From reading the posts on this topic, an idea is to use sort of a hybrid system . That is, I would explain the purpose of the report and anything that needs explaining- within the report itself just as in a text field. This would be geared towards the end user. I also like the idea of taking the documented items intended for a word document and storing them in a database table. Perhaps there is a way to link a report to the information from the table (perhaps a sub-report) upon user request. This would be intended more for a developer.