Workiva Accelerates Transit Agency’s Budget Process
Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority uses Wdesk to Improve Accuracy and Efficiency
AMES, Iowa--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Workiva (NYSE:WK), a leading provider of solutions for enterprise productivity, announces that the Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority (DART) uses Wdesk to improve accuracy and efficiency in its annual budgeting process.
“As a government entity, funds are tight and so are resources. Our team is always looking to do things more efficiently with technology. This is what led us to Wdesk,” said Amber Dakan, DART Finance Manager.
DART used Wdesk to create its fiscal year 2018 Budget Book and manage its annual budget process. With Wdesk Data Collection templates, “all 18 departments were able to simultaneously enter their financial information and budget requests directly in one shared platform,” Dakan said.
Dakan said that before Wdesk was implemented last year, building the Budget Book was a frustrating, manual process. “Previously, every time there was a change, we had to comb through many, many spreadsheets to find and update the information everywhere. It was time-consuming, and we risked inaccuracies with those adjustments,” she said.
“With our old process, it was difficult to track versions after the fact or know who had changed what. But Wdesk has eliminated those problems,” she said. Wdesk provides DART a full audit trail that tracks every change by every user, the ability to rollback on changes and the ability for team members to make and resolve comments directly in their documents and reports.
With Wdesk, Dakan and her team finished their Budget Book more than a week earlier than in previous years, thereby reducing anxiety and “giving us time to cross our t's and dot our i's,” she said. “We had more time to analyze the data and to prepare for all of our stakeholder presentations.” DART’s commission adopted its Budget Book at its March meeting.
Dakan said DART hopes to eventually build its entire Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) in Wdesk and to use the platform to generate monthly presentations for commissioners and other stakeholders.
“Working with Workiva has been a good process,” Dakan said. “We have a dedicated customer success manager who is very responsive to us, and our IT and Procurement departments were very pleased with the process.”
About Workiva
Workiva (NYSE:WK) delivers Wdesk, an intuitive cloud platform that modernizes how people work within thousands of organizations, including over 70 percent of the FORTUNE 500®. Wdesk is built upon a data management engine, offering controlled collaboration, data integration, granular permissions and a full audit trail. Wdesk helps mitigate risk, improves productivity and gives users confidence in their data-driven decisions. Workiva employs more than 1,200 people with offices in 16 cities. The company is headquartered in Ames, Iowa. For more information, visit workiva.com.
Claim not confirmed by FORTUNE or Time Inc. FORTUNE 500® is a registered trademark of Time Inc. and is used under license. FORTUNE and Time Inc. are not affiliated with, and do not endorse products or services of, Workiva Inc.
About DART
The Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority (DART) is the public transportation provider in and around Polk County. DART operates a family of transportation services that connects thousands of people every day to jobs, school, medical appointments, entertainment and more. For more information about DART services, schedules, route changes, or directions to the nearest DART stop, visit the website at ridedart.com or call 515-283-8100.
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Source: Workiva
Media Contact:
Kevin McCarthy
515-663-4471
press@workiva.com