Financial presentations often include sections of spreadsheets copied from Excel. These include financial jargon and notations that confuse the audience. This makeover shows how to convert accounting notation to visual indicators the audience easily understands.

1. Slide Makeover #84:
Converting financial notation to
visual indicators
Based on Dave Paradi’s ideas at
www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com

2. When we are presenting the
results of financial analysis, we
often just copy a section of the
spreadsheet onto the slide.
Here is an example …

3. Employee cost analysis
Description This year Budget Last Year vs. Budget vs. LY % vs. Budget % vs. LY
Employee Comp. 3,942,941.76$ 4,520,199.60$ 4,468,126.31$ (577,257.84)$ (525,184.55)$ (12.8%) (11.8%)
Benefits & Taxes 997,970.63$ 1,123,333.76$ 1,060,875.64$ (125,363.13)$ (62,905.01)$ (11.2%) (5.9%)
Other Employee Costs 25,530.49$ 12,700.00$ 32,136.67$ 12,830.49$ (6,606.18)$ 101.0% (20.6%)
Total Employee Costs 4,966,442.88$ 5,656,233.36$ 5,561,138.62$ (689,790.48)$ (594,695.74)$ (12.2%) (10.7%)

4. The message about how employee
costs compare to the budget gets
lost in the sea of numbers and the
use of accounting notation.
The first step is to write a headline
and eliminate all the numbers that
do not relate to the message.

5. Employee costs below budget
due to unfilled vacancies
Description % vs. Budget
Employee Comp. (12.8%)
Benefits & Taxes (11.2%)
Other Employee Costs 101.0%
Total Employee Costs (12.2%)

6. The second step is to replace
financial notation or jargon with
visual indicators. In my recent
survey on financial presentations,
audiences told me that they want
visuals they can easily understand.
It is often easiest to use symbols in
the Wingdings 3 font.
Click here to read an article on using these visual indicators.
Click here to read the full 2016 State of Financial Presentations report.

7. Employee costs below budget
due to unfilled vacancies
Description % vs. Budget
Employee Comp.  12.8%
Benefits & Taxes  11.2%
Other Employee Costs  101.0%
Total Employee Costs  12.2%

8. The third step is to use color to
indicate the meaning of the
number. In general, green indicates
good performance and red
indicates poor performance.

9. Selecting the colors depends on the
context of the numbers. In this case,
since we are looking at expenses, a
negative value (which was shown
by the red and brackets originally) is
a positive result, so it should be
indicated with a green arrow.

10. Employee costs below budget
due to unfilled vacancies
Description % vs. Budget
Employee Comp.  12.8%
Benefits & Taxes  11.2%
Other Employee Costs  101.0%
Total Employee Costs  12.2%

11. Since the indicators are characters
in a font, it is easy to just change
the font color for those characters.
This also makes it easy to build
using animation if you use a text
box instead of a table.
Click here to watch a video on creating tables of numbers using a text box.

12. The final step is to add a callout to
explain any important message or
answer a question that the
audience is likely to have. Adding
callouts was another request of
audiences in the recent survey on
financial presentations.
Click here to read the full 2016 State of Financial Presentations report.

13. Employee costs below budget
due to unfilled vacancies
Description % vs. Budget
Employee Comp.  12.8%
Benefits & Taxes  11.2%
Other Employee Costs  101.0%
Total Employee Costs  12.2%
Legal costs
due to overtime
dispute

14. When you are presenting a table of
numbers, use only the numbers
that relate to your message, and
use color coded visual indicators to
help the audience understand the
significance of the numbers.

15. Before After
Lessons:
1. Write a headline that summarizes the message
2. Use only the numbers needed to communicate the message
3. Use colored visual indicators instead of accounting notation
4. Add callouts to explain numbers or answer questions
Quick recap:
More makeovers available at www.SlideMakeoverVideos.com

16. If you would like me to help
your team create presentations
that have a clear message with
focused content and effective
visuals, get in touch:
P: 905-510-4911
E: Dave@ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com
W: www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com