative research. Quantitative research is a type of systematic investigation that pays attention to numerical or statistical values in a bid to find answers to research questions. 

In this type of research report, the researcher presents quantitative data to support the research process and findings. Unlike a qualitative research report that is mainly descriptive, a quantitative research report works with numbers; that is, it is numerical in nature. 

Target Audience

Also, a research report can be said to be technical or popular based on the target audience. If you’re dealing with a general audience, you would need to present a popular research report, and if you’re dealing with a specialized audience, you would submit a technical report. 

• Technical Research Report

A technical research report is a detailed document that you present after carrying out industry-based research. This report is highly specialized because it provides information for a technical audience; that is, individuals with above-average knowledge in the field of study. 

In a technical research report, the researcher is expected to provide specific information about the research process, including statistical analyses and sampling methods. Also, the use of language is highly specialized and filled with jargon. 

Examples of technical research reports include legal and medical research reports. 

• Popular Research Report

A popular research report is one for a general audience; that is, for individuals who do not necessarily have any knowledge in the field of study. A popular research report aims to make information accessible to everyone. 

It is written in very simple language, which makes it easy to understand the findings and recommendations. Examples of popular research reports are the information contained in newspapers and magazines. 

Importance of a Research Report 

• Knowledge Transfer: As already stated above, one of the reasons for carrying out research is to contribute to the existing body of knowledge, and this is made possible with a research report. A research report serves as a means to effectively communicate the findings of a systematic investigation to all and sundry.  
• Identification of Knowledge Gaps: With a research report, you’d be able to identify knowledge gaps for further inquiry. A research report shows what has been done while hinting at other areas needing systematic investigation. 
• In market research, a research report would help you understand the market needs and peculiarities at a glance. 
• A research report allows you to present information in a precise and concise manner. 
• It is time-efficient and practical because, in a research report, you do not have to spend time detailing the findings of your research work in person. You can easily send out the report via email and have stakeholders look at it. 

Guide to Writing a Research Report

A lot of detail goes into writing a research report, and getting familiar with the different requirements would help you create the ideal research report. A research report is usually broken down into multiple sections, which allows for a concise presentation of information.

Structure and Example of a Research Report

This is the title of your systematic investigation. Your title should be concise and point to the aims, objectives, and findings of a research report. 

• Table of Contents

This is like a compass that makes it easier for readers to navigate the research report.

An abstract is an overview that highlights all important aspects of the research including the research method, data collection process, and research findings. Think of an abstract as a summary of your research report that presents pertinent information in a concise manner. 

An abstract is always brief; typically 100-150 words and goes straight to the point. The focus of your research abstract should be the 5Ws and 1H format – What, Where, Why, When, Who and How. 

• Introduction

Here, the researcher highlights the aims and objectives of the systematic investigation as well as the problem which the systematic investigation sets out to solve. When writing the report introduction, it is also essential to indicate whether the purposes of the research were achieved or would require more work.

In the introduction section, the researcher specifies the research problem and also outlines the significance of the systematic investigation. Also, the researcher is expected to outline any jargons and terminologies that are contained in the research.  

• Literature Review

A literature review is a written survey of existing knowledge in the field of study. In other words, it is the section where you provide an overview and analysis of different research works that are relevant to your systematic investigation. 

It highlights existing research knowledge and areas needing further investigation, which your research has sought to fill. At this stage, you can also hint at your research hypothesis and its possible implications for the existing body of knowledge in your field of study. 

• An Account of Investigation

This is a detailed account of the research process, including the methodology, sample, and research subjects. Here, you are expected to provide in-depth information on the research process including the data collection and analysis procedures. 

In a quantitative research report, you’d need to provide information surveys, questionnaires and other quantitative data collection methods used in your research. In a qualitative research report, you are expected to describe the qualitative data collection methods used in your research including interviews and focus groups. 

In this section, you are expected to present the results of the systematic investigation. 

This section further explains the findings of the research, earlier outlined. Here, you are expected to present a justification for each outcome and show whether the results are in line with your hypotheses or if other research studies have come up with similar results.

• Conclusions

This is a summary of all the information in the report. It also outlines the significance of the entire study. 

• References and Appendices

This section contains a list of all the primary and secondary research sources. 

Tips for Writing a Research Report

• Define the Context for the Report

As is obtainable when writing an essay, defining the context for your research report would help you create a detailed yet concise document. This is why you need to create an outline before writing so that you do not miss out on anything. 

• Define your Audience

Writing with your audience in mind is essential as it determines the tone of the report. If you’re writing for a general audience, you would want to present the information in a simple and relatable manner. For a specialized audience, you would need to make use of technical and field-specific terms. 

• Include Significant Findings

The idea of a research report is to present some sort of abridged version of your systematic investigation. In your report, you should exclude irrelevant information while highlighting only important data and findings. 

• Include Illustrations

Your research report should include illustrations and other visual representations of your data. Graphs, pie charts, and relevant images lend additional credibility to your systematic investigation.

• Choose the Right Title

A good research report title is brief, precise, and contains keywords from your research. It should provide a clear idea of your systematic investigation so that readers can grasp the entire focus of your research from the title. 

• Proofread the Report

Before publishing the document, ensure that you give it a second look to authenticate the information. If you can, get someone else to go through the report, too, and you can also run it through proofreading and editing software. 

How to Gather Research Data for Your Report  

• Understand the Problem

Every research aims at solving a specific problem or set of problems, and this should be at the back of your mind when writing your research report. Understanding the problem would help you to filter the information you have and include only important data in your report. 

• Know what your report seeks to achieve

This is somewhat similar to the point above because, in some way, the aim of your research report is intertwined with the objectives of your systematic investigation. Identifying the primary purpose of writing a research report would help you to identify and present the required information accordingly. 

• Identify your audience

Knowing your target audience plays a crucial role in data collection for a research report. If your research report is specifically for an organization, you would want to present industry-specific information or show how the research findings are relevant to the work that the company does. 

• Create Surveys/Questionnaires

A survey is a research method that is used to gather data from a specific group of people through a set of questions. It can be either quantitative or qualitative. 

A survey is usually made up of structured questions, and it can be administered online or offline. However, an online survey is a more effective method of research data collection because it helps you save time and gather data with ease. 

You can seamlessly create an online questionnaire for your research on Formplus . With the multiple sharing options available in the builder, you would be able to administer your survey to respondents in little or no time. 

Formplus also has a report summary too l that you can use to create custom visual reports for your research.

Step-by-step guide on how to create an online questionnaire using Formplus  

• Sign into Formplus

In the Formplus builder, you can easily create different online questionnaires for your research by dragging and dropping preferred fields into your form. To access the Formplus builder, you will need to create an account on Formplus. 

Once you do this, sign in to your account and click on Create new form to begin. 

• Edit Form Title : Click on the field provided to input your form title, for example, “Research Questionnaire.”
• Edit Form : Click on the edit icon to edit the form.
• Add Fields : Drag and drop preferred form fields into your form in the Formplus builder inputs column. There are several field input options for questionnaires in the Formplus builder. 
• Edit fields
• Click on “Save”
• Form Customization: With the form customization options in the form builder, you can easily change the outlook of your form and make it more unique and personalized. Formplus allows you to change your form theme, add background images, and even change the font according to your needs. 
• Multiple Sharing Options: Formplus offers various form-sharing options, which enables you to share your questionnaire with respondents easily. You can use the direct social media sharing buttons to share your form link to your organization’s social media pages.  You can also send out your survey form as email invitations to your research subjects too. If you wish, you can share your form’s QR code or embed it on your organization’s website for easy access. 

Conclusion  

Always remember that a research report is just as important as the actual systematic investigation because it plays a vital role in communicating research findings to everyone else. This is why you must take care to create a concise document summarizing the process of conducting any research. 

In this article, we’ve outlined essential tips to help you create a research report. When writing your report, you should always have the audience at the back of your mind, as this would set the tone for the document. 

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Business Writing in Action

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Discuss the main parts of a report.
• Understand the different types of reports.
• Write a basic report.

What Is a Report?

Reports are documents designed to record and convey information to the reader. Reports are part of any business or organization; from credit reports to police reports, they serve to document specific information for specific audiences, goals, or functions. The type of report is often identified by its primary purpose or function, as in an accident report, a laboratory report, a sales report, or even a book report. Reports are often analytical, or involve the rational analysis of information. Sometimes they simply “report the facts” with no analysis at all, but still need to communicate the information in a clear and concise format. Other reports summarize past events, present current data, and forecast future trends. While a report may have conclusions, propositions, or even a call to action, the demonstration of the analysis is the primary function. A sales report, for example, is not designed to make an individual sale. It is, however, supposed to report sales to date, and may forecast future sales based on previous trends. This chapter is designed to introduce you to the basics of report writing.

Types of Reports

Reports come in all sizes, but are typically longer than a page and somewhat shorter than a book. The type of report depends on its function. The function of the report is its essential purpose, often indicated in the thesis or purpose statement. The function will also influence the types of visual content or visual aids, representing words, numbers, and their relationships to the central purpose in graphic, representational ways that are easy for the reader to understand. The function may also contribute to parameters like report length (page or word count) or word choice and readability. “Focusing on the content of your longer business documents is not only natural but necessary because doing so helps ensure complete, correct information” (Bovee & Thill, 2010).

Reports vary by function, and they also vary by style and tradition. Within your organization, there may be employer-specific expectations that need to be addressed to meet audience expectations. This chapter discusses reports in general terms, focusing on common elements and points of distinction, but reference to similar documents where you work or additional examination of specific sample reports may serve you well as you prepare your own report.

Informational or Analytical Report?

