Business Writing Center

Tools

Correct Use Of Numbers

When it comes to expressing numbers in business writing, you can bend the rules you learned in English class. The rules usually recommend that you spell out the numbers from one to ten and use Arabic numerals for numbers higher than ten.  Using Arabic numerals makes the number stand out from the rest of the sentence; therefore, you may wish to emphasize a number by using Arabic numerals even if the number is ten or below.  It’s best to be consistent, so use all Arabic or all word form for numbers that occur in a single sentence or paragraph.

For example, in the sentence, “We achieved our goal of ten new accounts during the month of October,” you may wish to emphasize the number of new accounts. To do so, you might consider writing the following: “We achieved our goal of 10 new accounts.”

From a visual perspective, we recommend that you spell out a number that starts a sentence. For better clarity, you may also decide to rewrite the sentence, so that it doesn’t begin with a number. (Ex. Twenty-eight sales associates attended the weekly meeting.)

You will also use Arabic numerals to express decimals, percentages, dates, dollar amounts, and the time of day. (Ex. On October 20, by 5:00 p.m., only 12% of our online hits resulted in a sale.)