The purpose of a corporate annual report is to communicate to stockholders and other interested parties its financial statements. The annual report is a summary of the corporation's operations over the previous 12 month time period and states the corporation's plans for the future. Many annual reports are created to resemble a corporate brochure, using lots of pictures, color, charts and graphs. Despite the fancy look, the main purpose of the report is to provide the year's financial data, which comes from the corporation's accounting system.