Articles written By David Hey-Cunningham

David, a Chartered Accountant, worked at Ernst & Young Australia for over 20 years and has operated his own training and consulting business since 1991. He holds a Master’s of Education at New South Wales University and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Company Directors Course. David is author of Financial Statements Demystified published by Allen & Unwin and contributing author of the Australian Institute of Company Directors finance modules of the Company Directors and Foundations of Directorship courses.

Finance

Financial Reporting to the Board

Boards are often inundated with information for their meetings. Reassessing reporting methods can enhance board performance, efficiency and help boards to meet corporate law responsibilities. This article concentrates on some ideas for financial reporting, a particularly challenging area of reporting for many boards. Two key principles are: less is more and top down. Less is more when financial reporting is well formatted and presents clear, concise and relevant information. This will usually be a mixture of numbers, text, graphical representation and detail reported by exception.