How to Start Preparing for an Annual Report: A Planning Guide for IR, Finance and Compliance Teams

The FY 2025-26 AGM season ends on 30 September. For most listed companies, that is also the day the FY 2026-27 annual report quietly begins, whether anyone has noticed or not. The teams that produce calm, well-edited reports in August aren't working harder in June. They made a handful of slow decisions in October, November and December, when nobody was waiting on them.

This guide is for the three teams that end up sharing the work: investor relations, finance and the company secretary's office. It covers the dates you can't move, the decisions to take before the year closes, who should own what, and a calendar that gets you from here to dispatch.

Start with the dates you can't move

An annual report is scheduled backwards from the AGM, and the AGM is boxed in by law. For a financial year ending 31 March 2027:

"Clear days" excludes both the day the notice goes out and the day of the meeting. For a 31 August AGM, dispatch has to be complete by 9 August; for a 30 September AGM, by 8 September. Build a few days' margin on top, and more if any copies go by post.

The dispatch rules themselves are lighter than they were. Under LODR Regulation 36(1)(a), shareholders with a registered email receive the full report electronically. Since SEBI's December 2024 amendment, those without one get a letter under Regulation 36(1)(b) giving "the web-link, including the exact path" to the report, instead of an abridged hard copy. MCA's General Circular 03/2025 of 22 September 2025 lets companies hold AGMs by video conference or other audio-visual means until further orders, but it doesn't extend any statutory deadline. Our earlier piece on choosing an annual report agency covers how these changes affect print runs and agency scope.

Now look at the gap. Audited numbers land in May. A top-100 company has to be in shareholders' inboxes by early August. That's roughly ten weeks for the Board's report, MD&A, corporate governance report, BRSR, design, proofing, Board approval and filing, and those ten weeks overlap with the results call, the analyst meetings and the Q1 close. If you're still choosing your section list and your agency in May, you've already lost.

Decisions to take between October and December

None of these needs audited numbers. All of them take longer than people expect.

Fix the AGM date, then the meeting calendar behind it. Pick the date and work back to the Board meeting that approves the Board's report and the notice, the Audit Committee meeting that reviews the financial statements before that, and the Nomination and Remuneration, CSR, Risk Management and Stakeholders' Relationship committee meetings whose reports feed the corporate governance section. Put them in directors' diaries now. A Board date that slips by a week in July costs you a week you don't have.

Decide what kind of report you're making. An integrated report with a narrative front section, a statutory report with a short highlights section, or something in between. Decide whether the BRSR sits inside the annual report or is published alongside it with a cross-reference; top 1,000 companies must include it under Regulation 34(2)(f) either way. This decision sets the page count, the agency brief and the number of people who need to write. Our reviews of FY 2025-26 reports show how wide the range is: Hindustan Zinc's runs to 610 pages, while ITC's keeps a conventional statutory structure.

Appoint the BRSR Core provider. FY 2026-27 is the year BRSR Core assessment or assurance extends to the top 1,000 listed entities by market capitalisation. Providers are scarce in May and June, and the data you need them to test is being generated now. The BRSR Core assurance checklist covers independence, the choice between assessment and assurance, and mapping the nine attributes to data owners. If you aren't sure whether your company is in scope, start with BRSR applicability.

Check the auditor calendar. The statutory auditor's timetable for the year-end audit drives everything. Agree the hard-close date and the date the signed report will be available. On the secretarial side, Regulation 24A has required shareholder approval for secretarial auditors since 1 April 2025, for one term of five years for an individual or up to two terms for a firm. If a term ends or a new appointment is due, that resolution goes in this year's AGM notice.

Brief the agency. Design, writing, print and digital agencies book up for the April to August window. A brief in November gets a considered response and a sensible fee; a brief in April gets whoever has capacity. Give them last year's report, the page budget, the structure decision and the dates above.

Look hard at last year's report. Before anyone opens last year's file to update it, ask what didn't work. Which questions did analysts ask that the report should have answered? Where did the MD&A and the notes disagree? What did the stock exchange or a proxy advisor flag? A two-page lessons note from IR, finance and the company secretary is the most useful document in the whole process.

Who owns what

Most annual reports go wrong at the seams between teams, not inside them. Settle ownership in writing before drafting starts.

Then appoint one project lead. It doesn't matter much which team they come from. What matters is that one person holds the master calendar and the only live version of every section, and has the authority to chase a CFO or a business head.

Build the numbers before the pages

The most expensive delay in annual report production is late data. Design can be rushed; a number that changes after layout has to be changed in every place it appears, and it rarely appears in only one.

Start a KPI register in the planning phase. For every number the report will quote, record the definition, the owner, the system it comes from and the date it will be final. Revenue, EBITDA, return on net worth, headcount, attrition, emissions, water, safety figures, customer numbers, all of it. When the chairman's message says one thing and the MD&A another, the register tells you which one is right.

Two reconciliations deserve particular attention. The key ratios in the MD&A under Schedule V Part B must agree with the eleven ratios that Schedule III requires in the notes to the financial statements; our MD&A guide explains the overlap. And the environmental and social figures in the narrative front section must match the BRSR, especially the Core indicators your provider has tested. If you've read how BRSR Core works, you'll know these are the numbers most likely to be quoted back at you.

A month-by-month calendar

This is a typical calendar for a 31 March year end and a late-August AGM. Companies with a September AGM can shift the last three rows by a month; the front end stays the same.

The calendar is a practice pattern, not a legal requirement, and every company's will look slightly different. The point is the shape: decisions in the third quarter, drafting in the fourth, numbers in April and May, and nothing new after the Board meeting.

Mistakes that cost the most time

Updating last year's report instead of planning this year's. It feels efficient and it locks in last year's problems, including sections that no longer match the business.

Letting design start before the section list is final. Every added section after layouts begin pushes page numbers, cross-references and the index.

Treating the BRSR as a separate project. It's part of the annual report under Regulation 34(2)(f), and its figures appear in the front section too. Run it on the same calendar.

Writing the chairman's and CEO's messages last. They take the longest to approve and they're the pages investors read first. Draft them in February and revise in May.

Leaving the AGM notice to the end. Resolutions for director appointments, auditor appointments or remuneration need Board and committee approvals of their own, and those meetings have to fit the calendar.

Where to begin this week

If you do only three things before October ends: agree the AGM date, name the project lead, and send a one-page note to IR, finance and the company secretary listing last year's problems. Everything else in this guide follows from those three.