The MetricStream Platform, from MetricStream in Palo Alto, California is a Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance (GRC) platform supplying a technology infrastructure for deploying GRC apps configurable to meet the needs of the enterprise.
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Workiva
Score 8.2 out of 10
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Workiva is a cloud platform supporting ESG protecting, designed to provide collaboration, data integration, and an audit trail. The platform helps mitigate risk, and improves productivity.
MetricStream is well suited for when you need to pull a report into Excel for further analysis. It is not good for when information needs to be entered as this is all done manually by analysts and managers. If we can implement a way to take parts of uploaded documents and have the system automatically enter the information in the designated fields in MetricStream, it would cut out lots of manual work for our department.
Wdesk is best suited for companies with demanding SEC filings and documents, with multiple revisions due to auditor/counsel review, and where financial reporting is extremely manual. Wdesk really helps take out the potential errors out of extremely manual processes, and helps automate regular financial reporting by allowing companies to link financial information and build customized flows of their information into financial statements and other documents (such as presentations or other internal reporting).
The biggest strength of the program for our team is that multiple users can work in the document at the same time. Multiple users can be in the program updating financial statements, footnotes, MD&A - all without stepping on each other's toes.
Rolling forward the documents from one period to the next is pretty simple. Links to source documents are maintained and new ones can be added without much hassle.
Edits and changes can be made right up until the last minute before filing. There is no waiting period or pencils-down period unless we enforce one ourselves - the Financial Reporting team is in control of the timing of our filings.
Overall it's a good-to-go product because of its features. It's easy to set up, meets requirements, has quality support, etc. So far, it has been working quite well for me, and I wish to continue using it for as long as it meets my requirements.
Workiva's technical support is impeccable and undoubtedly one of the best. The times we needed them, they were super quick and willing to help. It works 24 hours a day, and there will always be someone to help with doubts or technical problems regarding the tool.
We moved from a third party filer to doing it in house. Have seen demos of products like Active Disclosure, which has come a long way from the beta version I saw and but we are not too far gone with Wdesk for us to evaluate other products. When we first signed up with Webfilings, (former name of Workiva), there were no viable products in the market. I had seen an Oracle product and a beta version of Active Disclosure. It was not hard to see the ease and intuitive-screens, to guide one through the filing process. The excel-like spreadsheets were an added bonus.
We spend less than we used to with a traditional printer.
We have been able to do turn-on-a-dime equity offerings with last minute changes and still file on time.
Inviting external legal into the platform has helped with communication but we actually suspect they spend MORE time (and billing) on our documents than they used to just simply because it's so easy to get at them anytime they want.