There are two main categories for reports, regardless of their specific function or type. An informational report informs or instructs and presents details of events, activities, individuals, or conditions without analysis. An example of this type of “just the facts” report is a police accident report. The report will note the time, date, place, contributing factors like weather, and identification information for the drivers involved in an automobile accident. It does not establish fault or include judgmental statements. You should not see “Driver was falling down drunk” in a police accident report. Instead, you would see “Driver failed sobriety tests and breathalyzer test and was transported to the station for a blood sample.” The police officer is not a trained medical doctor and is therefore not licensed to make definitive diagnoses, but can collect and present relevant information that may contribute to that diagnosis.

The second type of report is called an analytical report. An analytical report presents information with a comprehensive analysis to solve problems, demonstrate relationships, or make recommendations. An example of this report may be a field report by a Center for Disease Control (CDC) physician from the site of an outbreak of the H1N1 virus, noting symptoms, disease progression, steps taken to arrest the spread of the disease, and to make recommendations on the treatment and quarantine of subjects.

Table 13.3 “Types of Reports and Their Functions” includes common reports that, depending on the audience needs, may be informational or analytical.

Table 13.3 Types of Reports and Their Functions

How Are Reports Organized?

Reports vary by size, format, and function. You need to be flexible and adjust to the needs of the audience while respecting customs and guidelines. Reports are typically organized around six key elements:

• Whom the report is about and/or prepared for
• What was done, what problems were addressed, and the results, including conclusions and/or recommendations
• Where the subject studied occurred
• When the subject studied occurred
• Why the report was written (function), including under what authority, for what reason, or by whose request
• How the subject operated, functioned, or was used

Pay attention to these essential elements when you consider your stakeholders, or those who have an interest in the report. That may include the person(s) the report is about, whom it is for, and the larger audience of the business, organization, or industry. Ask yourself who the key decision makers are who will read your report, who the experts or technicians will be, and how executives and workers may interpret your words and images. While there is no universal format for a report, there is a common order to the information. Each element supports the main purpose or function in its own way, playing an important role in the representation and transmission of information.

Table 13.4 Ten Common Elements of a Report

Here is a checklist for ensuring that a report fulfills its goals.

• Report considers the audience’s needs
• Format follows function of report
• Format reflects institutional norms and expectations
• Information is accurate, complete, and documented
• Information is easy to read
• Terms are clearly defined
• Figures, tables, and art support written content
• Figures, tables, and art are clear and correctly labeled
• Figures, tables, and art are easily understood without text support
• Words are easy to read (font, arrangement, organization)
• Results are clear and concise
• Recommendations are reasonable and well-supported
• Report represents your best effort
• Report speaks for itself without your clarification or explanation

Key Takeaway

Informational and analytical reports require organization and a clear purpose.

1. Find an annual report for a business you would like to learn more about. Review it with the previous reading in mind and provide examples. Share and compare with classmates.

2. Write a report on a trend in business that you’ve observed, and highlight at least the main finding. For example, from the rising cost of textbooks to the Unnamed Publisher approach to course content, textbooks are a significant issue for students. Draw from your experience as you bring together sources of information to illustrate a trend. Share and compare with classmates.

• English for Business Success. Authored by : Anonymous. Provided by : Anonymous. Located at : http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/english-for-business-success/ . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

• types of reports

12 Types Of Reports (And What Each Is Best For)

Marketing reports take on many forms.

In this post, we’ll look at 12+ different types of reports and their best use cases. 

If you’ve ever wondered how to use such reports in different business scenarios — whether it’s communicating results to clients or relaying information between various departments — this guide is for you.  

Marketing reports

1. Periodic reports

1.1 google analytics report, 1.2 email marketing report, 1.3 social media report, 2. analytical reports.

• 3. Marketing dashboards

Types of internal reports

4. internal reports, 5. short reports.

• 6. Informal reports

7. Proposal reports

8. vertical reports, 9. lateral reports, types of external reports, 10. external reports.

• 11. Informational reports

12. Long reports

13. formal reports, marketing reports.

Here are some reports that you can use if you are a marketer or a marketing agency in particular.

See this report live

Use it to: Communicate performance to clients or a group of people (e.g., stakeholders like CMO and CEO).

Periodic reports are reports issued at regular intervals . They’re often presented as project deliverables and help with decision-making (i.e., an agency sends a digital marketing report to a client every month). You can have yearly, monthly, quarterly or weekly reports for example.

Examples: Progress reports , sales reports , social media reports , Google Analytics reports , email marketing reports . 

Let’s explore how these reports look in detail .

Google Analytics (GA) is widely used by marketers who want to make sense of data and drive strategic decisions.

If you’re a frequent GA user, you’d know this: It’s overwhelming navigating the sheer amount of data. Imagine how your client must feel when you present these data in a spreadsheet!

What’s a better way to communicate your results? 

DashThis’s Google Analytics report template:

Grab this template with your Google Analytics data!

In your GA report, drag and drop preset KPIs like goal completions and conversions, sessions and users, and landing page performances. 

Creating this visual presentation will help you to present ROI to your clients in a compelling manner .  

Emails are often used to educate, nurture, and convert subscribers to customers down the road.

Want to make sure your clients understand how their email campaigns are doing? Pull metrics from your email autoresponder, and let DashThis summarize your data in an email marketing report template .

Grab this template with your email marketing data!

With DashThis ’ preset KPI widgets (e.g., open rate, number of subscribers, and unsubscribe rate) shown in a sleek format, clients will be able to view results at a glanc e .

Grab this template with your social media data!  

Social media is a beast, especially when you’re on multiple platforms. 

One great way to track results across these different social channels is to use DashThis’ social media report template and use its pre-set KPIs (e.g., impressions and reach).

Display the best-performing posts from Facebook or Instagram directly on DashThis with a few clicks . Long gone are the days of manually inserting them. 

Creating reports is a big job. It’s the stage where clients evaluate how easy it is to work with you and decide if they should continue extending your contract. 

With DashThis , you no longer need to hop from one platform to another to attach seven different Google Analytics reports, a handful of email marketing reports , and screenshots of a viral Instagram post for each client.

Go from spending hours each week per client to less than ten minutes total! DashThis is the perfect tool to create these different types of reports . Thanks to automation, you don’t have to start from scratch every time.

Start your DashThis 15-day free trial and automate your marketing reports toda y.

Get an analytical report like this one with your own data

Use it to : Share data and insights to evaluate business decisions.

Data never lies. 

Analytic reports are business documents that share statistics, predictions, and solutions (e.g., feasibility report ). It’s a more technical report that gives you a clear understanding of what’s happening in your organization, so that you can evaluate your action plan.

Example: An ecommerce report that shows transactions and revenue. Based on the data, marketers can identify which channels generate the highest sales and choose which to focus on.

3. Marketing d ashboards

Dashboards are a real-time type of report . Much like the dashboards of your car, it shows you where your marketing strategies are as of now.

Use it to : It’s a functional report particularly useful to track a campaign and adjust it as it goes. 

Example: A rolling dashboard that follows your ongoing Facebook ads campaign , or a weekly marketing dashboard . 

Source:  Wild Apricot

Those reports are usually shared between different teams or employees across the same organization.

Use it to: Convey information among team members and departments within the organization. 

Internal reports are circulated within the company. They usually are there to inform different teams on different topics, or the entire company for an announcement.

Example : A marketing budget report sent to the finance department for approva l.

Use it to: Announce new events or internal changes. They are usually on an organization level .

Short reports are documents with less than ten pages; they’re usually informal. They usually are internal reports since they don't convey a lot of information.

Example: A memorandum (or “memo” for short) to inform staff of an upcoming work event .  

6. Informational reports

Use it to : Provide background information from a sector of a company to another.

Informational reports transmit information from a sector of an organization to another (e.g., annual reports , financial reports, accounting reports ).

Example : A leadership meeting minutes report that details which department heads attended and what was discussed .

Use it to: Set clear expectations and explain your strategy.

P roposals are problem-solving reports that include a project overview, solution, and expected outcome. They’re often used to convert leads to paying clients.  

Example: A digital marketing proposal that showcases an agency’s proposed strategy, case studies, scientific research, and process to a prospective client .

Source:  AppSumo

Use it to: Communicate information to management or employees a supervisor or manager oversees.

Vertical reports communicate information either upward or downward in the hierarchy.

Example: A marketing plan created by a marketing coordinator sent for approval to the head of marketing, monthly financial reports sent for approva l.  

Use it to: Transfer knowledge so all departments arrive at the same decision. 

Lateral reports coordinate knowledge transfer between different departments in an organization. 

Example: A marketing plan detailing budget information such as marketing spend and expected incoming revenue sent to the finance tea m.

Source: 8x8

The reports are usually public, so shared across multiple different organizations, available on a website or on different medias. 

Use it to: Announce an event, product launch, or other happenings.

External reports are distributed outside the company.

Example: A press release report about a new product launch sent to a tech publication for coverag e.

11. Informal reports

Use it to : Present information for internal use. 

Informal reports are less-structured documents (i.e., uses casual language). They’re usually of short length. 

Example : An informal post-event report with summarized points created by a marketer after attending a conferenc e.

Use it to: Share in-depth information.

Long reports are documents with more than ten pages. Due to the length, they’re usually formal.

Example: A white paper about an industry’s latest trend s.

Use it to: Provide information to educate, inform, convince, or drive decisions.

Formal reports are detail- and structure-oriented. Due to the long nature, they often include many sections (e.g., table of contents , executive summary) for easier reference.

Example: A yearly market research report used as a lead magnet to attract enterprise leads. 

What types of reports will you create today?

These 12 kinds of reports overlap each other.  

For example, a three-page SEO deliverable is an analytical, short, and external report .

So remember: It’s perfectly fine if your report format looks a little different from the examples in this list.

Does creating a single report eat up hours of your time? Or are you tired of cobbling analytics from multiple channels in your longer reports ? Report writing can take way too long and that’s why apps were created to help you streamline this tedious part of your job.

