Case Study: Leading Utility Company achieves major SOX time-savings and stronger internal controls with Workiva

Solid data and time-savings for SOX and internal controls

A regional utility company’s small SOX and internal controls audit team was bogged down by manual processes and fragmented tools. The senior program manager spent hours compiling weekly dashboards by contacting people individually, and collaboration via email and physical notes led to confusion, delays, and lack of control—even though the company already used Wdesk for SEC reporting.

By standardizing testing templates and linking data in Wdesk, the team automated weekly status dashboards, used commenting and blackline features to reduce email, and employed time budgeting and configurable fraud risk assessments to plan workload. The results: certifications shortened by a quarter, audit committee reporting cut from two weeks to 3–4 days, non-value-add workload dropped from 60% to 30%, evidence turnaround improved (as much as 20% time savings), and leadership recognized clear efficiencies that justified the change.