Translate an annual report into Italian

What changes when an annual report goes into Italian

Italian runs a little longer than English, so check tight table headers and narrow columns. The real traps, though, lie in writing conventions.

• Numbers: the separators are reversed compared with English. 1,250,000.5 becomes 1.250.000,5, and 12.5% becomes 12,5%.
• Table units: “EUR thousands” becomes (in migliaia di euro); millions and billions are commonly abbreviated mln and mld.
• Plurals: Italian has three plural categories (one, many, other). “Many” covers round millions: 1 milione di euro, 3 milioni di euro, with the preposition di, but 3.500.000 euro without it.
• Dates: months are lower case, 31 dicembre 2024, and the financial year is the esercizio 2024.
• Accented capitals: an upper-case heading reads SOCIETÀ and È, never SOCIETA' or E'.

The register is formal and impersonal: la Società, il Gruppo, capitalised, and the chair’s letter opens with Signori Azionisti or Gentili Azionisti rather than a friendly “Dear shareholders”.

Italian financial vocabulary and false friends

An annual report mixes management narrative, financial statements and dense notes. Manuce’s finance specialist, Métis, works with the established Italian terms:

• balance sheet / statement of financial position → stato patrimoniale;
• income statement → conto economico; cash flow statement → rendiconto finanziario;
• notes to the accounts → nota integrativa; directors’ or management report → relazione sulla gestione;
• equity → patrimonio netto; profit or loss for the year → utile or perdita d’esercizio;
• revenue → ricavi; turnover → fatturato, depending on context.

Two classic pitfalls: “provisions” means accantonamenti or fondi, not provvigioni, which are commissions; and EBITDA is often kept as is, though some Italian reports use MOL (margine operativo lordo). If your board insists on one form, check it in the free sample and again in the delivered file.

What Manuce delivers, and what it does not

Upload your report as Word, PDF, PowerPoint, Excel, plain text, Markdown, HTML, RTF or CSV. The quote appears straight away, based on the exact word count; for a report of around 15,000 words (roughly 60 pages), the figure is shown in the example above. Before paying, you receive one paragraph of your own file translated at the level you chose.

The Italian file comes back in its original format, layout included, usually within minutes for a document of this size, and is kept in your client area.

• Manuce does not read scanned PDFs: if your report is only an image with no selectable text, it will not be translated.
• Manuce does not produce sworn translations. If an Italian body requires a traduzione giurata (asseverata) of your accounts, you will need an authorised translator; check with the recipient first.
• Translation is no substitute for your finance team checking the figures: review the statements before publication.

Preparing the file before upload

1. Use the most editable source: a Word or PowerPoint file translates more cleanly than a PDF exported from complex desktop publishing.
2. Check your charts: a bar chart pasted as a picture keeps its source-language labels. Use charts whose legends are editable text.
3. Upload Excel appendices separately if your tables come from a workbook: it will come back as Excel.
4. Clean the document: review comments, hidden text and old paragraph versions are counted and translated.
5. Note the names that must stay unchanged: company name, subsidiaries, and abbreviations such as S.p.A. or IFRS.

Checking the Italian version before release

Pick a dense passage for the free sample, such as a note on provisions or the principal risks section: that is where terminology shows.

In the delivered file, check first:

• number separators in tables (1.250,5, not 1,250.5) and consistent (in migliaia di euro) headers;
• accented capitals in headings (RELAZIONE SULLA GESTIONE, ATTIVITÀ);
• dates and references to the financial year;
• proper names and abbreviations left untouched;
• cross-references (“see note 12” → vedi nota 12) pointing to the right note.

For a report aimed at Italian shareholders or investors, the Professional level, handled by the domain specialist, is designed to produce text ready to send.

In practice

1. Export the report as Word, PowerPoint or a PDF with selectable text.
2. Upload it and choose Italian: the quote is based on the exact word count.
3. Read the free sample on a dense financial paragraph.
4. Pay, then download the Italian file from your client area.
5. Check numbers, accented headings and cross-references before release.