With DashThis , you don’t need to hop from one platform to another to pull in different data.

Get a report like this one with your own data!

Our dashboarding tools automate your monthly reporting and help you create reports in the blink of an eye. 

Whether you want to create a three- page report for different clients, a marketing dashboard for a specific audience or campaign, or multi-reports for a single brand, DashThis can make it happen.

DashThis is the power behind thousands of reporting dashboards created by and delivered for agencies and digital marketers every month.  Try it out for yourself!

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Types of Report Writing Techniques For Various Business Scenarios

When was the last time you were asked to write a report? Perhaps at the time of your annual appraisal,…

When was the last time you were asked to write a report? Perhaps at the time of your annual appraisal, when you had to prepare a performance report. But that’s not the only type of report that you have to deal with at your workplace.

There are periodic proposals, lateral reports, and so on. If you don’t want to be caught off-guard in case your manager asks you to prepare a report, it is better to familiarize yourself with the various types of reports that are used at the workplace.

An easy way to do so is to go through the unique SCQR—Situation, Complication, Question, and Resolution—Framework of report writing that is part of Harappa Education’s Writing Proficiently course.

We explain the different types of reports to give you an idea before you do the course.

Remember creating project reports during school and college days? You were given or had to choose a topic, had to research it, and present your claims and findings in detail in a creative manner.

But do you think college project reports, appraisal reports, and sales reports that your manager asks you to create can have similar structures? No, they will, in fact, have drastically different structures and each type of report will have to be dealt with differently.

Every report has unique characteristics that define its type. But then why is it important to classify them into different types? One reason is the fact that every report has a unique purpose, and knowing which type of report to use will help you serve that purpose as well as solve a particular business case.

Here are the various types of reports that are generally used:

Long and short reports:.

As the names suggest, these reports are characterized based on their lengths. A two-page report or memorandum is a short report, while a 30-page report is certainly long. The longer reports are among the types of report writing that have a formal style.

Formal and  informal reports:

Formal reports are meticulously designed documents that focus on the objectives of the organization. Think of annual audit reports. Formal reports are detailed and you won’t find any personal pronouns in these reports. On the other hand, informal reports, such as internal memorandums, are usually short and written in casual language.

Vertical and lateral reports:

These reports are characterized based on the hierarchy within organizations. For example, a report for the management or mentees is a vertical report, meant for the entire section or department across the hierarchies.

Lateral reports focus on the coordination between different departments and units in the organization. For example, the reports that are meant for, say, both the finance and administration departments are lateral.

Periodic reports:

As the name suggests, periodic reports are regularly sent out on pre-scheduled dates. In most cases, periodic reports focus on upward hierarchy, so you can also identify them as vertical reports.

These reports often serve the management to keep the business processes and activities in control. Some annual reports mandated by the government, though not vertical, are considered periodic reports.

Some other examples of periodic reports are quarterly, half-yearly, or annual reports. As these are created at a predetermined frequency, you will find a pre-set structure for these reports. So, the next time you are asked to create a periodic report, ask your manager for the pre-set structure.  You would only need to fill the current data every time.

Proposal reports:

Have you ever heard of analytical or problem-solving reports? Proposal reports are usually an extension of these kinds of reports. While there are all kinds of reports, there are some that are solution-oriented. Such kinds of reports can be identified as proposal reports. These reports usually describe how the organization can provide a solution to specific problems.

Functional reports:

Functional reports might be easier for you to recognize. These types of reporting include financial and accounting reports, marketing reports, and other reports that focus on specific business functions.

Once you know the basics of report writing and its types, the next step is to learn how to write a report. Harappa Education’s Writing Proficiently course lets you develop and improve different writing skills, which can lead you to better job opportunities and create a successful career.

Explore topics such as Report Writing , How to Write a Report , and Structure of Report from our Harappa Diaries blog section to ace your writing skills.

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Create a simple report

You can create a variety of different reports in Access, ranging from the simple to the complex. Begin by thinking about your report's record source. Whether your report is a simple listing of records or a grouped summary of sales by region, you must first determine which fields contain the data you want to see in your report, and in which tables or queries they reside.

After you choose your record source, you will usually find it is easiest to create your report by using the Report Wizard. The Report Wizard is a feature in Access that guides you through a series of questions and then generates a report based on your answers.

What do you want to do?

Choose a record source, create a report by using the report tool, create a report by using the report wizard, create labels by using the label wizard, create a report by using the blank report tool, understand the report sections, understand controls, fine-tune your report in layout view, fine-tune your report in design view, add controls to the report, save your work, view, print, or send your report as an e-mail message, view your report, print your report, send your report as an e-mail message.

A report consists of information that is pulled from tables or queries, as well as information that is stored with the report design, such as labels, headings, and graphics. The tables or queries that provide the underlying data are also known as the report's record source. If the fields that you want to include all exist in a single table, use that table as the record source. If the fields are contained in more than one table, you need to use one or more queries as the record source. Those queries may already exist in your database, or you may need to create new queries specifically to fit the needs of your report.

The Report tool provides the fastest way for you to create a report, because it generates a report immediately without prompting you for information. The report displays all the fields from the underlying table or query. The Report tool may not create the final, polished product that you ultimately want, but it is quite useful as a means to quickly look at the underlying data. You can then save the report and modify it in Layout view or Design view so that it better serves your purposes.

In the Navigation Pane, click the table or query on which you want to base the report.

On the Create tab, in the Reports group, click Report .

Access builds the report and displays it in Layout view.

For more about viewing and printing your report, see the section View, print, or send your report as an e-mail message .

After viewing the report, you can save it and then close both the report and the underlying table or query that you used as a record source. The next time that you open the report, Access will display the most recent data from your record source.

You can use the Report Wizard to be more selective about what fields appear on your report. You can also specify how the data is grouped and sorted, and you can use fields from more than one table or query, provided you have specified the relationships between the tables and queries beforehand.

On the Create tab, in the Reports group, click Report Wizard .

Follow the directions on the Report Wizard pages. On the last page, click Finish .

When you preview the report, you see the report as it will appear in print. You can also increase the magnification to zoom in on details. For more about viewing and printing your report, see the section View, print, or send your report as an e-mail message .

Note:  If you want to include fields from multiple tables and queries in your report, do not click Next or Finish after you select the fields from the first table or query on the first page of the Report Wizard. Instead, repeat the steps to select a table or query, and click any additional fields that you want to include in the report. Then, click Next or Finish to continue.

Use the Label Wizard to easily create labels for a wide variety of standard label sizes.

In the Navigation Pane, open the table or query that will be the record source for your labels by double-clicking it.

On the Create tab, in the Reports group, click Labels .

Follow the directions on the pages of the Label Wizard. On the last page, click Finish .

Access displays your labels in Print Preview so that you can see them as they will appear when they are printed. You can use the slider control on the Access status bar to zoom in on details. For more information about viewing and printing your report, see the section View, print, or send your report as an e-mail message .

Note:  Print Preview is the only view you can use to see multiple columns — the other views show the data in a single column.

If you aren't interested in using the Report tool or the Report Wizard, you can use the Blank Report tool to build a report from scratch. This can be a very quick way to build a report, especially if you plan to put only a few fields on your report. The following procedure explains how to use the Blank Report tool:

On the Create tab, in the Reports group, click Blank Report .

A blank report is displayed in Layout view, and the Field List pane is displayed on the right side of the Access window.

In the Field List pane, click the plus sign next to the table or tables containing the fields that you want to see on the report.

Drag each field onto the report one at a time, or hold down CTRL and select several fields, and then drag them onto the report at the same time.

Use the tools in the Header/Footer group on the Design tab to add a logo, title, page numbers, or the date and time to the report.

In Access, the design of a report is divided into sections. You can view your report in Design view to see its sections. To create useful reports, you need to understand how each section works. For example, the section in which you choose to place a calculated control determines how Access calculates the results. The following list is a summary of the section types and their uses:

Report Header      This section is printed just once, at the beginning of the report. Use the report header for information that might normally appear on a cover page, such as a logo, a title, or a date. When you place a calculated control that uses the Sum aggregate function in the report header, the sum calculated is for the entire report. The report header is printed before the page header.

Page Header      This section is printed at the top of every page. For example, use a page header to repeat the report title on every page.

Group Header      This section is printed at the beginning of each new group of records. Use the group header to print the group name. For example, in a report that is grouped by product, use the group header to print the product name. When you place a calculated control that uses the Sum aggregate function in the group header, the sum is for the current group.

Detail      This section is printed once for every row in the record source. This is where you place the controls that make up the main body of the report.

Group Footer      This section is printed at the end of each group of records. Use a group footer to print summary information for a group.

Page Footer      This section is printed at the end of every page. Use a page footer to print page numbers or per-page information.

Report Footer      This section is printed just once, at the end of the report. Use the report footer to print report totals or other summary information for the entire report.

Note:  In Design view, the report footer appears below the page footer. However, when the report is printed or previewed, the report footer appears above the page footer, just after the last group footer or detail line on the final page.

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Controls are objects that display data, perform actions, and let you view and work with information that enhances the user interface, such as labels and images. Access supports three types of controls: bound, unbound, and calculated:

Bound control      A control whose source of data is a field in a table or query is a bound control. You use bound controls to display values from fields in your database. The values can be text, dates, numbers, Yes/No values, pictures, or graphs. A text box is the most common type of bound control. For example, a text box on a form that displays an employee's last name might get this information from the Last Name field in the Employees table.

Unbound control      A control that doesn't have a source of data (a field or expression) is an unbound control. You use unbound controls to display information, lines, rectangles, and pictures. For example, a label that displays the title of a report is an unbound control.

Calculated control      A control whose source of data is an expression rather than a field is a calculated control. You specify the value that you want in the control by defining an expression as the source of data for the control. An expression is a combination of operators (such as = and + ), control names, field names, functions that return a single value, and constant values. For example, the following expression calculates the price of an item with a 25 percent discount by multiplying the value in the Unit Price field by a constant value (0.75).

