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Summary Learning Unit 6: Business Reports
- Institution
- University Of South Africa (Unisa)
A guide to developing and creating a business report
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Learning Unit 6: Business ReportsTheme 1: The Nature and Purpose of Reports
Purposes of business reports:
1. Assist with decision-making
2. Inform
3. Recommend action
4. Record facts
5. Persuade.
Types of business reports:
1. Informative report: This type of report conveys the facts of a situation
2. Investigative report: Here the report will recount the facts of an investigation, as well as
recommend action to be taken
3. Feasibility report: This report examines whether something can or should reasonably be
accomplished and the recommends action
4. Progress report: This explains how much progress has been made on outstanding work.
Characteristics of business reports:
Based on careful, factual research
Well presented with high readability, especially when it includes detailed technical
information
Structured in a particular way and include all the appropriate sections
Set out in an appealing, readable way
Written with a specific audience in mind
Written clearly and logically in an objective, formal, impersonal (third-person) style.
The audience for reports:
Reports are written are written for a specific audience such as a board of directors, when writing
reports, you need to remember that there are individuals who make up that audience or board.
Therefore, reports should be written for experts and non-reports. Some members of the board
will need detailed technical information and will understand the jargon, while others will need
(and understand) only the conclusions and recommendations. You should therefore be
prepared to select information and to set it out in clearly defined sections in a language that is
understandable to your least technically versed reader.
Theme 2: Report structure
, Traditional elements of reports:
1. Preliminaries: Page numbers in Roman numerals, and contains the following.
a) Title page
b) Acknowledgements
c) Terms of reference (the brief)
d) Summary or abstract
e) Table of contents
f) List of illustrations (if applicable)
g) Glossary (if applicable, difficult words may also be defined at the bottom of each
page)
h) List of symbols and acronyms (if applicable).
2. The Body: Pages and each section of the report numbered with Arabic numerals, and
each major section must start on a new page.
a) Introduction
b) Procedure for gathering information
c) Findings (the facts)
d) Conclusions (insights/implications drawn from the findings)
e) Recommendations (if necessary, these detail exact actions to be taken)
f) List of references/bibliography
g) Appendices (if relevant).
Detailed breakdown of the traditional elements of reports - The Preliminaries:
a) Title Page:
A clear, informative title
For whom the report has been prepared
By whom the report has been written
The date of the report
Key words (index/search words)
b) Acknowledgements: Used to thank any individuals who assisted in the process of
collecting and compiling information during the investigation.
c) Terms of reference: The instructions given to the investigator, and are called this
because everything in the report refers back to these instructions. It should always
contain the following:
1. Who instructed the writer
2. When the instructions were given
3. Why the instructions were given
4. A detailed list of exactly what the investigator is supposed to do
5. The date by which the report has to be handed in
d) Summary: Should be written extremely well so that it is possible to replace the actual
report (so someone who is busy and has no time can understand main ideas of report by
reading the summary). A summary should help a reader decide whether or not to read
the main report. A summary should include the following:
An opening sentence stating what the report is about
A brief statement of the background to the report
A statement of the main purposes of the report
A brief statement of the procedure used to gather information
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