Don’t use pie charts

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

Write headlines for your tables

A picture paints a thousand words. A table of data could save you (and your reader) hundreds of words. But your table is a wasted opportunity if the reader doesn’t get your message from it. Or worse, skips over it. Here’s a tip to make the tables in

How to format a chart

How to format a chart TIP: Remove the clutter from your charts. If you want your reader to get your message you need to make your message clear. Don’t just copy and paste a chart from Excel into a Word document or presentation. You need to format it first.

3 ways to grab the reader of your finance reports.

If you want the receivers of your finance reports to read them then you need to grab their attention at the top of your document. If you fail to do that they’ll skim your report (at best) or just do something else. Here are three ways you could start

You don’t have to use long words to be professional.

I think somewhere during the journey towards a professional accounting qualification we adopt accounting-speak. Some of the words we learn are very specific, technical terms and we have to use them. I’m thinking of words like depreciation and recognition. But there is tendency amongst accountants to overwrite and use

This is how I declutter tables in documents

When you’ve got a lot of data to include in a document it often makes sense to put it into a table. The default table style in Microsoft Word puts a fairly thick black border around every cell in the table. This is both ugly and a hindrance to

Learn this simple trick to save time writing emails. EOM.

If you have a short message to send you can save yourself some time by putting the whole message into the subject line. This is also better for the receiver since they do not need to open the message unless/until they are going to reply to it. The trick

Bad writing wastes time

Bad writing costs your organisation a lot of money, too. A few years ago Josh Bernoff did some research into the Sad State of Business Writing. He surveyed business people who write at work and got over 500 responses. Amongst his conclusions were these gems: * Bad writing was costing the

Accountants overcomplicate everything

Richard Feynman said, If you can't explain something to a first year student, then you haven't really understood. Feynman was talking about physics but I think the same sentiment applies to accounting and finance. Except, instead of a first year student you should be able to

3 ways to make your writing clear and concise

You’ve read many times the advice to keep your writing clear and concise. But how do you do that? Here are three things you can do on your next piece of writing. First it means being a brutal editor of your work. Re-read your work before you “publish” it.

Writing tip: short not shallow.

Your reader has limited time. Do them a favour with your emails and reports and keep them as short as possible. If a document is short (it fits onto 1 page or 1 screen) the reader can read it and remember what you want them to remember. If you include

Today is publication day for the 3rd edition of my book

Today is publication day for the new edition of Financial Management and Accounting in the Public Sector. To go with it I have created a set of pages on my website with links to further reading, videos, audio and other resources.