How a global financial firm is cutting the cost of Workday control management
“With Smart Audit, I spend just minutes a day managing risks that used to take hours each week. It’s transformed our compliance strategy.”
Live on Workday since 2018: Raising the bar on compliance
Managing Workday compliance at scale is no small task, especially in the financial sector, where accuracy, control, and auditability are non-negotiable. This global financial services organisation, with a decades-long legacy and tens of thousands of associates worldwide, implemented Workday in 2018 to streamline and centralise HR, finance, and operations.
Operating in a highly regulated environment and managing large volumes of sensitive data, the organisation knew that securing user access and maintaining compliance in Workday wasn’t just a checkbox, it was a continuous, evolving priority. Over time, the limitations of legacy manual audit processes became increasingly clear. Weekly audits required exporting and merging multiple Workday reports into spreadsheets, running macros, and manually checking for risks such as Segregation of Duties violations. The process was cumbersome, time-consuming, and vulnerable to human error.
Before Smart Audit: Manual work, limited visibility
Previously, the compliance team used a mix of automated monitoring and manual reporting. User and role-based reports were compiled weekly, then manipulated in spreadsheets to detect issues. The process takes approximately an hour each week and remains vulnerable to human error. “There was definitely a lot of room for error. We had to double-check that no data was lost or compromised just in the process of preparing the audit,” explains a Senior Business Analyst at the firm. This manual approach added operational risk and required ongoing vigilance, especially important for a public company with strict regulatory standards.
Building the case for Smart Audit
Faced with growing challenges, the team decides to explore Smart Audit to reduce manual effort, enhance control coverage, and introduce real-time risk detection. When the analyst leading the initiative discovered Smart Audit, the benefits were immediately compelling. It would offer daily proactive risk detection, centralised reporting and alerting with full audit tracking, and support for auditing across all Workday tenants.
These capabilities aligned perfectly with the organisation’s compliance goals and addressed long-standing challenges in their existing processes. “Our business case emphasised eliminating manual audits and gaining complete visibility across everything we had configured years ago. That’s exactly what Smart Audit delivered.”
Seamless onboarding and full-system baseline
With the support of Kainos, the implementation team opted to activate all checks at once. Onboarding experience includes deep-dive demos, hands-on guidance, and responsive support throughout the setup. “We asked a lot of questions and got great answers. The support has made all the difference.”
This full activation gives the team a comprehensive baseline of their Workday security landscape, surfacing issues that had gone undetected for years.
Real-time risk insights and immediate impact
Smart Audit delivered immediate results. The team discovered legacy implementer accounts with admin access still active from the original system go-live, posing a significant but previously unseen risk. “Smart Audit flagged these risks right away. We were able to clean them up and verify the resolution instantly, which has been huge.” Other issues included outdated domain access and inactive accounts that still had permissions. Each was resolved quickly using Smart Audit’s audit trail and centralised case tracking.
Today, the team no longer blocks time for weekly spreadsheet audits. Instead, they rely on a daily digest email from Smart Audit that summarises any new issues. “It’s part of my daily workflow now. I check the email, click into a case if needed, and update the status. That’s it. It takes minutes.” By shifting from manual to automated processes, the organisation significantly reduces time spent on compliance checks while increasing their ability to detect issues in near real time.
Flexible expansion and custom checks
Though Smart Audit’s out-of-the-box checks covers most needs, the team has started exploring custom configurations—particularly around Segregation of Duties—to align with internal policies. “Custom checks have been easy to create and give us confidence that we can continue evolving with the platform.”
See how you can eliminate manual audits and detect Workday risks in real time.
Advice to other Workday customers
For organisations considering Smart Audit, the team recommends a thoughtful but confident approach: “You’ll need to spend time baselining your setup, but that investment pays off. Once you're through that phase, it becomes a simple, effective part of your daily operations.”
The outcome: Confidence, control, and compliance
Since adopting Smart Audit, this global financial services leader has significantly improved its Workday compliance maturity. Manual risk reviews have been replaced with efficient, automated processes that allow the team to respond faster, share insights more easily, and maintain better control across all tenants. “Smart Audit delivered on our business case. It’s made our jobs easier, improves our visibility, and helps us build stronger controls.”