= [Unit Price] * 0.75

An expression can use data from a field in the report's underlying table or query, or from a control in the report.

When you create a report, it is probably most efficient to add and arrange all the bound controls first, especially if they make up the majority of the controls on the report. You can then add the unbound and calculated controls that complete the design by using the tools in the Controls group on the Design tab.

You bind a control to a field by identifying the field from which the control gets its data. You can create a control that is bound to the selected field by dragging the field from the Field List pane to the report. The Field List pane displays the fields of the report's underlying table or query. To display the Field List pane, on the Design tab, in the Controls group, click Add Existing Field .

Alternatively, you can bind a field to a control by typing the field name in the control itself or in the box for the ControlSource value in the control's property sheet. The property sheet defines the characteristics of the control, such as its name, the source of its data, and its format.

Using the Field List pane is the best way to create a control for two reasons:

A bound control has an attached label, and the label takes the name of the field (or the caption defined for that field in the underlying table or query) as its caption by default, so you don't have to type the caption yourself.

A bound control inherits many of the same settings as the field in the underlying table or query (such as for the Format , DecimalPlaces , and InputMask properties). Therefore, you can be sure that these properties for the field remain the same whenever you create a control that is bound to that field.

If you already created an unbound control and want to bind it to a field, set the control's ControlSource property to the name of the field. For details about the ControlSource property, search Help for "ControlSource."

After you create a report, you can easily fine-tune its design by working in Layout view. Using the actual report data as your guide, you can adjust the column widths, rearrange the columns, and add grouping levels and totals. You can place new fields on the report design and set the properties for the report and its controls.

To switch to Layout view, right-click the report name in the Navigation Pane and then click Layout View .

Access shows the report in Layout view.

You can use the property sheet to modify the properties for the report and its controls and sections. To display the property sheet, press F4.

You can use the Field List pane to add fields from the underlying table or query to your report design. To display the Field List pane, do one of the following:

On the Design tab, in the Tools group, click Add Existing Fields . 

Press ALT+F8.

You can then add fields by dragging them from the Field List pane to the report.

You can also fine-tune your report's design by working in Design view. You can add new controls and fields to the report by adding them to the design grid. The property sheet gives you access to a large number of properties that you can set to customize your report.

To switch to Design view, right-click the report name in the Navigation Pane and then click Design View .

Access shows the report in Design view.

You can use the property sheet to modify the properties for the report itself and the controls and sections it contains. To display the property sheet, press F4.

On the Format tab, in the Controls group, click Add Existing Fields . 

Add fields from the Field List pane

To add a single field, drag the field from the Field List pane to the section where you want it displayed on the report.

To add several fields at once, hold down CTRL and click the fields that you want. Then, drag the selected fields onto the report.

When you drop the fields onto a report section, Access creates a bound text box control for each field and automatically places a label control beside each field.

Some controls are created automatically, such as the bound text box control that is created when you add a field from the Field List pane to your report. Many other controls can be created in Design view by using the tools in the Controls group on the Design tab.

Determine the name of a tool

Place the mouse pointer over the tool.

Access displays the name of the tool.

Create a control by using the tools in the Controls group

Click in the report design grid where you want to position the upper-left corner of the control. Click once to create a default-sized control, or click the tool and then drag in the report design grid to create a control of the size that you want.

If you don't position the control perfectly on the first try, you can move it by using the following procedure:

Click the control to select it.

Drag the control to the location that you want.

This procedure creates an "unbound" control. If the control is the type that can display data (a text box or check box, for example), you need to enter a field name or expression in the ControlSource property for the control before it will display any data. See the Understand controls section in this topic for more information.

Display the property sheet

To display the property sheet in Design view, do one of the following:

On the Design tab, in the Tools group, click Property Sheet . 

After you save your report design, you can run the report as often as you need to. The report's design stays the same, but you get current data every time you print or view the report. If your reporting needs change, you can modify the report design or create a new, similar report based on the original.

Save your report design

Click File > Save or press CTRL + S. 

Alternatively, click Save on the Quick Access Toolbar .

If the report is untitled, type a name in the Report Name box, and then click OK .

Save your report design under a new name

If you're using Access 2013 or higher, click File > Save As > Save Object As .

If you're using Access 2010, click File > Save Object As .

In the Save As dialog box, type a name in the Save Report to box for the new report and then click OK .

After you save your report design, you can use it over and over again. The report's design stays the same, but you get current data every time you view or print the report. If your reporting needs change, you can modify the report design or create a new, similar report based on the original.

There are several ways to view your report. Which method you choose depends on what you want to do with the report and its data:

If you want to make temporary changes to which data appears on the report before you print it, or if you want to copy data from the report to the clipboard, use Report view.

If you want to be able to change the design of the report while looking at the data, use Layout view.

If you simply want to see what the report will look like when it is printed, use Print Preview.

Note:  If your report is formatted with multiple columns, you can only see the column layout in Print Preview. Layout view and Report view display the report as a single column.

View your report in Report view

Report view is the default view that is used when you double-click a report in the Navigation Pane. If the report is not open, double-click the report in the Navigation Pane to see it in Report view.

If the report is already open, right-click the report name in the Navigation Pane and then click Report View .

Work with your data in Report view

In Report view, you can select text and copy it to the clipboard. To select entire rows, click and drag in the margin next to the rows that you want to select. You can then copy these rows to the clipboard by doing one of the following:

On the Home tab, in the Clipboard group, click Copy .

Right-click the selected rows and then click Copy .

Use the keyboard shortcut - Press CTRL+C.

Show only the rows you want by using filters

You can apply filters directly to your report without leaving Report view. For example, if you have a "Country/region" column and you want to see only those rows where the country/region is "Canada", do the following:

Find the word "Canada" in the report and right-click it.

Click Equals "Canada" .

Access creates and applies the filter.

Toggle a filter on and off

You can switch between a filtered and non-filtered display by clicking Toggle Filter in the Sort & Filter group of the Home tab. This does not remove the filter — it just turns it on and off.

Remove a filter

Right-click the field from which you want to remove the filter.

Click Clear Filter from fieldname . (Your actual field is listed for fieldname .)

Once a filter has been removed, you cannot switch it back on by using the Toggle Filter command. You must first re-create the filter.

Note:  If you apply a filter to a report and then save and close the report, the filter will be saved. However, the next time you open the report, Access will not apply the filter. To reapply the filter, on the Home tab, in the Sort & Filter group, click Toggle Filter .

Preview your report by using Print Preview

Right-click the report in the Navigation Pane, and then click Print Preview on the shortcut menu.

You can use the navigation buttons to view the pages of a report sequentially or to jump to any page in the report.

1. Click to display the first page.

2. Click to display the previous page.

3. Click to display the next page.

4. Click to display the last page.

5. Type a page number in this box and then press ENTER to jump to a specific page.

In Print Preview, you can zoom in to see details or zoom out to see how well the data is positioned on the page. With the cursor positioned over the report, click once. To reverse the effect of the zoom, click again. You can also use the zoom control on the Access status bar to zoom further in or out.

To close Print Preview, do one of the following:

On the Print Preview tab, click Close Print Preview .

Right-click the report in the Navigation Pane and then click Layout View or Design View on the shortcut menu.

Tip:  After previewing your report, you can export the results to Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, or several other Office programs. On the External Data tab, in the Export group, click the button for the format that you want and follow the instructions.

You can print a report while it is open in any view, or even while it is closed. Before you print, be sure to double-check the page settings, such as the margins or page orientation. Access saves the page settings with the report, so you need to set them only once. You can set them again later, if your printing needs change.

Change the page settings

Open the report in Print Preview . You can change page settings in any view, but Print Preview is best because you can see the effects of any changes immediately.

After you make a change, use the navigation buttons to view several pages to ensure that you haven't created any formatting problems on later pages.

Send your report to a printer

Open the report in any view, or select the report in the Navigation Pane.

Click File > Print > Print . 

Access displays the Print dialog box.

Enter your choices for options such as printer, print range, and number of copies.

You can send your report to recipients as an e-mail message instead of printing a paper copy:

In the Navigation Pane, click the report to select it. On the External Data tab, in the Export group, click Email . 

In the Send Object As dialog box, in the Select Output Format list, click the file format that you want to use.

Complete any remaining dialog boxes.

In your e-mail application, type the message details and send the message.

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5 Types of Business Reports

Business reports are invaluable, no matter the type or size of your business or enterprise. The information they provide can help you see what is working in your company and what isn’t, so that you can make adjustments and improvements.

Oct 30 2019 ● 8 min read

Table of Contents

What are business reports.

Business reports are actual documents that inform by summarizing and analyzing a particular situation, issue, or facts and then make recommendations to the group or person asking for the report. The goal of these reports is usually one of the following:

• To examine potential and available solutions to an issue, situation, or problem
• To apply business and management theories to produce different suggestions for improvement
• To show your evaluation, reasoning, and analytical skills in recognizing and considering possible solutions and outcomes
• To make conclusions about an issue or problem
• To produce a range of suggestions for future action
• To present clear and concise communication skills

Keep in mind that with business reports, you’ll get several possible solutions instead of just one. Your job would be to identify and weigh-up the cost and benefits of each solution for the organization in the form of a business report. 

How to Write a Business Report?

A business report uses headings and subheadings, as well as tables, diagrams, and bullet points, if needed, to make the data easy for the reader to understand. The main function of the report is to communicate relevant information and facts clearly, quickly, and efficiently. Don’t forget the target audience while writing the report – is it aimed only for the CEO or the entire staff? This will help you adopt the right level of formality, objectivity, fairness, and sensitivity.

A business report can include some of the following sections:

What Are the Types of Business Reports?

