There's an important skill your accountancy qualification didn't teach you

Gary Bandy

19 Feb 2026 — 1 min read

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 taught me how to write a clear briefing note. Or how to explain a technical issue to non-finance colleagues. Or how to structure a report so busy people actually read it.

That's a problem because finance professionals spend huge amounts of time writing. Board papers. Budget reports. Audit findings. Emails to senior managers who don't have time for jargon.

If you can't communicate your technical expertise clearly, it doesn't matter how good your analysis is.

The gap in professional qualifications is real. They teach you what to think, not how to communicate it.

Which means you have to develop this skill yourself.

Your slides are a window into how you think.

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

Flip your writing around

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

The problem isn't the reader

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&

What's stopping you from learning how to fix your reports?

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.

Read more

Your slides are a window into how you think.

Flip your writing around

The problem isn't the reader

What's stopping you from learning how to fix your reports?