ANNUAL REPORTS

Ask questions of an annual report and read the passages behind each answer

An annual report mixes two kinds of writing: a narrative front half where the board and management tell their story, and a back half of audited statements and notes where the numbers sit. The claim in the chair's letter and the figure that supports it can be eighty pages apart. Bring the investor relations PDF into a Search+ workspace, ask in plain language, and open each citation to see whether the story and the statements line up.

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Last updated October 2026

How to work through an annual report with Search+

Upload the report with its companions
Add the annual report PDF together with anything that sits beside it: last year's report, the results announcement, the investor presentation, a separately published sustainability report, or the financial data supplement if the company releases it as an Excel workbook. Each file shows its processing status.
Tell Search+ how you are reading it
Write a Workspace Context note such as "I care about cash generation and debt; when you quote a number, say whether it comes from the narrative or from the audited statements". That instruction then applies to every question in the workspace.
Ask, then open the cited page
Ask about one subject at a time, for example how the largest division did. The answer arrives with inline citations, and opening one shows the excerpt it relied on, with a page reference where the PDF has page numbers.

Questions people put to an annual report

The year in brief

Summarize what the chair and the chief executive say were the main achievements and setbacks of the year.

Narrative against numbers

The strategic review says margins improved. What do the income statement and segment note show for the same period?

Alternative measures

Which adjusted or underlying measures does the report use, and where does it reconcile them to the statutory figures?

Board and pay

How is executive pay linked to performance targets, and which targets were met this year?

Going concern

What does the report say about going concern and the period the directors looked at?

Peers side by side

Across the three annual reports in this workspace, how does each company describe its capital allocation priorities?

What reading an annual report well takes

Two halves with different standards

The front half (letters, strategy, operating review) is written by the company and is largely unaudited. The financial statements and notes are audited. Knowing which half a sentence comes from tells you how much weight it can bear.

Adjusted figures need their reconciliation

Many reports lead with adjusted, underlying or core measures that exclude certain items. The definitions and the bridge to statutory numbers usually sit in a glossary or an appendix, so ask for both before comparing a headline figure.

Structure varies by country and company

Depending on where the company is listed, the report may include a strategic report, a directors' report, a governance section and a remuneration report, or it may wrap a regulatory filing such as a 10-K. Ask what the report contains before assuming where a topic lives.

Notes explain what the summary leaves out

Impairments, provisions, pensions, leases and contingent liabilities are often set out only in the notes. When an answer cites a highlights page, follow up on the related note.

Older reports can come in as scans

The current year's report is normally a clean PDF from the investor relations site, but a decade-old report may survive only as a scan of the printed book. Search+ runs OCR over those pages, so they become searchable alongside the new one; where print is faint or a chart label is hard to read, check the cited excerpt against the scan.

Every answer points to its source

Answers cite the document and excerpt they drew on, with page or section references when the report provides them. Search+ does not make up locations the PDF lacks, and you can ask across the whole workspace or just one report.

The usual parts of an annual report and a question for each

Part of the report	What it usually covers	A question to ask Search+
Chair's statement and CEO letter	The year as leadership sees it, strategy and priorities	What priorities does the chief executive set for next year?
Strategic or operating review	Markets, business model, performance by division	Which division grew fastest, according to the review?
Key performance indicators	The measures management tracks and their results	Which KPIs moved the wrong way this year, and how is that explained?
Principal risks	Risks the board considers most significant and how they are managed	Which risks are new or rated higher than last year?
Governance and remuneration	Board makeup, committees, director pay	How much of the chief executive's pay depends on performance?
Financial statements and notes	Audited statements, accounting policies and detailed notes	What does the note on borrowings say about maturities?
Independent auditor's report	The auditor's opinion and key audit matters	Which key audit matters does the auditor list?

What is an annual report?

An annual report is the document a company publishes each year to tell shareholders how it performed and where it is heading. It combines narrative sections written by the board and management with the year's financial statements, notes and the independent auditor's report.

It is not the same as a regulatory annual filing such as a US 10-K, although some companies bind the two together. A standalone sustainability or ESG report and a results press release are also separate documents.

Questions about reading an annual report with AI

Can Search+ summarize an annual report?

Yes. Ask for a summary of the whole report or of one part, such as the operating review. The summary carries citations, so any point that matters to you can be checked against the excerpt it came from.

Can it tell which statements come from the audited accounts?

Ask it to say where each figure comes from, or set that rule in Workspace Context. The citation shows the excerpt, with a page reference when the PDF has one, so you can see whether a number was taken from the narrative or from the financial statements and notes.

How do I check an adjusted profit figure?

Ask how the report defines the adjusted measure and where it reconciles it to statutory profit. Searching by meaning helps the answer reach a glossary or appendix even when it uses different wording from the headline.

Can I see what changed from last year's report?

Add both years to one workspace and ask a comparison question, such as how the principal risks differ. The answer cites each report it draws on, so you can read the old and new wording yourself.

Should I make an investment decision from the answers?

Search+ is a reading tool, not investment advice. It finds and cites what the report says, but it does not judge whether a company is a good investment, and AI answers can miss things, so read the cited pages and form your own view.

Can I add an old annual report that only exists as a scanned printout?

Yes. Upload the scanned copy and Search+ reads its pages with OCR, so the report answers questions with citations like any other. Older print can be faint or crowded, so when a figure matters, open the citation and compare it with that page of the scan.

Go deeper into annual reports

Compare annual reports

Year against year or company against company

Themes across annual reports

Patterns across many reports

Key risks

The principal risks section

Outlook and guidance

What management expects next

Segment performance

Results by division or region

Sustainability section