I help accountants and auditors turn insights into impact by improving their business writing.
When newspapers first moved online longer articles ran over multiple webpages and readers had to click to move to the second and later pages. Most readers didn’t click. Journalists learned something they couldn’t know when newspapers were on paper: that most of the words they wrote, words they were proud of, were never seen by readers. Online articles are now shorter—on one page—and written in short paragraphs. Often paragraphs have only one sentence.
Have you ever received an email asking for a document, someone’s phone number, some suggested dates for a meeting, and your thoughts on a current issue? Emails like that are hard to respond to. You likely don’t have all the information to hand, so you end up replying multiple times. And maybe some of the requests never get answered. The message thread quickly becomes confusing and working out which questions have been answered and which haven’t is a challenge to both the sender and the receiver.
Do you ever think about how to include numbers in your writing in order to achieve your desired goal. I don’t just mean whether to use numerals or write the number as words. I mean aspects like consistency, formatting, precision, and position. All of these things can help or hinder the communication of information to your reader. If you are an auditor or accountant I suspect most of the things you write have at least one number in.
“You’re a unicorn.” That’s what Colleen Trolove said to me because I am someone who’s as comfortable with numbers as he is with words. And that’s why I’ve recorded a set of videos for the @school to show you how to write about numbers. What topics does the course cover? ✅ How to deal with technical financial terms and jargon ✅ How to put numbers into text to create the emphasis you want
You can learn about writing in plain English in lots of places but most of it is about writing in general. I have worked with the School of Unprofessional Writing to make a set of videos (about an hour in total) where you can learn some specifics of writing about numbers … ➡️ when to use digits instead of words ➡️ why round numbers are helpful ➡️ how to format a table to communicate rather than decorate
The episode title is TL;DR and I talk about ways that internal auditors can improve their communication in terms of writing and presenting. It was a fun 25-minute conversation with host Jon Taber and includes lots of tips that can be implemented immediately. Listen to the episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Let’s replace PDFs with documents that are readable on mobile devices.
“Does he really think big emotions come from big words?” That was Ernest Hemingway about William Faulkner. As an accountant, what do you think you get from using big words? Client satisfaction? Trust? Big fees? What you don’t get is thanks from your readers. They don’t want to mine your cleverness to get your meaning. Do your readers a favour and write for them instead of yourself. And you’ll find they will see you as a professional accountant, but not a show-off.
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.
Want your documents to look more professional? Here’s a simple way to make your documents look more professional in under 5 minutes. The secret lies in making the body text look great because, let’s face it, there’s more of that than there is headings or tables. First, choose a good font (if you are allowed). I know some corporations insist on a standard font, and it’s likely to be a boring one like Arial or Times New Roman.