Why Customers Choose Workiva and the Cloud: Fast ROI

Finance, accounting, risk and compliance professionals have given us many reasons for choosing Workiva. In this blog series, we are exploring each of the top 10 reasons organisations move their reporting and compliance to the cloud.

When innovation can pay for itself, the decision to move beyond business as usual is easy.

Innovative organisations are modernising in the public eye, but I have also watched them innovate behind the scenes, with cost-efficient back-office tools that scale. As accounting, finance, risk and compliance teams look to the cloud to handle their growing amounts of data, more than 3,000 have turned to Workiva to help collect, manage and effectively report on that data.

Reason Number 6: Fast return on investment

Two internal audit leaders in charge of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) process for an international transportation company knew they wanted to improve their processes. With approximately 225 key controls to test, 25 process owners and 100 control owners, they sought a modern workflow where internal and external teams could easily access documents and collaborate online.

The two internal audit leaders looked for SOX software solutions in the cloud. They evaluated top vendors before deciding on Wdesk, the cloud solution from Workiva.

When they explained their rationale to their chief financial officer, they said Wdesk would provide them with better workflow, more control over the accessibility of documents and time-savings that would enable the cloud platform to pay for itself.

"We sat across from him, we showed him our write-up, and he pushed it right back and said, 'Well, I guess you've done your homework. Go ahead,'" the internal audit director said.

She conservatively estimates Wdesk will save the company 400 to 500 hours annually on SOX work, delivering a return on investment within roughly a year.

How Workiva delivers fast ROI

Installing a new solution requires a commitment to change, but users have told us Workiva provides them with a fast payback period. Some of the savings comes from being based entirely in the cloud. On-premise or PC-based systems may require IT to install the solution, machine by machine. With a cloud solution, there is no software or hardware to instal. Choosing Workiva means you are free of capital expenditures and interruptions for installation. Simply go online to work on files that you have permission to access.

Instead of building data centers you may not need for years, you can quickly scale up or down with elastic, flexible cloud solutions. Your service provider is responsible for providing the server space you need, whenever you are ready to grow.

Accounting, finance, risk, audit and compliance professionals have told us Workiva enables automated financial reporting and processes. Instead of wasting hours on clerical tasks, they are helping their organisations make smarter decisions. Instead of scanning and uploading documents, deciphering handwritten comments on PDFs, chasing rounders or formatting bar charts, they can focus on data analysis and influencing corporate strategy.

Over time, users have started sharing Workiva solutions with their colleagues. Here are just a few examples:

• One energy company started using Workiva for its Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reporting and proxies. Now, they have also added Wdesk for SOX compliance.
• A major telecommunications company leverages Workiva not only for internal performance and audit committee reporting, but also SEC filings and in-house XBRL tagging.
• Some users also have asked the Workiva Professional Services team to help them with iXBRL for tagged data, a requirement the SEC is rolling out starting mid-2019.
• A bank that used our SOX solution began managing internal audits in Wdesk in 2016.

The introduction of Wdata streamlines processes even further. Wdata helps teams automate the collection and preparation of large volumes of structured and unstructured data for analysis and final reporting in Wdesk.

Keep following this blog to read about other top reasons organisations choose Workiva and the cloud.

If you want to see more right away, request a demo to see the platform up close.