Most public finance reports are written for the writer, not the reader. The structure follows convention. The headings mirror last year's version. The executive summary is four pages long. The recommendations are at the end. Nobody planned it that way. It just happened because the incentive was to
Most accountants and auditors don't trust their readers. And it shows in their writing. They repeat themselves, use jargon when plain words would do, and explain things twice, just in case. This backfires. When readers get a dense, jargon-heavy document, one of two things happens: • They struggle through
I signed a contract today for the 4th edition of Financial Management and Accounting in the Public Sector. It will be published by Routledge in early 2028. The 4th edition will include new material on: * Gender budgeting * Sustainability reporting * The use of AI in public finance. These aren't
Office workers spend 31% of their time in MS Office on formatting. That's more than a day a week spent on fonts and margins instead of thinking. The real problem is not the formatting itself. It's that people open Word or PowerPoint before the content is
It's unread because of three fixable mistakes. Most unread documents aren't ignored because the content is bad. They're ignored because of structure and presentation failures that are entirely fixable. 1. Put your bottom line first. You know the numbers inside out. So you present
Cluttered slides don't just bore your audience. They undermine the audience's trust in your financial judgement. I've sat through hundreds of finance presentations. The worst ones all make the same mistake: cramming too much onto each slide. Budget variance tables with 15 columns. Bullet
The problem with most financial documents is that they're written backwards. The writer starts at the beginning of their analysis and drags the reader through every step until they finally reach the conclusion. It's exhausting and it wastes time. The way you solve a problem is
Jargon isn't the same as precision. Finance professionals defend technical language as if the two are identical. They're not. Some technical terms are genuinely necessary. Accrual, materiality, going concern. These have specific meanings. Using them with a finance audience is legitimate. But most finance jargon isn&
It's probably the skill that will define your career more than any technical knowledge. I'm talking about clear writing. I qualified as a CIPFA accountant in 1990. I passed exams on accounting, audit, reporting, ethics. I learned how to prepare accounts and analyse budgets. But nobody
Finance people know their reports are rubbish. Too long, too technical, too boring. Hard to read. Then they go back to their desks and write exactly the same way. I've been in finance for over 30 years. I've written two textbooks and taught at business schools.
Your tables are invisible. Not literally. But readers skip them. They see a block of numbers, a generic label at the top, and their eyes glaze over. They move on. You spent time building that table. You chose the data carefully. But without a clear message, it's just
Your readers shouldn't have to dig through paragraphs to find what matters. Put your conclusion first. Total costs go at the top. Decisions you need belong in paragraph one. This saves your reader time and effort. High impact for them, with minimal effort. That's what your