Accounting is often placed in situations where you have to explain something less than pleasant: Whether it’s alerting the CFO to bad numbers, telling employees they aren’t getting a reimbursement they expected, or explaining to a vendor why you have to withhold part of a payment, sometimes you just know the conversation isn’t going to be fun.

Fortunately, those situations can be made a little easier if you approach the conversation the right way. Remember these three keys to get the message across without killing a relationship:

1. Don’t delay. It’s human nature to want to postpone any less-than-pleasant task. But if you give in to temptation, it often only makes the news harder to hear. And at worst, the other person may think you were trying to hide something.
2. Signal what’s coming. The last thing you want to do is drop a bomb in someone’s lap unexpectedly. Saying (or even e-mailing in advance) something like, “I need to talk to you about something,” can help the other person prepare for what’s coming. It indicates that the conversation is going to be fairly serious (not a pop-in to talk about last night’s episode of Lost) and that their full attention is needed.
3. Have solutions ready. Depending on the situation, be prepared to offer compromises, answers, or a plan of action regarding the main issue. For example, if you just uncovered a fraudulent transaction, the CFO will be a lot happier if you can say: “We discovered that someone cashed a bad check on our account. I’ve already contacted the bank, and we’re reviewing our internal procedures to make sure this doesn’t happen again.” That approach immediately softens the bad news — and it shows that you’re taking control of the situation.

Tags: Communication, Hiring & training staff, Management issues