This slideshow explores what modern finance is and what it takes to get your team there. To find out more, visit workiva.com/solutions/financial-reporting

1. Modernizing Your
Finance Team
With Technology

2. Creating performance reporting that cuts
across departments is key to quicker executive
decisions that enable growth objectives.
This SlideShare introduces some of the
underlying issues of this strategy, including:
• The importance of modern finance to business strategy
• How to modernize the finance department
• Software needed to enable that transformation

3. There are a handful of external influences that
every company will encounter on its roadmap
to profitability.
Here we examine a few of the challenges and how
they can be addressed—including possible process
improvements to modernize the finance function.
Business Imperatives for
Modern Finance
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4. • Worldwide economic health
• Market volatility
• Equity markets are no longer overvalued
• Debt is becoming less attractive
Macroeconomic Factors$
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Challenge:

5. Challenge:
Cybersecurity attacks are becoming more frequent,
opportunistic, and sophisticated.
Most strategies have shifted from building a castle
moat to keep intruders out to building internal
safeguards to protect critical data once they get in.
Cybersecurity

6. Due to the changing landscape of policies, regulations, and
enforcement, CFOs now spend more time on regulatory affairs.
Key changes include:
• Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
• FASB/IASB Revenue Recognition
• Fair-value measurements
• Lease accounting
• Foreign Corrupt Practice Act (FCPA)
Policy and Regulation Uncertainty
Challenge:

7. Solution:
Given the uncertainty of the macroeconomic and
regulatory environment, transformative initiatives are
critical to adding value across the business and to
being a better business partner.
Transformation Initiatives

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Digitization, robotic process automation, cloud, and new
self-service analytics tools are technological game
changers for finance.
Re-engineering processes for greater efficiency is the main
way to free up funds for investing in value creation while
continuing commitment to competitive cost structure.
Re-engineer Processes
Solution:

9. Performance management helps bring value in the areas
of strategy, key performance indicators (KPIs), and
cost reduction.
Improved performance management will make the finance
function, and the enterprise as a whole, more agile.
Improve Finance Performance
Management Capability
Solution:

10. It has never been more important for CFOs to integrate business
strategy and execution with enterprise risk management (ERM)
under the performance management umbrella:
• CFOs must ask themselves which internal and external risks
they regard as most worrisome for business performance
• CFOs need to pay increased attention to high-impact,
low-frequency risks
Performance-Based Risk Management
Solution:

11. For private companies, the previous transformations
are key to creating a path to liquidity, whether that
path is going public, being acquired, or continuing to
operate as a private entity.
IPO Readiness—Getting
Your House in Order
Solution:

12. Keep the books
Identify and track key
external metrics
Implement timely budget
preparation and review
all processes
Appoint auditors
Select legal counsel
Adopt long-term
incentive program
Audited annual report
(10-Q like)
Appoint relevant public
company board members
and set up committees
Complete historical audits
Appoint dedicated IPO
leadership team
Select bankers and banker
due diligence
Choose exchange
Assess need for additional
technical accountants for SEC
reporting and investor
relations personnel
Retain SOX resources and develop
Section 404 compliance plan
Implement investor
relations program and begin
providing investor guidance
Implement SOX 302
certification and
sub-certification processes
Implement accounting policies
Document key business
processes and remediate control
deficiencies
Practice actual to budget
quarterly
Conduct more frequent
reporting, including monthly
performance reporting
Set human resources policies
and procedures
Identify human resources, legal,
and IT risk management
Keep rolling forecast
Budget to actual monthly with
department heads
Prepare to draft S-1
Prepare mock earnings releases
and call scripts
Hold quarterly board meetings
with committee reports
Execute first 10-Q
and XBRL tagging
Execute on first
earnings release
12-18 Months 3-12 Months 6 Months18-24 Months
Transitions
Internal
Processes
This table shows the key characteristics and timeline of IPO readiness,
which we like to call getting your house in order.

13. The most important modern finance business imperative is the
adoption of weekly and monthly performance reporting and
integrated monthly management review to support
high-velocity, informed decision-making.
Technology that provides an integrated data platform and a
repeatable reporting framework to automate this kind of
performance reporting is absolutely essential.
Business Process Improvement

14. It's key that modern finance applications be delivered in the cloud:
• Accessible by any employee, anytime, anywhere
• Rapid deployment delivers lower implementation costs
• Designed for business users, not IT
Platform Requirements to Support Modern Finance
Cloud-based infrastructure1

15. Platform Requirements to Support Modern Finance
2
Through data experience, users can better gather, organize, extend,
and share business data:
• Scalable, high-performance, as-reported datastore for single
source of truth
• Data collection subsystem for collection and organizing
unstructured data
• Smart documents with flexible linking and query connections
for connecting narrative and numerical data
Integrated data-experience platform
Cloud-based infrastructure

16. To author smart documents within the data experience platform, a repeatable reporting
framework is required:
• Multiple users edit the document at the same time without version control issues
• Document and presentation formats that can be linked to the as-reported datastore
• Table templates designed for accounting and finance formatting
• A full audit trail to track all submitted updates from any user
• Permissions that can control access at both the document level and section level
• Task assignment to manage input from all involved parties across the enterprise
• Blackline reports that show changes between revisions
Platform Requirements to Support Modern Finance
3 Repeatable reporting framework
Cloud-based infrastructure
Integrated data-experience platform

17. Distribution of reports for review is often overlooked:
• Digital review should occur within the workflow
• Comments and markup should be aggregated and displayed
• Multiple content types should be supported
Platform Requirements to Support Modern Finance
4
Repeatable reporting framework
Digital review and mobile access
Cloud-based infrastructure
Integrated data-experience platform

18. Wdesk from Workiva provides a modern finance platform for
performance reporting:
• A data experience platform and repeatable reporting
framework combining numbers and narrative
• Improved control of processes to mitigate corporate risk
• A secure cloud-based platform for finance, internal
controls, and risk
A Smart Platform for Modern Finance

19. Get the complete story.
Check out the full white paper from this series. It covers all of
these topics in depth, including a critical analysis of current
software on the market.
workiva.com | info@woriva.com | +1.888.275.3125