With the long awaited revisions to the Companies Act (2006) that now allows companies to switch the default towards electronic annual reports and accounts to stakeholders online rather than printing,

Being has developed a solution to help make a complex online publishing process easy.

Being is now helping clients take the advantage that the web presents to improve communications with investors and provide substantial cost savings to the company as well as environmental benefits.

We have already produced a number of online reports and apply best practice initiatives that harness the interactive strengths of the web to give a powerful and engaging experience for the user.

The transition from printed to online reporting will not happen overnight. However Being is already putting the structures in place to help meet the increasing demand of publically-quoted companies save money via the online approach.

The online environment provides many opportunities to bring the report to life. Not only is the content easily accessible via clear indexing with direct links to key information, an effective online report should offer users tools and functionality that will help them better understand the company's story, its products, strategy, performance and other key issues.

The online environment has some exciting advantages:

provides an enhanced user experience, for example:

• better links to additional information, glossaries etc; and
• potential for interactive graphics and charts;
• can deliver key messages in a more engaging way; and
• provides multiple formats to meet the diverse needs of users:
• HTML for quick access online;
• Excel downloads - financial data for more detailed analysis; and
• PDFs to read or store offline.
• Best practice functionality

Once the core elements of an annual report have been met, there are many opportunities to bring the report alive online by helping offer multiple levels of interaction. For example:

• key messages to enhance the investment case;
• video introduction from the chief executive;
• podcast of the chairman's statement;
• interactive diagrams - allowing for greater depth of information and clarity of explanation;
• analyser tools and key performance indicator (KPI) charts;
• related links to content outside of the report - related corporate information;
• excel downloads of financial data;
• print basket and download kits;
• PDF cut-ups - so users can choose and print the sections they are interested in;
• introduction in multiple languages;
• guide to financials - an educational role; and
• interactive glossary.

For more contact adrian.lennon@beingonline.co.uk