Case Study: Banking Institution achieves 40% time savings on the Sarbanes-Oxley process with Workiva

Time Savings of 40% on the Sarbanes-Oxley Process

A mid-size bank with about 90 key SOX controls across 13 processes struggled with a manual, decentralized compliance program: control documentation lived in Word and Excel on a shared drive, data and wording were inconsistent across the risk control matrix, process narratives and flowcharts, and the team had difficulty implementing MetricStream. Getting executive buy-in required showing the financial and reputational risks of weak controls and demonstrating that a partner—not just another vendor—was needed to improve processes and oversight.

The bank adopted Workiva’s Wdesk, which was easy to implement with existing documentation and allowed linking so a single source change updates all related documents, plus role-based permissions and tracked blacklines for auditability. Control ownership was shifted to process owners, enabling self-assessment and ongoing training; the accounting and SOX officer cut document management time by 40%, documents became more accurate and faster to produce, and the solution is now being expanded to certifications and dashboards with active support from a dedicated Customer Success Manager.