In my consulting business, I work with A/E firms all over the country helping them to improve both their financial reporting and financial performance. One of the biggest mistakes consistently made by financial professionals in this industry is producing huge quantities of detailed financial information for the monthly business meeting. They do so in the mistaken belief that more information is better information.

Month after month, the Controller prints reams of detailed data, slaps it into a 3 ring binders and presents it to the owners at the monthly business meeting. The owners then sit and listen to a mind numbing, monotone, rambling, incoherent presentation of meaningless detail. In desperation to find information they could actually use, they flip through the 247 page binder only to find that office supply expense is .2% over budget year to date and we still haven't collected that $2,000 invoice from July 2001. After a 15 minute presentation that seemed like 2 hours, they are asked if they have any questions. The Controller is either met with silence or asked to explain why office supply expense is .2% over budget.

Financial professionals need to understand that most owners in this industry have absolutely no idea on how to read, interpret or act upon financial information. Think about it this way. If an architect or engineer gave you a set of construction documents and asked you to build the project what are your chances of success?

Here are some ideas on how to prepare more meaningful information for your monthly business meeting:

1.Limit the number of pages to no more than six. If you hand out more pages than that you are presenting too much detail for the owners to digest and act upon. Yes, you can and should print out a 247 page binder and bring it to the meeting, but only for your reference in answering questions posed by the partners.

2. Graphical presentations in color are superior to spreadsheets in communicating information to creative individuals. You may prefer spreadsheets, but you are not the client. The owners are your client and they relate very well to visual presentations.

3. Concentrate on the basics in your presentation. Focus on revenues, profits, cash flow and key indicators. Key indicators are utilization rate, net multiplier, overhead rate, accounts receivable + work in progress as measured in days of sales and profit as a percentage of net revenues.

4.Tell them what is important and point out the trends. Don't expect the owners who have little to no training in business finance to figure it out on their own. If your net multiplier is 2.82 and your overhead rate is 190%, explain to them why this is a huge problem.

5.Make specific suggestions for ways to improve financial performance. If the net multiplier is 2.82 you might suggest training on how to negotiate higher fees or making a concerted effort to identify and get paid for out of scope services you are performing.

6.Change the monthly meeting from a reporting session to an action session. If the meeting is an hour long, spend 10 minutes on presentation and 50 minutes on solving the problems. By reducing the volume of detail presented, focusing on the big picture, recommending improvements and making the monthly meeting more action oriented the financial professional becomes a much more valuable