AMES, Iowa--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Workiva (NYSE:WK), a leading provider of solutions for enterprise productivity, announced today that Smithfield Foods, Inc. uses Wdesk to centralize internal controls over financial reporting as required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX).
“Before Wdesk, access to SOX work papers and testing results was restricted to requests via email,” said Heather Allen, Director of Derivative Accounting and Compliance with Smithfield Foods. Now, Allen and her colleagues use Wdesk to manage SOX compliance across multiple locations. “With Wdesk, each division’s Risk Control Matrix is linked to testing and supporting documentation. The SOX process is now efficient and readily accessible.”
“Accuracy and completeness is extremely important in SOX compliance as management must attest to the effectiveness of our internal controls,” said Allen. Smithfield Foods management and Internal Audit teams use Wdesk dashboards to track whether internal-controls testing is in process or completed. “We have consolidated all our testing into a corporate dashboard so I can see where we are at any given time – especially with any exceptions that are identified,” she explained. “Wdesk helps us stay on top of things.”
“Each division has access to the dashboards so they can view their progress and stay on track,” she said. “We love that we can create tasks between all Wdesk users, which improves accountability.”
Smithfield Foods also uses Wdesk to digitally embed the results of their controls testing and other required evidence with a complete audit trail. “Evidence documentation is critical to support controls testing. Wdesk provides a centralized repository for documentation that can be easily reviewed by the external auditor or Internal Audit,” added Allen.
“Wdesk is an evolution for us, and we are continuing to work and learn. But for the first time, we have one source of the truth and are harmonizing our processes and procedures,” she explained. “At the end of the day, we have a much stronger controls environment.”
This transparent access, along with controlled collaboration and data linking are among the reasons why Wdesk won a Value Award for Internal Controls from GRC 20/20 Research LLC.1 The analyst firm reported that “Wdesk is a flexible platform that can be altered as business needs change such as in mergers or acquisitions. The internal audit team can start with its internal control management needs and expand to other use cases and departments in the future and have everyone in one secure collaborative platform.”
| 1 GRC 20/20 Research LLC. BelFuse Inc. Value Achieved in Internal Control Management. Governance, Risk Management and Compliance Insight Case Study. October 2016. |
About Workiva
Workiva (NYSE:WK) delivers Wdesk, an intuitive cloud platform that modernizes how people work within thousands of organizations, including over 70 percent of the FORTUNE 500®. Wdesk is built upon a data management engine, offering controlled collaboration, data integration, granular permissions and a full audit trail. Wdesk helps mitigate risk, improves productivity and gives users confidence in their data-driven decisions. Workiva employs more than 1,200 people with offices in 16 cities. The company is headquartered in Ames, Iowa. For more information, visit workiva.com.
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