Boosting the Precision and Speed of Financial Tie-out

Overview

Context

Problem

Goals

Solution

Outcome

My Process

Context

About Workiva

Workiva platform, is a fit-for-purpose, connected reporting and compliance platform that enables our customers to streamline processes, connect data and teams, and ensure consistency—all within a controlled, secure, audit-ready platform.

Wdesk Platform

Wdesk is platform designed to assist organizations with various financial and regulatory reporting needs. It offers features for creating, editing, and collaborating on documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and reports.

Problem

On average, Financial professionals dedicated to filing spend approximately 120 hours per quarter for a medium-sized company, indicating a substantial investment of time and resources.

Regulations and standards also play a pivotal role in financial tie-out, demanding strict adherence. Meeting these requirements while simultaneously ensuring accuracy and consistency can be a multifaceted endeavor

Time-consuming

Audit and Finance teams spend a lot of valuable time by manually performing Tie-out in the process of reconciling and verifying the numbers and data in a financial statement increasing overall turnaround time.Sharing, reviewing, and validating underlying financial evidence is complex and chaotic.

Documentation chaos

The data often originates from diverse sources, including different departments and systems, which can result in inconsistencies when these sources fail to align. Time and overall quality of work are lost in this process

Increased workload

Human errors, such as data entry mistakes or calculation inaccuracies, can creep into the process, potentially leading to discrepancies that undermine the reliability of financial statements. Increasing requirements and reporting needs; the pressure on teams drives ”error blindness", avoiding documentation standards, decreasing quality of work.

Goals

Increase speed of fact reconciliation and ease of accessing source documents for Preparers and Auditors while maintaining accuracy of the filings.

Based on the research done through surveys, discussions with stakeholders, management led to the solution of automation of the complete process. I challenged this solution and redirected the team towards need for an efficient workflow during the overall the filing experience. Guided by user interviews, and recognizing the cumbersome pain of using markups ,I decided to incline efforts towards improving the auditing workflow as well. We organized the UX strategy on streamlining the tie-out workflow, consolidating supporting documents and making the data transparent.

Reduce manual effort

Improve the current markup experience and matching fact value from multiple sources. This will reduce the support request from clients and save efforts.

Increase collaboration

Allow for a continuous feedback loop, enabling teams to refine their Reports and resolving problems swiftly, preventing delays in the tie-out process

Easy access to filing data

Reducing the users context switch while reconciling the numbers from the SEC and other sources.

Solution

Streamlining Financial Tie-Out Automation for Enhanced Efficiency and Accuracy

Streamlining their financial tie-out process workflow significantly reduced the likelihood of errors and inconsistencies, ultimately improving the accuracy and reliability of their financial reports and statements.

Enhanced Visibility and Transparency

Monitoring document changes empowers user control over the automated reconciliation process, enhancing efficiency and the assurance of a single source of truth for your financial data.

Seamless integration with Data sources

Reducing the need to switch between multiple systems allowing users with effortless data import, rapid document access, and a centralized data repository.

Simplified Automated Markup usage

Replaced manual stamping with automated number marking, standardized the marking process, and enhance visual simplicity and reduces human error.

Outcomes

A Competitive edge and price increase justification.

Our solution leads to enhanced Financial professionals efficiency, reduced cycle time by 50%, and decreased manual reconciliation effort in tie-outs for SEC customers, ultimately making filings more accurate and save customers valuable time.

$10M

Projected value from new and existing customers.

50%

Reduced Tie-out Cycle for preparers and auditors

My Approach

My Approach towards Challenges

Upon joining Workiva, I stepped into a project that was already in motion, and I immediately assumed a key role. The project was under tight deadlines, and it was regarded as a top priority by both project managers and senior leadership.

Learn about the Tie-out process and Workiva's business objectives.

Understanding current Workiva offerings user painpoints, design guidelines.

Designing a user centric solution that is scalable.

