Situation:

The stereotype may be true—most of us with a background in accounting are better at numbers than we are with words. But there's still good reason to pay attention to your outgoing communications.

For example, a few years ago, a woman e-mailed me and said she liked my design work but there were too many typographical errors in my content. Her e-mail really opened my eyes to how much business I could be losing to a typo or two. Most people wouldn't have bothered to let me know I had a problem, so her action was a real gift for me.

Writing mistakes can cost your business dearly. Here are five common mistakes to look for—and how to avoid them—in your accounting or bookkeeping practice.

1. Misspelling the Client's Name
You might get a giggle out of this one, but it's no laughing matter. People address e-mails to me as "Sandy" all the time. (It's Sandi, and there's a big difference to me!) If you can't even get my name right, wouldn't I be a fool to hire you? I would think you would also make mistakes on my tax return, QuickBooks file, audit, or whatever I'm hiring you for.

2. Failing to Proofread Everything
It's easy to forget to proofread e-mails because they are so informal and so quick. But they are still client communications. If a client sees you make a mistake in an e-mail, it's again akin to making an error in their financial statements. That's business lost forever.

3. Computer Literacy Mistakes
You might be surprised at how many e-mails with text in all capital letters that I receive from accountants. For more than ten years now, this is considered bad e-mail etiquette and the equivalent of shouting. I chalk those accountants up as computer-illiterate and someone I don't want doing my accounting work.

4. Verbosity
On a frequent basis, it is probable that you will be exposed to a sentence written by an accountant for some purpose that simply has an overflow of words compared to how it could have been written, that is, in a more concise manner.
Wasn't that hard to read? Some accountants equate their intelligence with how many long words they can write. However, that's self-defeating behavior. Keeping your message simple will make sure you are understood.

5. Grammar Errors
Here are two common grammar mistakes I see from accountants.
It's, its
Sample usage: It's time for its audit.

Grammar rules:
• It's is a contraction of it is and always needs an apostrophe to replace the missing "i" in "is."
• Its is a possessive pronoun and never takes an apostrophe.

An apostrophe is only used to replace missing letters. You can always test to see if you need to include the apostrophe by replacing "its" with "it is." If the resulting sentence doesn't sound right ("The dog looked for it is bone"), you don't need an apostrophe.

Who, that
Sample usage: Companies that treat their employees right have people who care working for them.

I see a lot of accountants writing "companies who…" and "people that…" Companies are objects and should be followed by that and not who. People are humans and all humans should be followed by who and not that.

I don't think you'll lose as much business over these grammatical errors as you will the first few mistakes we described, but don't you want to get it right?

Write Right
When you can put yourself in your client's shoes for just a moment, you'll understand the point of this article. Don't let writing mistakes cost you business.