There are five main types of business reports: informational reports, analytical reports, research reports, explanatory reports, and progress reports. Depending on the data turnaround, different teams within a company can decide how often they need to create business reports — daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or annually.

Informational Reports

You ask for this report when you want objective information on something. It presents non-biased facts without explaining the reasons and the possible outcomes of a situation. It is the ideal business report for learning things such as the number of employees, the role each of them plays in the company, or the departments the employees work in. 

Analytical Report

This type of business report is usually required when a company is trying to make an important decision. An analytical report analyzes the company’s situation, presenting relevant information, explanations, and conclusions. It helps the company to make good decisions going forward. 

Research Report

This is the most comprehensive type of business reports required when a company considers trying something new, such as going into a new geographical area, offering a new product, or using advanced tools for bulk URL analysis . 

A team of specialists or researchers are given a topic and asked to find all the relevant statistics and details obtained from an informational report, followed by a detailed analysis of the data found in the analytical report . The conclusion of the research report will be based on the available data obtained from the analytical and informational reports. 

Explanatory Report

This report is required when you want to explain a topic or situation so that everyone can understand it. For example, you can write it to explain the research you’ve conducted. Along with the table showing the results, you should include the reason for the research, sample sizes, methodology, etc. After explaining the results, you should briefly summarize the findings.

Progress Report

You want this report to show how things are going at the moment. A progress report isn’t based on analysis or tons of research. Instead, they are an update for the person who needs it. One example of this could be a weekly report disclosing the progress made throughout the week and what tasks you're looking to work on in the upcoming week.

Every business or enterprise needs business annual reports to see how things are working right now, and what adjustments can be done to improve the situation. They provide a summary or analysis of a particular situation or issue and give specific recommendations for further improvement. You should know how to write a business report to ensure the best results, as well as choose the right type of report you need for every situation. 

Published on Oct 30 2019

Indrė is a copywriter at Whatagraph with extensive experience in search engine optimization and public relations. She holds a degree in International Relations, while her professional background includes different marketing and advertising niches. She manages to merge marketing strategy and public speaking while educating readers on how to automate their businesses.

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What we know about unauthorized immigrants living in the u.s..

The unauthorized immigrant population in the United States reached 10.5 million in 2021, according to new Pew Research Center estimates. That was a modest increase over 2019 but nearly identical to 2017.

The number of unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. in 2021 remained below its peak of 12.2 million in 2007. It was about the same size as in 2004 and lower than every year from 2005 to 2015.

The new estimates do not reflect changes that have occurred since apprehensions and expulsions of migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border started increasing in March 2021 . Migrant encounters at the border have since reached historic highs .

Pew Research Center undertook this research to understand ongoing changes in the size and characteristics of the unauthorized immigrant population in the United States. The Center has published estimates of the U.S. unauthorized immigrant population for more than two decades. The estimates presented in this research are the Center’s latest, adding new and updated annual estimates for 2017 through 2021.

Center estimates of the unauthorized immigrant population use a “residual method.” It is similar to methods used by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics and nongovernmental organizations, including the Center for Migration Studies and the Migration Policy Institute . Those organizations’ estimates are generally consistent with ours. Our estimates also align with official U.S. data sources, including birth records, school enrollment figures and tax data, as well as Mexican censuses and surveys.

Our “residual” method for estimating the nation’s unauthorized immigrant population includes these steps:

• Estimate the total number of immigrants living in the country in a particular year using data from U.S. censuses and government surveys such as the American Community Survey and the Current Population Survey.
• Estimate the number of immigrants living in the U.S. legally using official counts of immigrant and refugee admissions together with other demographic data (for example, death and out-migration rates).
• Subtract our estimate of lawful immigrants from our estimate of the total immigrant population . This provides an initial estimate of the unauthorized immigrant population .

Our final estimate of the U.S. unauthorized immigrant population, as well as estimates for lawful immigrants, includes an upward adjustment. We do this because censuses and surveys tend to miss some people . Undercounts for immigrants, especially unauthorized immigrants, tend to be higher than for other groups. (Our 1990 estimate comes from work by Robert Warren and John Robert Warren; details can be found here .)

The term “unauthorized immigrant” reflects standard and customary usage by many academic researchers and policy analysts. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics also generally uses it. The term means the same thing as undocumented immigrants, illegal immigrants and illegal aliens.

For more details on how we produced our estimates, read the Methodology section of our November 2018 report on unauthorized immigrants.

The unauthorized immigrant population includes any immigrants not in the following groups:

• Immigrants admitted for lawful residence (i.e., green card admissions)
• People admitted formally as refugees
• People granted asylum
• Former unauthorized immigrants granted legal residence under the 1985 Immigration Reform and Control Act
• Immigrants admitted under any of categories 1-4 who have become naturalized U.S. citizens
• Individuals admitted as lawful temporary residents under specific visa categories

Read the Methodology section of our November 2018 report on unauthorized immigrants for more details.

Pew Research Center’s estimate of unauthorized immigrants includes more than 2 million immigrants who have temporary permission to be in the United States. (Some also have permission to work in the country.) These immigrants account for about 20% of our national estimate of 10.5 million unauthorized immigrants for 2021.

Although these immigrants have permission to be in the country, they could be subject to deportation if government policy changes. Other organizations and the federal government also include these immigrants in their estimates of the U.S. unauthorized immigrant population.

Immigrants can receive temporary permission to be in the U.S. through the following ways:

Temporary Protected Status (TPS)

In 2021, there were about 500,000 unauthorized immigrants with Temporary Protected Status . This status provides protection from removal or deportation to individuals who cannot safely return to their country because of civil unrest, violence or natural disaster.

Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) is a similar program that grants protection from removal. The number of immigrants with DED is much smaller than the number with TPS.

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals is a program that offers protection from deportation to individuals who were brought to the U.S. as children before June 15, 2007. As of the end of 2021, there were slightly more than 600,000 DACA beneficiaries , largely immigrants from Mexico.

Asylum applicants

Individuals who have applied for asylum but are awaiting a ruling are not legal residents yet but cannot be deported. There are two types of asylum claims, defensive and affirmative .

Defensive asylum applications are generally filed by individuals facing deportation or removal from the U.S. These are processed by the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. At the end of 2021, there were almost 600,000 applications pending.

Affirmative asylum claims are made by individuals already in the U.S. who are not in the process of being deported or removed. These claims are handled by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). At the end of 2021, more than 400,000 applications for affirmative asylum were pending, some covering more than one applicant.

Here are key findings about how the U.S. unauthorized immigrant population changed from 2017 to 2021:

• The most common country of birth for unauthorized immigrants is Mexico. However, the population of unauthorized immigrants from Mexico dropped by 900,000 from 2017 to 2021 , to 4.1 million.
• There were increases in unauthorized immigrants from nearly every other region of the world – Central America, the Caribbean, South America, Asia, Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.
• Among U.S. states, only Florida and Washington saw increases to their unauthorized immigrant populations , while California and Nevada saw decreases. In all other states, unauthorized immigrant populations were unchanged.
• 4.6% of U.S. workers in 2021 were unauthorized immigrants , virtually identical to the share in 2017.

Trends in the U.S. immigrant population

The U.S. foreign-born population was 14.1% of the nation’s population in 2021. That was very slightly higher than in the last five years but below the record high of 14.8% in 1890.

As of 2021, the nation’s 10.5 million unauthorized immigrants represented about 3% of the total U.S. population and 22% of the foreign-born population. These shares were among the lowest since the 1990s.

Between 2007 and 2021, the unauthorized immigrant population decreased by 1.75 million, or 14%.

Meanwhile, the lawful immigrant population grew by more than 8 million, a 29% increase, and the number of naturalized U.S. citizens grew by 49%. In 2021, naturalized citizens accounted for about half (49%) of all immigrants in the country.

Where unauthorized immigrants come from

Unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. come from many parts of the world, with Mexico being the most common origin country.

The origin countries for unauthorized immigrants have changed since the population peaked in 2007, before the Great Recession slowed immigration. Here are some highlights of those changes:

The number of unauthorized immigrants from Mexico living in the U.S. (4.1 million in 2021) was the lowest since the 1990s. Mexico accounted for 39% of the nation’s unauthorized immigrants in 2021, by far the smallest share on record .

The decrease in unauthorized immigrants from Mexico reflects several factors:

• A broader decline in migration from Mexico to the U.S.
• Mexican immigrants to the U.S. continuing to return to Mexico
• Expanded opportunities for lawful immigration from Mexico and other countries, especially for temporary agricultural workers.

The rest of the world

The total number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. from countries other than Mexico has grown rapidly. In 2021, this population was 6.4 million, up by 900,000 from 2017.

Almost every region in the world had a notable increase in the number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. from 2007 to 2021. The largest increases were from Central America (240,000) and South and East Asia (180,000).

After Mexico, the countries of origin with the largest unauthorized immigrant populations in the U.S. in 2021 were:

• El Salvador (800,000)
• India (725,000)
• Guatemala (700,000)
• Honduras (525,000)

India, Guatemala and Honduras all saw increases from 2017.

The Northern Triangle

Three Central American countries – El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala – together represented 2.0 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. in 2021, or almost 20% of the total. The unauthorized immigrant population from the Northern Triangle grew by about 250,000 from 2017 and about 700,000 from 2007.

Other origin countries

Venezuela was the country of birth for 190,000 U.S. unauthorized immigrants in 2021. This population saw particularly fast growth, from 130,000 in 2017 and 55,000 in 2007.

Among countries with the largest numbers of U.S. unauthorized immigrants, India, Brazil, Canada and former Soviet Union countries all experienced growth from 2017 to 2021.

Some origin countries with significant unauthorized immigrant populations showed no change, notably China (375,000) and the Dominican Republic (230,000).