Challenge 1 of 3

Tedious Reconciliation Process Consumes Hours for Filing Professionals, Overwhelmed by Manual Tasks and Hundreds of Entries

During Pandemic, our team had already digitized the Paper based Tie-out process on workiva's Wdesk platform. Though it helped our users to keep the ball rolling while being work from home, there were are lot of drawbacks in the current system. In collaboration with our PM and Engineering team we meticulously analyzed research considering user engagement, technical complexity, and financial implications. The discussion guided us in reshaping the product by streamlined intuitive interface, increasing efficiency and simultaneously reducing effort by 50% or around 120 hours per cycle.

Before

Manual marking numbers using stamps

Lack of standardization for using stamps

As the Report advances, the visual markups gets complicated

After

Used Visual cues to highlight reconciled values and reduce clutter during audit reviews.

Enhancing clarity by minimizing use of stamps and standardizing markings.

Clear identifiers such as colors for mismatch to reduce the 'error blindness'

Challenge 2 of 3

Collaborative Chaos: Inconsistent Financial Data Sources Cause Time Loss and Quality Issues in Validation Processes

Previous Process

Streamlining processes through automation can indeed bring several collaboration challenges. Through user interviews, we uncovered a significant time loss during the review process due to static document handling. Our findings highlighted that users prioritize instant access to shared content above other benefits such as sharing, syncing, or retrieval.

messages and email gets lost in the conversations that increases miscommunication

users have to wait for the feedback each time they send it for review

Increasing Collaboration by making the file dynamic and Live

To address this, I devised strategies aimed at keeping users informed through live updates on files and guided summaries. Users now receive contextually relevant automated feedback while actively working on tasks, reducing the need for context switching and significantly boosting collaboration.

Live files tracking changes and revisions, providing a transparent audit trail

Preparers and auditors can work on the same document concurrently, allowing for real-time collaboration without the need to wait for file exchanges or updates

By having immediate access to the most up-to-date information, both preparers and auditors can make quicker, more informed decisions.

Challenge 3 of 3

Improving navigability through results, comments and documents

The initial draft of Tie-out Results summary view felt confusing and users stated this seemed disorganized. Over more conversation we found that we need to focus more on what information our users expect and reduce the unnecessary details.

I revamped the user experience by simplifying unnecessary elements. Through user research, I discovered that the emphasis shouldn't solely be on the quantity of errors but rather on pinpointing and identifying them accurately. As a solution, I replaced the error count with a progress bar, offering a more easily digestible and visual representation of progress.

To make post tieout feedback more accessible, I took the Sectioned hierarchy approach to give users more control on the results and quickly find a particular section to review facts without alternating in the document.
Granular details about the facts makes the Tie-out summary less ambiguous and helps user to make quick informed decisions.

Don’t just take my word for it

Hear from some of our amazing stakeholders who are working faster and generating accurate reports.

"I love the automated tick marks; ticking takes up the majority of time in the tie-out."

Stakeholder 1

Paralegal

"Very interested to learn more, as it could significantly cut time."

Stakeholder 2

Reporting manager

"I believe anything that automates or speeds up the tie out process is a positive impactfor my workflow."

Stakeholder 3

Financial professional

Takeaways

Some of the learning that i will carry to my next assignment

Believe on your gut feelings and make executive decisions

I successfully battled the imposter syndrome that has haunted me in the past. By trusting my instincts in analysis and research, I found the courage to take initiative and continuously refine our solutions. Embracing the process of learning and adapting from unsuccessful decisions became a cornerstone of our progress.

Be prepared for surprises

I learned this the hard way. Rehearse the usability testing script and make sure that the Figma prototype is accessible by participants. Always check if the participants are able to access the technology stack you are using prior to the meeting.

Understanding the business is key

Doing prior research about the workiva platform and busineess came in handy while having conversations with stakeholders, During this project i understood how alignment with business is critical to ensure that design decisions support the company's strategic direction and contribute to its success.

Reflect after every meeting

Reflecting on each meeting allows you to evaluate how well it achieved its objectives. You can consider whether the meeting was necessary, if the agenda was followed, and if the desired outcomes were achieved.

Streamlining Financial Reports: 90% Faster Task Success, Saving 60 Hours/Cycle

Boosting the Precision and Speed of Financial Report Preparers.

Project duration

Role

Contribution

Collaboratioon