Published income statements and balance sheets

Businesses operating with sole owners or as conventional partnerships do not have to publish their financial summaries - in fact, the only people likely to see them are the owners themselves, their accountants, the tax --authorities and possibly their bankers. Members of the public have no right of,access to the information. Limited companies (and limited liability partnerships), however, must make their summarized financial inform~tion available to the public by way of published accounts. Although there are some restrictions on the amount of information which small and medium-sized companies have to divulge, larger companies (including all pic's - public limited companies) must publish an annual report including their income statement and balance sheet. Bearing in mind that many pic's are extremely complicated multinational conglomerates conducting millions of transactions each year, how can this mass of information be made informative and readable?
Odds and ends
There is a handful of minor points which need to be covered when considering the presentation of a fully detailed income statement. These are:

• Sales returns and purchase returns (also known as 'returns inwards and outwards')
• Carriage inwards and outwards, which is the cost of transporting goods into or out of the business
• Discounts allowed and received, which represent amounts deducted from debtors' and creditors' accounts for prompt payment of amounts owing.