Detailed table: Unauthorized immigrant population by region and selected country of birth (and margins of error), 1990-2021 (Excel)

U.S. states of residence of unauthorized immigrants

The unauthorized immigrant population in most U.S. states stayed steady from 2017 to 2021. However, four states saw significant changes:

• Florida (+80,000)
• Washington (+60,000)
• California (-150,000)
• Nevada (-25,000)

States with the most unauthorized immigrants

The six states with the largest unauthorized immigrant populations in 2021 were:

• California (1.9 million)
• Texas (1.6 million)
• Florida (900,000)
• New York (600,000)
• New Jersey (450,000)
• Illinois (400,000)

These states have consistently had the most unauthorized immigrants since 1990 and earlier .

At the same time, the unauthorized immigrant population has become less geographically concentrated. In 2021, these six states were home to 56% of the nation’s unauthorized immigrants, down from 80% in 1990.

Detailed table: Unauthorized immigrant population for states (and margins of error), 1990-2021 (Excel)

Detailed table: Unauthorized immigrants and characteristics for states, 2021 (Excel)

Unauthorized immigrants in the labor force

The share of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. workforce was slightly less than 5% in 2021, compared with 3% of the total U.S. population.

Demographics help explain the difference: The unauthorized immigrant population includes relatively few children or elderly adults, groups that tend not to be in the labor force.

Overall, about 7.8 million unauthorized immigrants were in the U.S. labor force in 2021. That was up slightly from 2019 but smaller than every year from 2007 through 2015.

Detailed table: Unauthorized immigrants in the labor force for states, 2021 (Excel)

Here are some additional findings about unauthorized immigrants as a share of the workforce nationwide and in certain states:

• Since 2003, unauthorized immigrants have made up 4.4% to 5.4% of all U.S. workers, a relatively narrow range.
• Fewer than 1% of workers in Maine, Montana, Vermont and West Virginia in 2021 were unauthorized immigrants.
• Nevada (9%) and Texas (8%) had the highest shares of unauthorized immigrants in the workforce.

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Key facts about the changing U.S. unauthorized immigrant population

Americans broadly support legal status for immigrants brought to the u.s. illegally as children, path to legal status for the unauthorized is top immigration policy goal for hispanics in u.s., 5 facts about unauthorized immigration in europe, how european and u.s. unauthorized immigrant populations compare, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

• Security and Trust

SAP Ariba SOC 2 (ISAE 3000) Audit Report 2023 H1

SAP Ariba, an SAP Company is a leading provider of on-demand spend management solutions. SAP Ariba’s mission is to transform the way companies of all sizes, across all industries, and geographies operate by delivering technology, service, and network solutions that enable them to holistically source, contract, procure, pay, manage and analyze their spend and supplier relationships. Delivered on demand, SAP Ariba’s enterprise-class offerings empower companies to achieve greater control of their spend and drive continuous improvements in financial and supply-chain performance.

SOC 2 reports fulfill various information and assurance needs of customers and aim to place trust in SAP's service organization systems, processes and controls. These narratives are related to the trust principles Security, Availability, Confidentiality Processing Integrity or Privacy which must be met to demonstrate a well-designed system. SOC 2 also contains details on performed tests and their results.

SOC 2 Type 1 covers management’s description of a service organization’s system and the suitability of the design of controls at a specific point in time, whereas a SOC 2 Type 2 also includes the operating effectiveness of controls for a dedicated period of time. SAP Ariba has regularly prepared SOC 2 Type 2 audit reports by an independent 3rd party accountant. This version of the report covers the audit period 1. October 2022 to 31. March 2023, the locations Shanghai (China), Riyadh (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), San Jose, California (USA), and Dubai (UAE), and the trust principles Security, Availability, Processing Integrity and Confidentiality.

The use of these reports is restricted. A copy of this report is available for all SAP customers and prospects with non-disclosure agreement in place.

• Request a copy of the SAP Ariba SOC 2 (ISAE 3000) Audit Report 2023 H1

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#StopRansomware: LockBit 3.0 Ransomware Affiliates Exploit CVE 2023-4966 Citrix Bleed Vulnerability

Note: This joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) is part of an ongoing #StopRansomware effort to publish advisories for network defenders that detail various ransomware variants and ransomware threat actors. These #StopRansomware advisories include recently and historically observed tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and indicators of compromise (IOCs) to help organizations protect against ransomware. Visit stopransomware.gov to see all #StopRansomware advisories and to learn more about other ransomware threats and no-cost resources.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Multi-State Information Sharing & Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), and Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre (ASD’s ACSC) are releasing this joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) to disseminate IOCs, TTPs, and detection methods associated with LockBit 3.0 ransomware exploiting CVE-2023-4966, labeled Citrix Bleed, affecting Citrix NetScaler web application delivery control (ADC) and NetScaler Gateway appliances.

This CSA provides TTPs and IOCs obtained from FBI, ACSC, and voluntarily shared by Boeing. Boeing observed LockBit 3.0 affiliates exploiting CVE-2023-4966, to obtain initial access to Boeing Distribution Inc., its parts and distribution business that maintains a separate environment. Other trusted third parties have observed similar activity impacting their organization.

Historically, LockBit 3.0 affiliates have conducted attacks against organizations of varying sizes across multiple critical infrastructure sectors, including education, energy, financial services, food and agriculture, government and emergency services, healthcare, manufacturing, and transportation. Observed TTPs for LockBit ransomware attacks can vary significantly in observed TTPs.

Citrix Bleed, known to be leveraged by LockBit 3.0 affiliates, allows threat actors to bypass password requirements and multifactor authentication (MFA), leading to successful session hijacking of legitimate user sessions on Citrix NetScaler web application delivery control (ADC) and Gateway appliances. Through the takeover of legitimate user sessions, malicious actors acquire elevated permissions to harvest credentials, move laterally, and access data and resources.

CISA and the authoring organizations strongly encourage network administrators to apply the mitigations found in this CSA, which include isolating NetScaler ADC and Gateway appliances and applying necessary software updates through the Citrix Knowledge Center .

The authoring organizations encourage network defenders to hunt for malicious activity on their networks using the detection methods and IOCs within this CSA. If a potential compromise is detected, organizations should apply the incident response recommendations. If no compromise is detected, organizations should immediately apply patches made publicly available.

For the associated Malware Analysis Report (MAR), see:  MAR-10478915-1.v1 Citrix Bleed

Download the PDF version of this report:

For a downloadable copy of IOCs, see:

TECHNICAL DETAILS

Note: This advisory uses the MITRE ATT&CK® for Enterprise framework, version 14. See the MITRE ATT&CK Tactics and Techniques section for a table of the threat actors’ activity mapped to MITRE ATT&CK tactics and techniques. For assistance with mapping malicious cyber activity to the MITRE ATT&CK framework, see CISA and MITRE ATT&CK’s Best Practices for MITRE ATT&CK Mapping and CISA’s Decider Tool .

CVE-2023-4966

CVE-2023-4966 is a software vulnerability found in Citrix NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway appliances with exploitation activity identified as early as August 2023. This vulnerability provides threat actors, including LockBit 3.0 ransomware affiliates, the capability to bypass MFA [ T1556.006 ] and hijack legitimate user sessions [ T1563 ].

After acquiring access to valid cookies, LockBit 3.0 affiliates establish an authenticated session within the NetScaler appliance without a username, password, or access to MFA tokens [ T1539 ]. Affiliates acquire this by sending an HTTP GET request with a crafted HTTP Host header, leading to a vulnerable appliance returning system memory information [ T1082 ]. The information obtained through this exploit contains a valid NetScaler AAA session cookie.

Citrix publicly disclosed CVE-2023-4966 on Oct. 10, 2023, within their Citrix Security Bulletin , which issued guidance, and detailed the affected products, IOCs, and recommendations. Based on widely available public exploits and evidence of active exploitation, CISA added this vulnerability to the  Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEVs) Catalog . This critical vulnerability exploit impacts the following software versions [ 1 ]:

• NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 14.1 before 14.1-8.50
• NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 13.1 before 13.1-49.15
• NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 13.0 before 13.0-92.19
• NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway version 12.1 (EOL)
• NetScaler ADC 13.1FIPS before 13.1-37.163
• NetScaler ADC 12.1-FIPS before 12.1-55.300
• NetScaler ADC 12.1-NDcPP before 12.1-55.300

Due to the ease of exploitation, CISA and the authoring organizations expect to see widespread exploitation of the Citrix vulnerability in unpatched software services throughout both private and public networks.

Threat Actor Activity

Malware identified in this campaign is generated beginning with the execution of a PowerShell script ( 123.ps1 ) which concatenates two base64 strings together, converts them to bytes, and writes them to the designated file path.

The resulting file ( adobelib.dll ) is then executed by the PowerShell script using rundll32 .

rundll32 C:\Users\Public\adobelib.dll,main <104 hex char key>

The Dynamic Link Library (DLL) will not execute correctly without the 104 hex character key. Following execution, the DLL attempts to send a POST request to https://adobe-us-updatefiles[.]digital/index.php which resolves to IP addresses 172.67.129[.]176 and 104.21.1[.]180 as of November 16, 2023. Although adobelib.dll and the adobe-us-updatefiles[.]digital have the appearance of legitimacy, the file and domain have no association with legitimate Adobe software and no identified interaction with the software.

Other observed activities include the use of a variety of TTPs commonly associated with ransomware activity. For example, LockBit 3.0 affiliates have been observed using AnyDesk and Splashtop remote management and monitoring (RMM), Batch and PowerShell scripts, the execution of HTA files using the Windows native utility mshta.exe and other common software tools typically associated with ransomware incidents.

INDICATORS OF COMPROMISE (IOCS)

See Table 1–Table 5 for IOCs related to Lockbit 3.0 affiliate exploitation of CVE-2023-4966.

