I help accountants and auditors turn insights into impact by improving their business writing.
I’ve shared before that, Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. When you write an email keep it as short as you can. Then… Before you press send, review it. Remove all the sentences you don’t need. That probably means taking out the opening niceties so that you get to the point straight away. Remove details that aren’t essential.
I wrote a list of the five best books about how governments collect and spend taxes. Check it out.
#PFM #publicfinance #tax
My free copies of the 3rd edition of Financial Management and Accounting in the Public Sector came today.
1️⃣ Use keyboard shortcuts Navigating documents and spreadsheets is quicker using the arrow keys than using a mouse or trackpad. There are shortcuts for most of the popular actions such as copy (Cmd/Ctrl + C), paste (Cmd/Ctrl + V), save (Cmd/Ctrl + S), and open (Cmd/Ctrl + O). In Word the shift key combined with arrow keys highlights text faster than you can drag a mouse. You can see the shortcuts next to the items in the menus in apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
The new edition of my book, Financial Management and Accounting in the Public Sector, is not due for publication until 14th March but today I got an email saying my (free) author copies are on their way to me. Exciting.
#accounting #pfm #publicsector #author
These are the rules for smart writing, the Axios way. Rephrase sentences to be shorter and clearer. Reformat paragraphs so what’s key stands out. Remove filler words so readers stay focused. Style your text to be quick and easy to scan.
To get a promotion you need to have something that makes you better than the competition. You might decide that for you that thing will be your technical knowledge. You will know accounting standards inside out or you will be the person everyone turns to when they can’t figure out how to do something with the finance system. If you can’t, or don’t want to, be the best in your business at the technical stuff, here’s a suggestion for a way to stand out.
Whether writing an email or a 20-page report we tend to think of it needing a beginning, middle and end. This encourages us to write something along the lines of: Here’s a problem == This is the cause == Analysis of possible solutions == recommended solution The problem with this structure, for busy people at work, is that the important bit is at the end. They have to work through all your analysis to get to the answer.
Often the best way for numerical information to be communicated in a document or presentation slide is in a table. I’ve written before about the need to declutter tables so that the reader/audience can easily see what is important. If you decide that you have numerical information that would be best displayed in a chart then the same principle of removing the clutter applies. Download this handy guide to remind you next time you add a chart to a document or presentation.
I’ve written conventional textbooks published by Routledge that you can buy from traditional and online booksellers. I have a new edition of one of them being published next month. We all know that the internet makes it easier for people to self-publish books and I decided to learn how to do it. I wrote a short book about public sector procurement, using the example of hiring a consultant or advisor. I chose that topic because it is an example that would be relevant across the public sector, from government ministries to police forces, schools to hospitals.