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Workiva Review: Pros, Cons, Features, and Pricing

Workiva is a corporate governance and financial reporting software that helps businesses manage reporting and compliance tasks efficiently. It's ideal for large enterprises, financial institutions, and departments that handle complex data and need accurate reporting, such as accounting and compliance. Workiva simplifies reporting processes, ensuring transparency and accuracy.

In this article, I'll cover Workiva's features, pros and cons, use cases, and pricing to help you decide whether this data management software aligns with your business needs.

Workiva Evaluation Summary

Workiva streamlines collaborative, compliant financial reporting with audit-ready controls.
Rating
4.6 /5
Pricing
  • Pricing upon request
  • Free demo available

Why Trust Our Software Reviews

Workiva Overview

In my opinion, the Workiva platform stands out as a solid choice for teams needing reliable integrated reporting software. It excels in simplifying complex reporting tasks, making it a go-to for accounting and compliance departments. Its standout features, such as integrated data management and collaboration tools, make it competitive. However, onboarding could be smoother, and its pricing might be steep for smaller teams. If you're in a large enterprise or financial institution, Workiva's comprehensive features and integrations make it a reliable choice if you're looking to streamline financial and sustainability reporting and enhance compliance efforts.

How We Test & Score Tools

We’ve spent years building, refining, and improving our software testing and scoring system. The rubric is designed to capture the nuances of software selection and what makes a tool effective, focusing on critical aspects of the decision-making process.

Below, you can see exactly how our testing and scoring works across seven criteria. It allows us to provide an unbiased evaluation of the software based on core functionality, standout features, ease of use, onboarding, customer support, integrations, customer reviews, and value for money.

Core Functionality (25% of final scoring)

The starting point of our evaluation is always the core functionality of the tool. Does it have the basic features and functions that a user would expect to see? Are any of those core features locked to higher-tiered pricing plans? At its core, we expect a tool to stand up against the baseline capabilities of its competitors.

Standout Features (25% of final scoring)

Next, we evaluate uncommon standout features that go above and beyond the core functionality typically found in tools of its kind. A high score reflects specialized or unique features that make the product faster, more efficient, or offer additional value to the user.

We also evaluate how easy it is to integrate with other tools typically found in the tech stack to expand the functionality and utility of the software. Tools offering plentiful native integrations, 3rd party connections, and API access to build custom integrations score best.

Ease of Use (10% of final scoring)

We consider how quick and easy it is to execute the tasks defined in the core functionality using the tool. High scoring software is well designed, intuitive to use, offers mobile apps, provides templates, and makes relatively complex tasks seem simple.

Onboarding (10% of final scoring)

We know how important rapid team adoption is for a new platform, so we evaluate how easy it is to learn and use a tool with minimal training. We evaluate how quickly a team member can get set up and start using the tool with no experience. High scoring solutions indicate little or no support is required.

Customer Support (10% of final scoring)

We review how quick and easy it is to get unstuck and find help by phone, live chat, or knowledge base. Tools and companies that provide real-time support score best, while chatbots score worst.

Customer Reviews (10% of final scoring)

Beyond our own testing and evaluation, we consider the net promoter score from current and past customers. We review their likelihood, given the option, to choose the tool again for the core functionality. A high scoring software reflects a high net promoter score from current or past customers.

Value for Money (10% of final scoring)

Lastly, in consideration of all the other criteria, we review the average price of entry level plans against the core features and consider the value of the other evaluation criteria. Software that delivers more, for less, will score higher.

Core Features

Document Management: Workiva lets your team organize and manage documents with ease, ensuring everything's in one place. Its intuitive interface makes document handling and financial planning straightforward.

Real-Time Collaboration: Your team can work together on documents simultaneously, reducing errors and enhancing productivity. Changes are tracked instantly for transparency, and you can alert users to required actions with real-time notifications.

Compliance Tools: Workiva helps you meet regulatory demands, such as SEC filings, with its compliance features. It simplifies the process of adhering to industry standards.

Data Linking: This feature lets you link data across documents, ensuring consistency. If you update data in one place, it syncs across all files.

Audit Trail: You can keep track of every change with Workiva’s audit trail. It provides a clear history of document modifications for accountability.

Reporting Templates: Workiva offers customizable templates to streamline your reporting tasks. Save time by using pre-designed layouts tailored to your needs.

Ease of Use

Workiva offers a user-friendly interface that's easy for your team to navigate. Its real-time collaboration, automation, and document management features streamline workflows, though some users find the initial learning curve a bit steep. Once familiar, you’ll appreciate how it simplifies complex reporting and compliance tasks, allowing you to gain insights quickly without manual processing. Compared to other corporate governance tools, Workiva strikes a balance between functionality and usability, but onboarding could be smoother for new users.

Integrations

Workiva integrates with a variety of on-premises and cloud applications, both natively and bidirectionally, including Amazon Redshift, Google Drive, Google Cloud Storage, Oracle EPM Cloud, Power BI, Salesforce, Dropbox, and BlackLine.

Workiva Specs

  • 2-Factor Authentication
  • Accounts Payable
  • Accounts Receivable
  • API
  • Audit Trail
  • Balance Sheet
  • Billing/Invoicing
  • Budgeting
  • Calendar Management
  • Comparative Reporting
  • Compliance Tracking
  • CRM Integration
  • Custom Reports
  • Dashboard
  • Dashboards
  • Data Export
  • Data Import
  • Data Mining
  • Data Visualization
  • Document Comparison
  • Expense Tracking
  • External Integrations
  • Financial Analysis
  • Forecasting
  • General Account Ledger
  • Multi-Currency
  • Multi-User
  • Notifications
  • P&L
  • Payroll
  • Process Reporting
  • Risk Assessment
  • SAP Integration
  • Scenario Planning
  • Scheduling
  • Tax Management
  • Visualization
  • Workflow Management

Workiva FAQs

Bradley Clifford
By Bradley Clifford

I have 15+ years of experience helping growth-stage companies build finance infrastructure, forecasting tools, and decision-support frameworks. I'm VP of Finance at Black & White Zebra, and previously Senior Director of Finance at Rewind, where I helped cut cash burn from $11M to $2M. I also spent 6 years at Stack Overflow, supporting growth from $20M to $100M through its $1.8B acquisition. I hold an FCCA designation and an MSc in Professional Accountancy.