A well-prepared report enhances your image and leaves a lasting impression on your clients. Here's how to create a structured, easy-to-navigate, and visually appealing report that summarizes your work and showcases your expertise.
Why do it
If you're a knowledge-based freelancer, a detail that would substantially elevate the level of your services is a standardized report that you'll provide your clients after the work is complete. It can be a document, spreadsheet, or anything else that works for you and your client.
The idea is that you have to provide some kind of output anyway. So why send it over email in plain text or only formulate it verbally in the meeting, when you can provide a professionally-looking report with only a little extra work? Do this even if the client doesn't expect it, and he's fine with a verbal brief - you can bring it to the meeting and go over it together. It will elevate the image of your work, give the client something he can keep, and make him feel like the money was well spent.
Structure
The structure of your output naturally depends on the field of your work. Instead of giving you a set form, here are a couple of sections you may want to include:
Introduction
The introduction should include your and your client's names and a description of the problem or assignment. You can either formulate this description in your own words or simply copy and paste the text the client first approached you with and add any other necessary points that surfaced during your initial discussions and weren't included in the original project description. Another point to include here is the project duration, a start date, or at least the date the report was created.
Timeline
If your work was completed on a certain timeline or separated into multiple steps, you can mention them here, along with a short description of each step.
Key findings
This is the core of your report, where you'll present the solution or recommendations the client hired you to come up with. It's your decision how deep you want to go and in how much detail you want to present them. We recommend writing this section in such a way that it includes an answer to the client's assignment, and he can understand it with no extra clarification from you.
💡 Keep in mind
You can leave out less important details and peculiarities for the meeting.
Data
If your report includes data, make them easy to read - insert them in a table if you need to, and use graphs or charts to illustrate the most important points. If you have a lot of data that would be difficult to cleanly present in a regular document, feel free to insert them into a separate document like a spreadsheet you'll provide with the report. Mention this other data document in the main report and link to it if you can, or create a QR code. You should still summarize this data in the main document, though, or at least provide some context for reading them.
Notes
This section is very useful for including all your thoughts, clarifications, or anything useful to the client.
Design
Your report has to look good, too. Its design should be in line with your personal brand - use the same colors, font, and any other graphic elements. It doesn't have to be over the top, but it should be clear that the document is "yours".
If you can't design it yourself, get someone to help you - just make sure you can edit it. Once the design template of your report is done, it can be used over and over, so it really pays off to get it right. You don't have to do anything super fancy - a Word doc with your logo, some design stuff in the header and footer, and ideally your brand font, too, will be just fine.
Avoid any unnecessary design elements and make it easy to read. Clearly separate the sections and try to structure the content as much as possible. You don't want to have 3000 words of plain text. As with the design, you have to figure out the section structure only once.
If you know you will have multiple "levels" of reports, create separate sections for these extra parts. Don't try to fit this additional content into the existing sections - it will make them too bloated and your report difficult to navigate and read. Make all these sections a part of your main template, and you can simply delete them when you need only the basic ones.
If you'll also need to create a physical copy, you can use a better quality, thicker paper. It's only a tiny bit more expensive than regular paper, and it would make the report look more robust.
Going the extra mile
Even if you're in a line of work that doesn't necessarily require it - for example a language tutor - your clients will definitely appreciate it if you send them a short report at the end of each month with things they improved, things they should work on, and a couple of tips that would help them improve even more. You'll probably have to make extra notes during your sessions, but it's a nice touch that will set you apart from others and increase client loyalty.
💡 Keep in mind
People remember this and are often very eager to return the favor - for example, by showing it to their friends and saying some nice things about you.
Creating history
These reports can be very useful to you as well. When you want to get back to a client or a certain work you've done for him, you won't have to browse through the email conversations or try to remember what exactly you did. Everything will be beautifully outlined in a report you can simply pick up and read anytime. After a few years, you'll appreciate them as a nice reminder of all your work throughout your career.
Remember
👉 Creating a professional report will instantly level up the impression from your work.
👉 The more you structure your report, the better it will look.
👉 The most important data should be visualized, and others put into a separate document.
👉 Keep your report design simple and aligned with your personal brand.
👉 If you get it designed for you, make sure you can edit it without breaking the layout.
👉 These reports will serve as a nice reminder of your work. The older you will be, the more you’ll appreciate them.
Homework
1️⃣ Design a reusable report template that reflects your brand design and includes all relevant sections for your field of work.
2️⃣ Pay close attention to how you’ll present the data.
👏 Amazing perseverance!
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