[Fidelity] Legend:

• High = Indicator is unique or highly indicates LockBit in an environment.
• Medium = Indicator was used by LockBit but is used outside of LockBit activity, albeit rarely.
• Low = Indicates tools that are commonly used but were used by LockBit.

Low confidence indicators may not be related to ransomware.

Disclaimer: Some IP addresses in this CSA may be associated with legitimate activity. Organizations are encouraged to investigate the activity around these IP addresses prior to taking action, such as blocking. Activity should not be attributed as malicious without analytical evidence to support they are used at the direction of, or controlled by, threat actors.

The authoring organizations recommended monitoring/reviewing traffic to the 81.19.135[.]* class C network and review for MSHTA being called with HTTP arguments [ 2 ].

MITRE ATT&CK TACTICS AND TECHNIQUES

See Table 6 and Table 7 for all referenced threat actor tactics and techniques in this advisory.

DETECTION METHODS

Hunting guidance.

Network defenders should prioritize observing users in session when hunting for network anomalies. This will aid the hunt for suspicious activity such as installing tools on the system (e.g., putty, rClone ), new account creation, log item failure, or running commands such as hostname, quser, whoami, net, and taskkill. Rotating credentials for identities provisioned for accessing resources via a vulnerable NetScaler ADC or Gateway appliance can also aid in detection.

For IP addresses:

• Identify if NetScaler logs the change in IP.
• Identify if users are logging in from geolocations uncommon for your organization’s user base.
• If logging VPN authentication, identify if users are associated with two or more public IP addresses while in a different subnet or geographically dispersed.

Note: MFA to NetScaler will not operate as intended due to the attacker bypassing authentication by providing a token/session for an already authenticated user.

The following procedures can help identify potential exploitation of CVE-2023-4966 and LockBit 3.0 activity:

• Search for filenames that contain tf0gYx2YI for identifying LockBit encrypted files.
• LockBit 3.0 actors were seen using the C:\Temp directory for loading and the execution of files.
• Investigate requests to the HTTP/S endpoint from WAF.
• Hunt for suspicious login patterns from NetScaler logs
• Hunt for suspicious virtual desktop agent Windows Registry keys
• Analyze memory core dump files.

Below, are CISA developed YARA rules and an open-source rule that may be used to detect malicious activity in the Citrix NetScaler ADC and Gateway software environment. For more information on detecting suspicious activity within NetScaler logs or additional resources, visit CISA’s Malware Analysis Report (MAR)  MAR-10478915-1.v1 Citrix Bleed or the resource section of this CSA [ 3 ]:

CISA received four files for analysis that show files being used to save registry hives, dump the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) process memory to disk, and attempt to establish sessions via Windows Remote Management (WinRM). The files include:

• Windows Batch file (.bat)
• Windows Executable (.exe)
• Windows Dynamic Link Library (.dll)
• Python Script (.py)

This file is a Windows batch file called a.bat that is used to execute the file called a.exe with the file called a.dll as an argument. The output is printed to a file named 'z.txt' located in the path C:\Windows\Tasks. Next, a.bat pings the loop back internet protocol (IP) address 127.0.0[.]1 three times.

The next command it runs is reg save to save the HKLM\SYSTEM registry hive into the C:\Windows\tasks\em directory. Again, a.bat pings the loop back address 127.0.0[.]1 one time before executing another reg save command and saves the HKLM\SAM registry hive into the C:\Windows\Task\am directory. Next, a.bat runs three makecab commands to create three cabinet (.cab) files from the previously mentioned saved registry hives and one file named C:\Users\Public\a.png. The names of the .cab files are as follows:

• c:\windows\tasks\em.cab
• c:\windows\tasks\am.cab
• c:\windows\tasks\a.cab

This file is a 64-bit Windows command-line executable called a.exe that is executed by a.bat. This file issues the remote procedure call (RPC) ncalrpc:[lsasspirpc] to the RPC end point to provide a file path to the LSASS on the infected machine. Once the file path is returned, the malware loads the accompanying DLL file called a.dll into the running LSASS process. If the DLL is correctly loaded, then the malware outputs the message "[*]success" in the console.

This file is a 64-bit Windows DLL called a.dll that is executed by a.bat as a parameter for the file a.exe. The file a.exe loads this file into the running LSASS process on the infected machine. The file a.dll calls the Windows API CreateFileW to create a file called a.png in the path C:\Users\Public.

Next, a.dll loads DbgCore.dll then utilizes MiniDumpWriteDump function to dump LSASS process memory to disk. If successful, the dumped process memory is written to a.png. Once this is complete, the file a.bat specifies that the file a.png is used to create the cabinet file called a.cab in the path C:\Windows\Tasks.

This file is a Python script called a.py that attempts to leverage WinRM to establish a session. The script attempts to authenticate to the remote machine using NT LAN Manager (NTLM) if the keyword "hashpasswd" is present. If the keyword "hashpasswd" is not present, then the script attempts to authenticate using basic authentication. Once a WinRM session is established with the remote machine, the script has the ability to execute command line arguments on the remote machine. If there is no command specified, then a default command of “whoami” is run.

Open Source YARA Rule

Incident response.

Organizations are encouraged to assess Citrix software and your systems for evidence of compromise, and to hunt for malicious activity (see Additional Resources section).If compromise is suspected or detected, organizations should assume that threat actors hold full administrative access and can perform all tasks associated with the web management software as well as installing malicious code.

If a potential compromise is detected, organizations should:

• Quarantine or take offline potentially affected hosts.
• Reimage compromised hosts.
• Create new account credentials.
• Note: Removing malicious administrator accounts may not fully mitigate risk considering threat actors may have established additional persistence mechanisms.
• Report the compromise to FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at IC3.gov, local FBI Field Office, or CISA via the agency’s Incident Reporting System or its 24/7 Operations Center ( [email protected]  or 888-282-0870). State, local, tribal, or territorial government (SLTT) entities can also report to MS-ISAC ( [email protected]  or 866-787-4722). If outside of the US, please contact your national cyber center.

MITIGATIONS

These mitigations apply to all critical infrastructure organizations and network defenders using Citrix NetScaler ADC and Gateway software. CISA and authoring organizations recommend that software manufacturers incorporate secure-by-design and -default principles and tactics into their software development practices to limit the impact of exploitation such as threat actors leveraging unpatched vulnerabilities within Citrix NetScaler appliances, which strengthens the security posture of their customers.

For more information on secure by design, see CISA’s Secure by Design and Default webpage and joint guide .

The authoring organizations of this CSA recommend organizations implement the mitigations below to improve your cybersecurity posture on the basis of the threat actor activity and to reduce the risk of compromise associated with Citrix CVE 2023-4966 and LockBit 3.0 ransomware & ransomware affiliates. These mitigations align with the Cross-Sector Cybersecurity performance goals (CPGs) developed by CISA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The CPGs provide a minimum set of practices and protections that CISA and NIST recommend all organizations implement. CISA and NIST based the CPGs on existing cybersecurity frameworks and guidance to protect against the most common and impactful threats, tactics, techniques, and procedures. Visit CISA’s Cross-Sector Cybersecurity Performance Goals for more information on the CPGs, including additional recommended baseline protections.

• Isolate NetScaler ADC and Gateway appliances for testing until patching is ready and deployable.
• Implement application controls to manage and control the execution of software, including allowlisting remote access programs. Application controls should prevent the installation and execution of portable versions of unauthorized remote access and other software. A properly configured application allowlisting solution will block any unlisted application execution. Allowlisting is important because antivirus solutions may fail to detect the execution of malicious portable executables when the files use any combination of compression, encryption, or obfuscation.
• Audit the network for systems using RDP.
• Close unused RDP ports.
• Enforce account lockouts after a specified number of attempts.
• Apply phishing-resistant multifactor authentication (MFA) .
• Log RDP login attempts.
• Restrict the use of PowerShell , using Group Policy, and only grant access to specific users on a case-by-case basis. Typically, only those users or administrators who manage the network or Windows operating systems (OSs) should be permitted to use PowerShell [ CPG 2.E ].
• Update Windows PowerShell or PowerShell Core to the latest version and uninstall all earlier PowerShell versions. Logs from Windows PowerShell prior to version 5.0 are either non-existent or do not record enough detail to aid in enterprise monitoring and incident response activities [ CPG 1.E, 2.S, 2.T ].
• PowerShell logs contain valuable data, including historical OS and registry interaction and possible TTPs of a threat actor’s PowerShell use.
• Ensure PowerShell instances, using the latest version, have module, script block, and transcription logging enabled (enhanced logging).
• The two logs that record PowerShell activity are the PowerShell Windows Event Log and the PowerShell Operational Log. FBI and CISA recommend turning on these two Windows Event Logs with a retention period of at least 180 days. These logs should be checked on a regular basis to confirm whether the log data has been deleted or logging has been turned off. Set the storage size permitted for both logs to as large as possible.
• Configure the Windows Registry to require User Account Control (UAC) approval for any PsExec operations requiring administrator privileges to reduce the risk of lateral movement by PsExec.
• Implement a recovery plan to maintain and retain multiple copies of sensitive or proprietary data and servers in a physically separate, segmented, and secure location (e.g., hard drive, storage device, or the cloud).
• Use longer passwords consisting of at least 15 characters [ CPG 2.B ].
• Store passwords in hashed format using industry-recognized password managers.
• Add password user “salts” to shared login credentials.
• Avoid reusing passwords [ CPG 2.C ].
• Implement multiple failed login attempt account lockouts [ CPG 2.G ].
• Disable password “hints."
• Require administrator credentials to install software.
• Upgrade vulnerable NetScaler ADC and Gateway appliances to the latest version available to lower the risk of compromise.

VALIDATE SECURITY CONTROLS

In addition to applying mitigations, CISA recommends exercising, testing, and validating your organization's security program against the threat behaviors mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK for Enterprise framework in this advisory. CISA recommends testing your existing security controls inventory to assess how they perform against the ATT&CK techniques described in this advisory.

