Annual report finance tables: Best practice
Setting (or typesetting) a clear set of financial statements in annual reports and accounts is an art in itself. They should combine standard accounting practices and enhanced design and typography to bring a higher level of clarity and enhance the brand.
From Excel to Indesign
Before we start, it is important to understand what happens when your design agency takes data from the Excel spreadsheets and converts them into a beautiful set of financial statements. In this article, we are focusing on typesetting the financial data in ‘tables’.
Firstly we will design a bespoke template for your statements, this will include:
Headers and footers
Table titles
Column headings
Colour palette (in line with the brand)
Line item styles
Subtotal and grand total styles
Column highlight styes (usually highlighting the current financial year)
‘Note’ styles
Typically, we would select one of the more challenging sets of data to present the design options to the client. This is usually a table that has a large number of columns and data. A worst-case scenario, if you like.
Our design will accommodate this complex data set and therefore easily manage the less complex data
Once we import the data into Indesign, it no longer operates as a sheet, in the sense that the formulas are lost. Totals will no longer update themselves automatically.
In addition, in almost all circumstances, the original styling the client has applied will be lost. The data becomes just words and numbers. So all the painstakingly styled totals, bold and underlines are lost and these have to be hand styled by the designer, cross-referencing the original data supplied. It is time-consuming and requires diligence.
If data has been supplied (for instance in Word) with the numbers aligned using multiple tabs, these will need to be stripped out. This is because we bring the data into a table, where each element, be it a piece of text or a number will sit in its own cell.
How the financial data is supplied can have a huge impact on the time it takes to style and the potential for errors that could be introduced. We can advise the best way to deliver the content to the agency, just talk to us.
Content supply
When you supply the financial statements, supply them in the order you would like to see them in the final report. Do not supply any data that you don't want to appear in the report.
Ensure that the content is styled consistently and it is clear to anyone looking at them what the typographic hierarchy is. This is particularly important when highlighting subtotals and totals.
If financial data is supplied separately from the written content, then you will need to clearly indicate where it should go. Please remember we are not finance experts and we will not have a deep understanding of your organisation's financial report. In order for us to have a chance of setting the account correctly the first time, clarity is key.
Best practices and conventions
The finance team will undoubtedly be well aware of the correct way to present a set of accounts. However, things that are often taken as a given may not always get translated into the final design. In addition, there is a level of nuance and craft that will set an unexceptional set of accounts against an exceptional, some of these are detailed below.
It may sound obvious but using a larger clear headline, table title style should be used. This is particularly important when the need arises to take a table across two pages. The reader should instantly be able to see when a new table begins.
Column titles should be small and centered over the column. The reason they are small is to reduce the number of carriage returns (lines) at the header. When labeling the columns, be consistent, but also consider the shortest way, in terms of character count, so they can be meaningfully displayed.
If a line item has a subset, for instance, line items that have a more complex hierarchy, consider how these might be set. For example:
Line item heading
Line item subset
Line items sub-sub set (usually indented)
Avoid using bullet points within accounts, instead use indent and styles.
Introduce clarity when using over and underlines to denote subtotals and grand totals. A rule below can look like a rule above if not carefully implemented.
There are a number of very effective design styles that can enhance the highlighting of totals eschewing the typical heavy and light lines. This data line item is generally an important part of the data set. We use colour and weight to differentiate the values.
One key aspect of setting the financial data, (and is far more complex for the designer than it should be!) is to align the decimal points correctly. Excel will do this for you without a thought, but InDesign is a publishing application and the design agency must ‘force’ the figures to align properly. We believe this is an example of an important distinction between an agency that understands the correct setting of accounts.
There are other small, visual considerations that are worth mentioning, these include:
Small left and right indents for line items within the tables
Using background tints on the page and white panels or table cell colours to ‘punch out’ the data
Using vertical highlights to bring forward the current financial data to the fore
One of the reasons our clients come to us, year after year, is we get these things right.
I hope this article goes some way to explain the hidden complexities in setting a truly engaging, best-practice set of financial statements. Do not settle for anything less.