Workiva Adds Evidence Management Feature to Wdesk for Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance

For the First Time SOX Teams can Embed Evidence in Internal Audit Work Papers; Wdesk Solves Documentation Issues that Plague Companies and Auditors

AMES, Iowa, April 2, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Workiva Inc. (NYSE: WK), creator of the Wdesk cloud-based productivity platform for business data collaboration and reporting, today introduced a new feature called Evidence Management for Wdesk that significantly improves how companies document and test their internal controls over financial reporting required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX).  

With Evidence Management for Wdesk, internal audit and SOX compliance teams can, for the first time, digitally embed and annotate evidence in work papers with a complete audit trail.

"This expanded functionality is an important step in creating evidence-based risk management, which helps our customers better identify, assess and mitigate risks," said Matt Rizai , Chairman and CEO of Workiva. "Managing large numbers of disconnected pieces of evidence manually, and often on an adhoc basis, simply doesn't cut it in today's complex business environment."

"At Noble Energy, I use Wdesk to replace a 600-spreadsheet process," said Jeramie Taylor , the company's Internal Controls Manager. "I have the ability to update a piece of data in one spot and have it flow through the entire SOX program. Evidence Management for Wdesk facilitates a streamlined evidence collection process with control owners and automates that collection of SOX evidence back into Wdesk for Internal Control's review and markup."

Key capabilities of Evidence Management for Wdesk include:

  • Evidence Requests - Internal audit teams can request evidence and track responses in Wdesk with a centralized, real-time view of all tasks. Once the evidence is provided, it is automatically attached to the testing document.
  • Attachments - Teams can also attach supporting evidence, such as PDF or common spreadsheet files, directly to testing documents and link that information together, thereby making Wdesk a repository for control information.
  • Markups - Internal auditors can view and annotate documents within Wdesk, which makes it easier to locate and validate supporting evidence of related internal controls.
  • Exports - Users can export testing documents and work papers so that supporting evidence can be sent as a single file to external audit teams.

Gartner recently cited Workiva as a "best-of-breed" vendor of enhanced financial controls and automation.1  "Adding Evidence Management to the Wdesk platform expands our ability to help SOX compliance teams become more efficient," added Rizai. "Wdesk eliminates conflicting versions, automates storage and retrieval of files and streamlines the whole process."

About Workiva
Workiva created Wdesk, a cloud-based platform for enterprises to collect, manage, report and analyze business data in real time. Wdesk includes a sophisticated productivity suite for business data collaboration and reporting that is used by thousands of corporations, including more than 65 percent of the Fortune 500. Wdesk proprietary word processing, spreadsheet and presentation applications are fully integrated and built upon the Workiva data management engine. Wdesk helps reduce enterprise risk and increase productivity with synchronized data, controlled collaboration, granular permissions and a full audit trail. This gives users confidence to make decisions with real-time data. Workiva (NYSE: WK) employs more than 950 people with offices in 15 cities. The company is headquartered in Ames, Iowa. For more information, visit workiva.com.

1 "Enhanced Finance Controls and Automation Fills the Gaps in ERP and CPM Processes," John E. Van Decker , Gartner. October 2014.

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