Earnings releases and annual reports

Answered on 4 October 2026. Joe accepted both recommendations and their Corporate Communication placement. The recorded decisions and Content explanation carry the approved meanings. The review below preserves the reasoning and examples; no new answer is requested.

Choice	My recommendation
How should we identify a company's results announcement?	Use Earnings Release for the announcement that presents the results. Keep it findable with press releases.
Should an annual report have its own type?	Add Annual Report. Do not make every investor document an annual report.

Joe answered “Use Earnings Release as recommended” and “Use Annual Report as recommended.” These approve the two types and their proposed placement, not the entire heading structure or a database migration.

Earnings Release: the results, not just a link to them

You wanted earnings material available as a research source. The earlier review recommended Earnings Report, but its Microsoft example needs a correction.

The collected example is a screenshot of Microsoft's notice that its results are available. That notice points elsewhere. The linked results release contains financial results and business discussion. Microsoft calls it an earnings release and presents it as a press release. Being about earnings does not make Press Release an incorrect description.

I recommend Earnings Release as a more specific type: a company's announcement presenting its financial results for a reporting period. It remains findable when someone browses press releases. This is a narrower description, not a second copy of the document.

An earnings-call recording, an analyst's article and a notice linking to the results are related material. They do not become Earnings Releases just because they discuss the same quarter. Preserve their actual form and connection. “Earnings reports” can remain a useful broader search phrase without forcing every result into this type.

The alternative is to keep Press Release as the type and offer an earnings-results filter. That keeps the type list shorter, but the distinction still needs to be defined and searchable. I favor the recognizable specific name. Storage and broader-search behavior still need implementation verification.

Original choice: add Earnings Release with this boundary, keep Press Release with an earnings-results filter, or change the recommendation. I propose browsing it under Corporate Communication.

Annual Report: a year's account, in any presentation

Microsoft's 2025 Annual Report combines a shareholder letter, business discussion and financial review. It illustrates a complete annual publication rather than a short results announcement.

I recommend Annual Report as its own type: an organization's report on its activities and performance over a year. It can be a website, PDF or captured printed document. Elaborate design is not a requirement, and the organization need not be a public company.

The earlier proposal treated Investor Report as an alternative name for exactly the same thing. I recommend against that automatic equivalence. Investor material can cover a quarter, an event or a particular subject. An annual report qualifies because of what it covers, not just who reads it. Preserve the publisher's original title even when it uses different wording.

The alternative is a general Report type with annual coverage recorded separately. That creates fewer types but requires those facts to be combined when browsing. I favor Annual Report and propose Corporate Communication as its browsing group. This placement does not decide the entire heading structure.

Original choice: add Annual Report without automatically merging Investor Report into it, use a general Report with annual coverage, or change the recommendation.

What happens to the real examples

The database check below was made on 4 October 2026. Stored labels are observations, not proof that the classifications are correct.

Example	Recorded today	Under these recommendations
Microsoft's results-availability notice, full-page and hero screenshots	Two image records labelled Press Release	Keep their capture context; do not relabel them as the linked results document.
Microsoft's linked quarterly results release	Read from Microsoft's site; collection not established	Earnings Release would fit if collected and verified. It also remains a press release.
Microsoft's annual report	Read from Microsoft's site; collection not established	Annual Report would fit. A screenshot or chart is not the entire report.
OpenAI Investor Innovation Day	A video record labelled Event Coverage	Investor in the title does not make it an Annual Report. No video reclassification is proposed.

The selected live type check found no assignments under Earnings Report, Earnings Release, Annual Report or Investor Report. That does not establish that none of the collected material qualifies. It found 110 Press Release records across text and images; none should automatically move because of these answers.

Connections already agreed

The document-part decision still applies: captured pages remain accessible inside their document, and selected useful parts can be browsed independently with a link back. Research documents do not automatically fill creative browsing. A useful designed chart can be a creative reference without turning every report page into one.

Company, product and campaign relationships remain separate from document type. The two Microsoft screenshots already have relationship records; this review does not verify or alter their correctness. Publishing results does not establish campaign membership.

Approval settles meanings and any placement you explicitly accept. It does not change data, add a scraper or approve a migration. The later implementation audit must preserve original titles, reporting periods, sources, captures, useful parts and saved research links. Those are requirements to verify, not a claim that the path already works.

Both choices are recorded. The video and promotion review remains pending.

Last reviewed 4 October 2026.