Case Study: City of Dubuque achieves streamlined, lower-risk budget reporting with Workiva

City in Iowa Controls Its Budget Reporting and More with Workiva

The City of Dubuque, Iowa, faced a manual, disjointed financial reporting process that relied on multiple Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, emails, SharePoint, and the general ledger — a setup that led to a significant budgeting error when the same revenue was entered twice. City leaders, led by Finance and Budget Director Jenny Larson, sought a single solution to centralize files, reduce risk, and streamline approvals across departments.

Dubuque adopted Workiva to connect people, data, and processes for budget reporting, its CAFR, and automated workflows (including fleet inspections and approvals via Certifications), and began using Wdata to pull and prepare source data. The platform cut the number of applications used from five to two, reduced manual errors, created reliable automated reminders and workflows, increased engagement across 28 departments, and freed up time for leadership to focus on decision-making.

City of Dubuque

Jenny Larson

Director of Finance and Budget