Energy Company's Audit Team Saves Time on SOX Compliance

When the internal audit team started talking to Workiva, workflow was messy and completing enough audits was a challenge.

"We were actually at a point where either we were going to have to start cutting audits out of our plan every year, or we were going to have to look at bringing in an additional person," an audit team member said.

In addition, the team stored documents in several file formats on a network drive. If files were saved incorrectly, they were easily overwritten or lost. "Workflow is one of the things that I think is just inherent when you go into Wdesk," she said.

With Wdesk, the internal audit team has consolidated walkthrough documents and design memos into one file. The team can capture a fully transparent revision history, and any shared data automatically updates across linked documents. It also leverages roll forward functionality to avoid repetitive work, and it uses dashboards to communicate accurate data to management and the audit committee. The utility now is exploring whether it can add a couple of audits to its plan.

“Some of the reasons we ended up going with Wdesk versus some of those other vendors was the ability to customize our documentation and get the tool to work for our practice versus changing our process to work for the tool,” the audit team member said.

“Going forward, we’re constantly working with the Workiva team and also with other members in our company to identify areas that we can get more opportunities and efficiencies.”

Why the company chose Wdesk:

• Customizable
• Easy to use
• Familiarity, since management was already using Wdesk for SEC reporting and proxies