To get started:

• Select an ATT&CK technique described in this advisory (see Table 1).
• Align your security technologies against the technique.
• Test your technologies against the technique.
• Analyze your detection and prevention technologies’ performance.
• Repeat the process for all security technologies to obtain a set of comprehensive performance data.
• Tune your security program, including people, processes, and technologies, based on the data generated by this process.

CISA and the authoring organizations recommend continually testing your security program, at scale, in a production environment to ensure optimal performance against the MITRE ATT&CK techniques identified in this advisory.

• Stopransomware.gov is a whole-of-government approach that gives one central location for ransomware resources and alerts.
• The Joint Ransomware Guide provides preparation, prevention, and mitigation best practices as well as a ransomware response checklist.
• Cyber Hygiene Services and Ransomware Readiness Assessment provide no-cost cyber hygiene and ransomware readiness assessment services.
• For more resources to help aid in the mitigation of cyber threats and ransomware attacks visit Strategies to Mitigate Cyber Security Incidents , Protect yourself from Ransomware , and How the ASD’s ACSC can help during a Cyber Security Incident .

The FBI is seeking any information that can be shared, to include boundary logs showing communication to and from foreign IP addresses, a sample ransom note, communications with LockBit 3.0 affiliates, Bitcoin wallet information, decryptor files, and/or a benign sample of an encrypted file. The FBI and CISA do not encourage paying ransom as payment does not guarantee victim files will be recovered. Furthermore, payment may also embolden adversaries to target additional organizations, encourage other criminal actors to engage in the distribution of ransomware, and/or fund illicit activities. Regardless of whether you or your organization have decided to pay the ransom, the FBI and CISA urge you to promptly report ransomware incidents to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at ic3.gov , local FBI Field Office , or CISA via the agency’s Incident Reporting System or its 24/7 Operations Center at [email protected] or (888) 282-0870.

Australian organizations that have been impacted or require assistance in regard to a ransomware incident can contact ASD’s ACSC via 1300 CYBER1 (1300 292 371), or by submitting a report to cyber.gov.au .

The information in this report is being provided “as is” for informational purposes only. CISA and authoring organizations do not endorse any commercial entity, product, company, or service, including any entities, products, or services linked within this document. Any reference to specific commercial entities, products, processes, or services by service mark, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by CISA and the authoring organizations.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Boeing contributed to this CSA.

[1] NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway Security Bulletin for CVE-2023-4966 [2] What is Mshta, How Can it Be Used and How to Protect Against it (McAfee) [3] Investigation of Session Hijacking via Citrix NetScaler ADC and Gateway Vulnerability (CVE-2023-4966 )

VERSION HISTORY

November 21, 2023: Initial version.

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The global compounding pharmacies market size is expected to reach USD 18.6 billion by 2030. It is projected to register a CAGR of 5.11%

The market's growth can be attributed to the growing importance of medication adherence and increasing supportive government policies.

For instance, in November 2022, the U. S. Food & Drug Administration conducted its 11th intergovernmental meeting to discuss compounding oversight, and efforts to support the Compounding Quality Act (CQA) implementation.

Furthermore, the increasing demand for personalized medicine is driving the growth of the market. Compounding pharmacies specialize in creating customized medications based on the unique needs of individual patients.

Children and older adults often require medications in unique strengths or alternative dosage forms due to their specific age-related needs. Compounding pharmacies can tailor medications to meet the specific requirements of these populations, such as formulating liquid suspensions for easier administration or adjusting dosages based on body weight.

The COVID-19 pandemic slightly impacted the market in the initial phase. The market recovered at the start of 2021 as patients suffering from chronic diseases could not acquire their medications due to government lockdowns in various nations and the closure of pharmacy stores in some nations.

Several compounding pharmacies began offering a simple and secure method for consumers to deposit their compound prescriptions online and receive medicine at their door, which, in turn, increased the demand during the pandemic.

Compounding Pharmacies Market Report Highlights

• Based on the therapeutic area, the pain management segment held the largest revenue share in 2022 owing to its tailored approaches to address the adverse effects of commercially available pain management medications
• Based on the age cohort, the adult segment dominated the market with the largest revenue share in 2022 due to factors, such as specific dosage strengths, allergies or sensitivities to certain ingredients, or preferences for alternative dosage forms
• Based on the compounding type, the pharmaceutical ingredient alteration (PIA) segment dominated the market. This can be attributed to the high demand for customized drugs from patients with special needs
• The sterile segment dominated the market with the largest revenue share in 2022 owing to the high demand for intravenous sterile preparations of different dosage forms from pediatric and geriatric patients
• The North America region held the largest revenue share in 2022 due to the presence of a large number of pharmacies offering compounding services and increasing support from authorities, such as the FDA

Competitive Landscape

• Walgreens Co.
• JL Diekman and AQ Touchard (Fresh Therapeutics Compounding Pharmacy)
• Albertsons Companies
• The London Specialist Pharmacy Ltd (Specialist Pharmacy)
• Galenic Laboratories Limited (Roseway Labs)
• Aurora Compounding
• MEDS Pharmacy
• Apollo Clinical Pharmacy
• Fusion Apothecary

Key Attributes:

Key Topics Covered:

Chapter 1. Methodology and Scope

Chapter 2. Executive Summary

2.1. Market Snapshot

2.2. Segment Snapshot

2.3. Competitive Landscape Snapshot

Chapter 3. Market Variables, Trends, & Scope

3.1. Market Dynamics

3.1.1. Market Driver Analysis

3.1.1.1. Increasing supportive government policies

3.1.1.2. Increasing demand for personalized medications

3.1.1.3. Growing importance of pharmaceutical compounding in promoting medication adherence

3.1.2. Market Restraint Analysis

3.1.2.1. Risk of Chemical Contamination

3.1.2.2. Chances of human errors or medication errors

3.2. Industry Analysis Tools

3.2.1. Porter's Five Forces Analysis

3.2.2. PESTLE Analysis

3.3. COVID-19 Impact Analysis

Chapter 4. Compounding Pharmacies Market: Therapeutic Area Estimates & Trend Analysis

4.1. Segment Definitions

4.2. Compounding Pharmacies Market: Segment Dashboard

4.3. Compounding Pharmacies Market: Therapeutic Area Movement & Market Share Analysis

4.4. Hormone Replacement Therapy

4.5. Pain Management

4.6. Dermatology

4.7. Specialty Drugs

4.8. Nutritional Supplements

Chapter 5. Compounding Pharmacies Market: Age Cohort Estimates & Trend Analysis

5.1. Segment Definitions

5.2. Compounding Pharmacies Market: Segment Dashboard

5.3. Compounding Pharmacies Market: Age Cohort Movement & Market Share Analysis

5.4. Pediatric

5.6. Geriatric

Chapter 6. Compounding Pharmacies Market: Compounding Type Estimates & Trend Analysis

6.1. Segment Definitions

6.2. Compounding Pharmacies Market: Segment Dashboard

6.3. Compounding Pharmacies Market: Compounding type Movement & Market share Analysis

6.4. Pharmaceutical Ingredient Alteration (PIA)

6.5. Currently Unavailable Pharmaceutical Manufacturing (CUPM)

6.6. Pharmaceutical Dosage Alteration (PDA)

Chapter 7. Compounding Pharmacies Market: Sterility Estimates & Trend Analysis

7.1. Segment Definitions

7.2. Compounding Pharmacies Market: Segment Dashboard

7.3. Compounding Pharmacies Market: Sterility Movement & Market Share Analysis

7.4. Sterility

7.5. Non-Sterility

Chapter 8. Compounding Pharmacies Market: Regional Estimates & Trend Analysis

8.1. Compounding Pharmacies Market: Regional Movement Analysis, 2022 & 2030

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/9rwac0

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• Publications

The Financial Stability Implications of Multifunction Crypto-asset Intermediaries

The May/June 2022 crypto-asset market turmoil and the collapse of FTX in November 2022 highlight that multifunction intermediaries represent a critical part of the crypto-asset ecosystem and can exacerbate structural vulnerabilities in those markets.

Multifunction crypto-asset intermediaries (MCIs) are individual firms, or groups of affiliated firms, that combine a broad range of crypto-asset services, products, and functions typically centred around the operation of a trading platform. Many MCIs have proprietary trading and investment functions, while some are also involved in issuing, promoting, and distributing crypto-assets or related products, including so-called stablecoins.

MCI vulnerabilities are not very different from those of traditional finance, including leverage, liquidity mismatch, technology and operational vulnerabilities, and interconnections. However, some combinations of functions within a single MCI could exacerbate these vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities are further amplified by a lack of effective controls and operational transparency, poor or no disclosures, and conflicts of interest. There are also additional vulnerabilities stemming from the centrality of MCIs in the crypto-asset ecosystem and their concentration and market power. MCI vulnerabilities could spill over to the traditional financial system and the economy through various transmission channels.

Available evidence suggests that the threat to financial stability and to the real economy from the failure of an MCI is limited at present. Significant information gaps impair this qualitative assessment, but it is corroborated by the experience of recent failures of MCIs. Looking ahead, the financial stability implications of MCIs depend on how the crypto-asset sector develops and how the role of MCIs evolves within the sector, as well as on the effective implementation and enforcement of comprehensive and consistent regulations to the crypto-asset markets globally.

This report

looks at the structure and functioning of MCIs and assesses relevant financial stability risks;

describes data gaps and identifies potential indicators to monitor MCI developments; and

discusses implications for policy consideration by the FSB and relevant standard-setting bodies.  

Press Release

28 november 2023 fsb assesses risks of multi-function crypto-asset intermediaries, related information, 17 july 2023 fsb finalises global regulatory framework for crypto-asset activities, 16 february 2022 assessment of risks to financial stability from crypto-assets.

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