Various embodiments of systems and methods for including report characterization information in a report are described herein. A report designer may request insertion of a two dimensional barcode, in the report, which encodes the report characterization information. Based on the request, a report characterization information retrieval formula may be executed to retrieve the report characterization information. The retrieved report characterization information may then be encoded to obtain a two dimensional barcode. The obtained two dimensional barcode may finally be inserted into the report. Once the report is printed, the two dimensional barcode in the report may be scanned by any device with a bar code reader, such as a smart phone to retrieve the additional information related to the report.