You graduated top of your class, have plenty of great experience with the best firms in the 
industry. All that knowledge and experience inside your head; put the shine on it with well written, impactful business and financial writing.
Professionals today realize that demonstrating profession competency isn’t just about your academic and professionals achievements, but also about being able to display writing proficiency in drafting and editing important business documents
Writing business reports and financial analyses are an essential part of every financial and business professional’s work.
If you are a Financial, Banking or Accounting professional or a Consultant or Analyst in Investments, Equity, Risk, or Taxation, or even a Business Manager, you’ve had occasion to sit and write operational and fiscal analyses, financial inquiries, revenue forecasts, business cases, client proposals, internal justifications, appropriation requests, and a whole host of other financial documents.
More often than not, these are composed in diverse locations, such as commuter trains, hotel lobbies, and conference rooms; during fast-paced, noisy business meetings, and under exceedingly tight time pressures.
Top that off with the fact that these reports are usually high-profile, complex documents for diverse audiences.
A study by the College Board’s National Commission on Writing concludes that a third of employees in United States’ blue-chip companies write poorly, causing corporations to spend as much as $3.1 billion annually on remedial training.
In order to write good business and financial reports and analyses, these are some of the point you need to keep in mind:
- Know your reader: Before writing that report, understand the people you are writing for. Is it senior management? Or the board of directors? Is it someone outside the company? Write information that’s relevant to them. Make sure the facts and data you use is relevant to the key people this report addresses.
- Make the information easily understandable: No one has time to waste so make sure the people reading your work understand it quickly. Use charts and graphs to make information visually appealing and use bullet points to make information easily readable and short declarative sentences to keep things simple.
- Know why you’re writing: Always keep in mind the goal of your writing. Have clarity of purpose. Make sure the entire report keeps in tune with the main goals of the discussion or report. Revise your ideas and remain coherent and consistent throughout the report.
- Explain the current scenario: Use relevant data to explain the current scenario and what the future plans and objectives are.
- Be clear and concise: Put your ideas, findings and recommendations down accurately and without including unnecessary facts and figures. Stay on track and don’t digress from the point. Use plain English and avoid technical words or business jargon.
- Use Active Voice: Simple subject-verb-object sentences are probably the best way to avoid confusion. The use of Active Voice is more assertive and appropriate.
- Revise, Edit and Proofread: Nothing makes a worse impression than sloppy writing. Revise what you’ve written to make sure you’re still on track and be ruthless in your editing. Remove all unnecessary words, especially fillers and unnecessary prepositions. For example, instead of writing ‘December of 2014’, write ‘December 2014’. Proofread your copy with an eagle eye to spot typing or other errors.
- Use Formal language: Remain professional in your communication. While it’s advisable to avoid Business jargon, maintaining a formal tone throughout your report is essential.
It’s tough to put all the complex analyses and information required in financial and business documents into a format that’s easy to understand yet maintains the integrity and purpose of the document. Writing strong reports requires consistent effort and time. However, many professionals are busy and need to learn on the job. This article is a step towards better writing and to give yourself an additional boost and impress your colleagues and seniors with your professional writing, you could check out Philip Vassallo, Ed.D, as he discusses the finer points of effective business and financial writing.
He has designed, delivered, and supervised communication training programs for more than 20,000 executive, managerial, and technical professionals internationally over the past three decades and has authored the books How to Write Fast Under Pressure, The Art of E-Mail Writing, and The Art of On-the-Job Writing.