Yesterday the company that supplies our energy sent me an email to tell me the amount of my monthly direct debit will change. Both the old and the new monthly amounts are shown to the penny. This suggests a level of accuracy in their estimation models than is justified by the fact that my wife and I are almost £1,000 in credit with the company. Their estimate would be just as bad if it were rounded to the nearest pound, or even £10.
My point is this: accountants can affect their reader’s perception about numbers by choosing the level of precision. Generally I think that the numbers in most documents need only be stated to the level of 2 or 3 significant figures. This level of precision is helpful for readers because they can process the numbers more easily.
But…
If an accountant includes numbers to 2 decimal places, or to the nearest whole number, their figures will seem more thorough and credible, regardless of whether they actually are absolute facts. And usually they aren’t facts because accounting figures involves lots of judgements and estimates anyway.
Professional writing is better when it’s written in plain language with short words and sentences. It is also better when the numbers are rounded.
The use of round numbers in your writing about money is one of the things I talk about in an upcoming course at the The School of unProfessional Writing But don’t wait for my course, there’s lots of great stuff already in the School so check it out.