Reports are made with the objective of maintaining the communication among the different divisions and levels of the company about the progress of a determined procedure or even about the whole project, in order to improve the synchronization of the activities and have a better performance. Reports can be informational, when important facts such as a record of activities, procedures, policies and more are outspread without actually making analysis or presenting recommendations; and analytical reports, that actually present data analysis and mostly wants to convince the reader by recommendations such as pros and cons about the results of an activity.
Also, reports may follow a format according to its objective and the perspective of the readers, which can be summed up as direct and indirect strategy. Direct strategy is applied by presenting the informational report and the analytical report, showing in this last one the conclusions and recommendations first, and then the disaggregation of the facts that led to those conclusions. These kinds of reports are more advantageous when the receptors are informed and want results first. Indirect strategy is applied by presenting the facts firsts and finishing with the recommendations, which is more advantageous when the readers are unfamiliar with the information to be presented in the report, and when the readers could be hostile about the results.