Chapter 6
Numbers
How to make sure your numbers clarify, not confuse
- Why numbers confuse
- Why you should round your numbers – and how best to round them
- Problems with percentages
- Lonely numbers
A difference is only a difference if it makes a difference.
Darrell Huff, How to Lie with Statistics (page 56)
This chapter gives the tips and principles for making numbers clearer and so have greater impact and influence.
The ideas are relevant for both accountants and non-accountants. Accountants will benefit from them. Even though they spend their lives dealing with numbers, they don’t get taught these tips and principles. If in any doubt on this, study your management accounts pack – it will probably be far more impenetrable and indecipherable ...
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