Accountants are getting bored with increase and their derivatives: higher, improved, growth and their opposites: decrease, lower, declined and negative growth. They are used so often in annual reports, accountants are starting to use the poetic, risky and adventurous to replace them.
We all know the standard expression ‘revenues increased by x%’, ‘growth in revenues was x%’, ‘revenues improved by x%’. Some accountants branch out with banal alternatives such as ‘revenues went up by x%’ or ‘revenues rose by x%’. When there is not much to say sometimes flat is used. Not flat as in an apartment but flat as in the pancake: ‘revenues were flat’. Here though, this flat is one way to hide declining revenues.
Others add adjectives: ‘revenues increased significantly’ or ‘sales declined slightly’ to keep readers from falling asleep. But these are not enough.
In my reading of annual reports over the years, I have found some surprising alternatives by enterprising accountants. I have decided not to name the companies, because there are so many in so many different reports it would be tedious to reference them all, but many of these have been taken from the beer and beverage industries.
A few adventurous accountants slip in words using force with strength and weakness: ‘revenues weakened in the second quarter’, or ‘revenues in Europe were offset by a strong USA’. Similarly revenues can expand or contract but rarely expenses. Or ‘revenues enhanced profitability’. Adventurous accountants looking for excuses use ‘adversely impacted’, for instance, ‘bad weather adversely affected revenues’ or ‘high inflation adversely impacted revenues’. In one instance accountants used ‘amplified’ instead of adversely impacted.
I found accountants in two companies in the UK that chose the metaphoric using bad weather: ‘revenues were impacted by strong headwinds from inflation, supply chain disruptions…’ and as many other things the accountants could think of. Sometimes they imagine they are in a boat and have to navigate the same headwinds. Other times the headwinds are publicised: ‘despite the well publicised headwinds, revenues increased …’ there are often many types too: macro headwinds, logistics headwinds, cost headwinds. US companies do not generally adopt this poetic approach.
Risky accountants use bolster: ‘investments bolstered revenues’. Most accountants choose one or two of these adventurous, poetic or risky alternative to increase and decrease. But I found one company that used multiple alternatives: enhance, expand, strengthen, bolster and the unusual ‘ramp up’ in the same annual report. They ‘ramped up investments to increase sales’, or perhaps they increased investments to ramp up sales.
But instead of ramping up, some accountants use the simpler stepping up. Most of the time they ‘step up investments’, instead of simply increasing them. But my favourite has to be ‘uplift’. The expression that ‘the company has decided not to uplift book value’ (increase book value) is not poetic but silly. There is even recognised accounting jargon called ‘fair value uplift’. The opposite of uplift has to be ‘downdrop’ but I have never found one. Instead to reverse uplift, accountants use unwind. An acceptable expression for accountants is ‘the fair value uplift is expected to unwind’. This of course means the increase in fair value is expected to decrease, but I guess that is too banal for a mere accountant.
