Why Our Customers Choose Wdesk and the Cloud: Collaboration

Finance, accounting, risk and compliance professionals have given us many reasons for choosing Wdesk. We are exploring each of the top 10 reasons why organisations move their reporting and compliance to the cloud in greater depth with this blog series.

The accounting team at one of the world's leading renewable energy operators was crushed with creating annual lender presentations, scheduled operating reports and financial reports for 80 different financings across its portfolio.

At the time, partners from the company's three audit firms were writing footnotes independently, leading to multiple versions. Meanwhile, siloed internal employees had different methods for rounding numbers, grouping data, wording disclosures or titling information. Instead of analysing data, accounting team members were reconciling discrepancies in words, chart colours and between presentation slides and scripts.

If your company relies on PC-based software to compile quarterly reports like this company did, you may know the limits of desktop applications all too well:

• Waiting your turn to check out a document while under a deadline
• Not knowing who is working on what portion of the document
• Finally completing your section, only to learn someone changed the underlying data

When business reporting teams hit a wall with existing technology, they often start researching tools to improve their processes. Many find that the greatest advantages available today exist exclusively in the cloud.

Reason Number 1: The cloud makes it easy to collaborate on critical projects

Unlike PC-based software, a cloud-based or software as a service (SaaS) reporting platform enables you to grant users permission to access reporting applications and data anywhere, anytime, from any device with a web browser. This level of accessibility is critical in today’s 24/7 business environment.

While cloud tools like Google Docs^TM enable collaboration amongst small groups and small documents, they can be wholly inadequate for large-scale reporting. That is why companies have turned to purpose-built reporting platforms that enable them to efficiently manage their reporting processes, so they are repeatable, scalable and sustainable.

Cloud platforms provide you and your team the unprecedented ability to simultaneously collaborate in real time, independent of geography. They also connect departments and external work partners in a way that is simply not possible with desktop and on-premise systems.

Companies are embracing the benefits of cloud collaboration, and working together in the cloud has fast become the new norm. According to a Forbes Insight Survey of more than 500 business executives:

• 55% of respondents—and 87 percent of leaders—said cloud-based tools represented a true breakthrough in collaboration
• 64% said cloud-based tools help execute business functions faster than would be possible otherwise
• 58% report that cloud collaboration has the potential to improve business processes

Collaboration in Wdesk saves teams time and money

Wdesk and Wdata, which you can use to bring data into Wdesk, are 100% in the cloud, so you can work no matter where you are. That kind of accessibility gives you and your team the flexibility to balance work and personal lives. You are no longer constrained to your desk and office. You also have the ability to control contributor access, down to a cell in a spreadsheet.

Wdesk streamlines and automates many manual reporting processes, freeing you to handle more critical, higher value activities. Link shared data across multiple documents, spreadsheets and presentations, so you can change information once and update it in all related files. Teams also benefit from transparency into a project, with audit trails that clearly show who changed what.

Companies have reported that Wdesk helps them slash time spent on tedious tasks, such as manually rekeying data, chasing down documents and collaborating with external partners.

• Winnebago Industries Inc. saved at least 30 hours on SEC document development after switching from word processors to Wdesk, which enabled smoother, faster collaboration amongst multiple authors. Winnebago also eliminated the expense of outsourcing 8-K and quarterly SEC filings.
• Bel Fuse Inc. reduced risk, costs and hassles when it stopped shipping binders of documentation to external auditors and started using Wdesk to share evidence without the risk of losing things in the mail.

Without cloud collaboration within Wdesk, many of the efficiencies listed above may not have been possible. Deadline-driven teams trust modern technology from Workiva to transform how they work together in real time, across locations, for faster results.

The renewable energy company is amongst the more than 3,000 businesses who discovered the many reasons Workiva stands apart from other cloud service providers (CSPs). Keep your eye on this blog over the next several months as we examine more reasons companies choose Workiva.

If you don't want to wait that long, request a demo today to learn more advantages of Wdesk and how to use Wdata to bring data into Wdesk.