Here are seven things to avoid when giving a finance presentation. 1. **Pride**. It’s not about you. Your presentation is for your audience and what they want/need should be uppermost in your mind 2. **Greed**. Stay within your allotted time. This is doubly-true if you are part of
 One way you can declutter and simplify your writing (whether it is a quick email or a full-scale report) is to use hyperlinks to supporting material. The problem is that URLs to webpages and so on are not usually short or
 That’s a question asked by [Aaron Orendorff](https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronorendorff/) in a NYT article, _[Your Colleagues Don’t Read Anything You Write](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/smarter-living/your-colleagues-dont-read-anything-you-write-here-are-8-ways-to-change-that.html)_, in 2020. His answer: In
As a trainee accountant I was taught that money is a means of exchange, a store of value and a unit of accounting, all at the same time. All rather abstract. In my introduction to Public Financial Management lecture I ask students what they think money is before introducing them
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
Long reports usually have an executive summary that is maybe only 1 or 2 per cent as long as the report. Isn't this an admission that 98% of the report is not needed? As the writer of a long report, which readers do you expect to read the
{{< summary >}} Richard Feynman said, “If you can't explain something to a first year student, then you haven't really understood.” {{< /summary >}}<!--more--> If your audience is not made up of qualified accountants you need to use simpler language. With a non-financial
A reviewer of _Financial Management and Accounting in the Public Sector_ wrote: > “Gary Bandy has the ability of making complicated topics simple.” If you work in the public sector you can see some of my writing for yourself by downloading a free copy of the e-book I wrote about
Here's a tip public sector finance professionals in particular, but it could be useful to people in the private sector, too. [CIPFA](https://www.cipfa.org) includes communication and impact as one of the key competencies for public financial management professionals. That means developing skills in telling stories
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 a quick way to makeover your slidedecks. --> Last week I wrote a post recommending you use images instead of bullet points in your presentations. That’s the best thing to do but it can take quite a while to find images and make the
{{< summary >}} You've probably read lots of guidance that you should use storytelling in your presentations but do you know how to apply that? How can you use stories when you are presenting budgets or financial results? Well, you could use the 3-act structure. You structure your