For everything you write you need to understand how your reader will read it. Some things are read closely, word by word. Students can expect this for their essays. You can’t expect this for anything you write that has more than two paragraphs. Others are skimmed, with readers only
Excel changed the world by allowing users to format and beautify data, although this is often at the cost of clarity. This trend is worse with Microsoft Word, where users are bombarded with formatting options. That massive ribbon at the top of the screen is a siren calling to the
One of my former bosses always wanted "KISS" reports. Keep it simple, stupid. It's easier to say than do. Us technical folk think in technical terms but, here's the thing, when we communicate to non-technical people we need to simplify. Here's an
Why not write your next finance report the Axios way. The Axios mission statement is “Axios gets you smarter, faster on what matters.” They’re focused on the news of course, but as an #accountant or #auditor, don’t you want to get your colleagues or clients smarter, faster? If
You can tell any joke you like but it’s best if you tell one that your audience laughs at. When it comes to writing a financial report you can use any structure you like but it’s best to choose one that works for the reader. Typically you might
Have you ever thought about how you write abbreviations? Accountants and auditors will often find themselves using technical terms and long titles that it is best to abbreviate after their first use. Some abbreviations, such as BBC, UK and USA, are so well-known they can be used without ever writing
A: Cut out 33% of the words. I've been reading a series of articles by Jason Zweig, a writer for the Wall Street Journal. The figures above are his. He is a strong advocate for cutting your writing. As he put it: > The point of cutting your
CIPFA includes communication and impact as one of the key competencies for public financial management professionals. That means developing skills in telling stories with financial data. As luck would have it, late in 2022 the World Bank published A Guide to Data Storytelling in the Public Sector. The opening chapter
When I began working as a trainee accountant there were very few computers in the office and they were not on individuals’ desks. They were on tables because to be used on a shared basis. Most people in the Accountancy team did not use them at all. They used calculators
Here’s an instant tip to make your document easier to read. Set the margins and font-size so that the length of each line is around 65 characters. That’s two and a half alphabets. abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklm A line length of about 65 characters is optimal for reading. Lines that are
Here are three ways to write faster and make fewer mistakes. 1. Use keyboard shortcuts. Keeping your hands on your keyboard to do routine things like select, copy and paste text, open and close documents, apply formatting styles is much quicker than mousing to the File or Edit menus 2.
Let me explain why you should avoid pie charts — and donut charts — in most documents and presentations. Pie charts are easy to create and they’re colourful and you might want to include lots of them in the reports and slidedecks you write. But there are lots of problems with