Preparing to Write an Accomplishment Report

Accomplishment reports require a lot of information gathering and prep work. It’s
important to have the necessary data on hand before you start. If you know that you
will be writing an accomplishment report for the next fiscal year, for example, you can
start logging all major accomplishments as they happen in a journal. That way, when it
comes time to write your report, you’ll have a lot of the prep work completed.

It’s also a good idea to clearly define the audience for your report. For example, will
your report be sent to board members for your small business or will it only be used
internally for employees? Will you be releasing your accomplishment report to the
public or will it be for investors and venture capitalists only? By answering these types
of questions, you can decide which information to include. If you will be making the
accomplishment report public, then you may wish to refrain from including any
proprietary or confidential information in your report.

Decide the time frame for your report. Some organizations release an accomplishment
report every fiscal or calendar year, while others prefer to do it quarterly or biannually.
By having a time frame in mind, you’ll know when to start recording accomplishments.

Information to Include

The goal of an accomplishment report is to show the reader what your business has
achieved within a given time period. Start off with a short summary that gives a bird’s-
eye view of your business’ performance and provides an overview of what will be
found in the report. The narrative report structure should include goals your
organization set out for itself, how they were achieved, concrete success metrics,
challenges your business encountered, specific changes your organization made in
your industry and your business value as a whole. Including your business vision and
mission statements is also a great way to tell the reader what your organization is all
about.

Be sure to include examples of substantial accomplishment throughout the report,

being as specific as possible. For example, if one of your key business goals was to
sign on 25 brand-new customer accounts, and you achieved this goal by signing on
30, you can detail how you did this. Not only did you achieve your goal, but you
surpassed it by changing your sales strategy, hiring on a new marketing director and
developing a tight sales funnel. This not only shows the reader that you met your
objectives, but tells them more about the value your organization brings to the
business landscape. By detailing the specifics, you present the strategy behind the
actions.

How to Format an Accomplishment Report

Instead of writing several pages of dense paragraphs, which can be difficult to absorb,
it’s best to vary the formatting of your report. Include photographs of your business
and your employees who helped accomplish your goals. Create infographics that
engage the reader and tell a story about the accomplishments. Use desktop
publishing software to create a polished and formal document that invites the reader to
engage with all of the content. Be sure to use a combination of paragraph form and
bullet points, as well as a variety of headings to organize your report.