Put the bottom line at the top
Writing Guide >
The principle
Start with the conclusion. Not the background, not the purpose, not a description of what the report contains. The answer.
This is called BLUF — bottom line up front.
Journalists structure their stories the same way: the first sentence carries the story, and everything after it adds detail for those who want it. The reader who stops at the end of your first paragraph should still know what has happened and what you want them to do.
Most finance reports do the opposite. The conclusion arrives last, if at all, after the evidence that produced it.
Why it fails in practice
We bury the answer because that is how we found it. Analysis first, findings second, implications last. The report retraces the route we walked, and the walk took weeks.
But the reader is not walking with us. They arrived at the destination and want to know where they are.
There is a second, less comfortable reason. State a conclusion at the top and you own it. Reach it gradually, at the end, hedged and qualified, and you have merely reported what the numbers showed. Burying the answer is a way of not being responsible for it.
The cost is that the answer never arrives. In a board paper I read recently, this appeared 19 paragraphs in, under "Other matters", between the insurance renewal and the audit timetable:
6.4 On current forecasts the ratio is projected to reach 2.61 times at the March test date. The facility is due for renewal in March. Discussions with the bank have not yet been initiated.
The organisation was heading for a covenant breach and nobody had called the bank. That was the paper. It was on page four.
Before and after
Before
Purpose of report
To provide the Board with an overview of the financial performance of the company for period 8 and year to date, together with supporting analysis and commentary on the principal variances.
Action required
The Board is invited to note the contents of this report.
After
We will breach the banking covenant in March unless we act now.
Forecast net debt to EBITDA at the March test date is 2.61 times, against a limit of 2.5. The cause is margin, not revenue: input costs have risen and price increases have not been passed on.
The Board is asked to approve the price increases in section 3 and to authorise an approach to the bank this month.
Same facts. Four sentences. The reader now knows the position, the cause, and the decision they are being asked to make. Everything that follows is evidence for a claim they have already understood.
What to do instead
Write your first paragraph last, once you know what you are going to say.
Then apply this test: if a director read only that paragraph, would they know what has happened and what you want them to do? If not, your answer is somewhere further down the page. Move it up.