Corporate reporting is part science, part art, part story. For years, reporting was purely a numbers game, providing insights into key metrics like revenue, expenses, and cash flow, but with the advent of narrative reporting, finance teams have become storytellers, explaining the story behind the numbers in order to help the business meet its goals.
Narrative reporting enhances financial communication by adding context, offering a clearer view of performance and strategy. Unlike traditional financial statements, it explains the story behind the figures, improving transparency, decision-making, and stakeholder engagement. Unfortunately, to tell the story behind the numbers, finance teams must wade through multiple tools and duplicated data, making narrative reporting a time-consuming, complex and inefficient manual process.
As C-suite demands for real-time KPI updates, tumultuous economic landscapes, and rising costs increase the pressure on reporting processes—and the teams responsible for them— finance needs to lean on technology to meet the influx of financial, statutory, and management reporting needs more effectively.
1. A lot on the line
Financial reporting is about far more than presenting balance sheets and budgets. It provides vital information about a company’s financial health, allowing stakeholders like investors, creditors, and management to make informed decisions regarding profitability, stability, and growth potential. This then informs strategic planning, investment choices, and risk assessment.
CFOs therefore have to manage accurate disclosures, craft compelling reporting narratives, and visualise performance trends. Also referred to as the last mile of finance, reporting is by no means the longest mile, but it’s arguably the most important to get right. Reports inform every decision the business makes, every decision investors and stakeholders make about the business, and what regulators evaluate. If disclosure reports are incorrect or lacking in any way, penalties, legal action, and the company’s reputation are on the line.
As the business environment continues to evolve, so have reporting and disclosure requirements. Stakeholders and regulators are demanding more insight into the non-financial aspects of companies, such as ESG, lease, and tax information. While CFOs and finance teams are crucial to delivering these results, the responsibility of creating rich, detailed narratives depends on their ability to tap into the rest of the business.
In light of this, it has become imperative to reinvent the narrative reporting and disclosure management process.
2. Moving beyond financial data
Modern EPM solutions help drive transparency, confidence, and contextualisation behind financial data. By unifying and streamlining report creation, from narrative assembly to data analysis and editing, technology supports finance teams, enhancing efficiency, improving accuracy, and revolutionising how reports are created and delivered.
Tools like AI help create compelling reports that showcase the company’s true value, allowing CFOs to build stronger relationships with stakeholders. Modern EPM solutions centralise all reporting data and processes, enabling streamlined content, live analysis and deeper collaboration. This allows teams to focus less on collecting, organising, and verifying data and generating narration, and more on crafting reports to be strategic and competitive.
As the pace of business continues to increase, CFOs are going to have to transform corporate reporting from a complex function to a process that is executed swiftly and easily. With modern EPM solutions, finance teams can access more data, interpret more performance factors, and adhere to more rules, creating engaging and insightful reports that drive better business decisions.
