2025-03-07

Bilingual footnotes finance actually clicks

By Daniel Okonkwo

reportingfinancelocalization
Illustration for Bilingual footnotes finance actually clicks

Finance teams often want English charts with Thai caveats, or the reverse. We standardize footnote slots: left for methodology, right for jurisdiction nuance, footer for data freshness. Color stays muted so nobody mistakes footnotes for marketing gradients.

We teach students to write footnotes before chart titles. If the footnote feels long, the chart is doing too much.

Mid-cohort we simulate a CFO skim on phones. Tiny screens expose arrogant density fast.

We finish with a template pack they can drop into Looker Studio exports, knowing every slot has already survived legal glance once.