Your first Workiva roll-forward: what to check in year two

The implementation year can leave shortcuts behind: a comparative column keyed in from the prior filing, a date typed into a heading, a late review fix entered straight into a document table. Each looked right because someone checked it against the prior filing by eye.

The first roll-forward copies all of it into a new period. The best time to find these problems is after the copy and before new-period numbers go in, while every prior-period figure still has one correct answer: the filing you already made.

Use the printable roll-forward checklist during the copy and date steps. Add the evidence and a named reviewer for each checkpoint below; a tick without a result does not tell the next person what was checked.

The preparer records the result; the reviewer checks the evidence; the reporting lead decides whether an exception blocks the next stage. Match those roles to your own filing controls and calendar. Passing this checklist is a preparation checkpoint, not authorization to file.

For example, if the copied balance sheet’s comparative heading advances by one year but its typed amounts do not, stop before the new load. Compare it with the applicable filed column, correct the historical source and links, and repeat the comparative tie-out. Do not hide the mismatch by typing a correction into the copied report. Financial reporting consulting can help make that repair part of a repeatable cycle.

• List every linked source. Run the Linked Files Report on the folder to see sources that sit outside it, such as a debt schedule kept in a shared finance folder. Workiva’s roll-forward guidance is to bring every linked file into the folder and choose the setting that creates copies of all source files. Keeping links to original source files leaves any source outside the folder feeding the new filing from last year’s file.
• Resolve tracked changes. Changes never accepted or rejected arrive in the copy as approved, with no history behind them.
• Reset statuses. If you copy outline labels, clear the applied statuses so sections marked final last year do not start the new period looking final.
• Protect the filed version. Copying resets revision history, so last year’s history stays with the original files. If the revision that matches what was filed has no milestone, create one now.
• Confirm who can run it. Workiva’s roll-forward guidance says a Workspace Owner copies the folder, so confirm one is available before copy day.

Run the Linked Files Report again on the new folder. No source should sit in last year’s folder. Then open Link Properties on a few links in each document to confirm. A source in last year’s folder means corrections made in the new spreadsheet will not reach the filing.

Look for overrides too. An overridden destination link does not update when its source is published, so a wording change made by override last year keeps last year’s wording. Overrides carry over in the copy. They show an orange triangle, and the Document Links Report, filtered to Overridden Destination, lists every one.

Then run Document Health on each document. It checks for disconnected and unpublished links, but a number typed where no link was ever created gives it nothing to find.

Update the controlled date source first. Workiva recommends one primary spreadsheet holding the dates, linked wherever a date appears. Then search each document for wording that should have changed:

• A date in the MD&A header still says December 31, 2025.
• A typed subheading reads “Fiscal 2025 compared with fiscal 2024.”
• The cover page shares outstanding count still carries last year’s as-of date.
• A 10-Q heading still reads “six months ended” from the filing you copied.

The same search finds comparatives that should keep last year’s date, so review each hit instead of replacing them all.

Some text was accurate when written and is now stale, such as a sentence saying the company expects to adopt a standard it has since adopted. In a copied document, the authorship overlay in the History panel highlights content from the original file in gray, so a reviewer can see the paragraphs nobody has touched since the copy.

In a Workiva document, source links carry blue indicators and destination links green ones. A figure without either, in a table that should be fed from a spreadsheet, was typed or calculated in the table itself. Trace it to its source before the prior-period shift.

The common year-two case is a comparative column. Suppose last year’s 10-K balance sheet linked its December 31, 2025 column to the source spreadsheet and had the December 31, 2024 column keyed in from the prior filing. After the roll-forward and the date update, that column’s heading reads December 31, 2025, and the figures under it are still from 2024.

Fix these at the source. Move last year’s current-period amounts into the prior-period column or historical sheet once, and let the links carry them into the documents. Typing the corrected comparative into the document sets up the same problem for the next roll-forward.

Tags on copied content come with the documents, so the year-two work is mostly dates and changes:

• Roll the XBRL dates forward in the copied document’s profile. This updates the fiscal dates for every fact in the document.
• Check special dates, which do not roll forward. A shares outstanding date set up as one still carries last year’s date.
• If links were removed during the copy, retag that content. Its tags were removed with the links.
• Tag new disclosures and confirm the taxonomy version the filing will use. The US GAAP taxonomy is updated each year, and elements used last year can be deprecated.

Permission settings carry over to copied files, including access granted during the implementation, such as a consultant’s account. Review the new folder’s permissions, and set up review requests for this period’s people. Once the files are ready, create a milestone marking the start of the period, and add others at review handoff and at filing.

Some numbers come from files with their own period-end process, such as the tax provision or stock-based compensation reports. For each, record the owner, how it enters Workiva, and which version was used. Confirm that any import or connection points at the new period’s source before running it.

Run this test after the prior-period shift and before any new-period data is loaded. Every prior-period figure in the new filing should then match a number already on EDGAR. Compare against the latest version on EDGAR, including any amendment, because last year’s Workiva file may have been edited after filing.

Check the tie-outs inside the package at the same time, such as balance sheet cash agreeing to the ending cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash on the cash flow statement. A check that shows zero because both sides now point at the same stale column proves nothing.

Treat any difference as a roll-forward error until someone explains it. A reclassification, restatement, or other recast is a legitimate reason when it is a recorded decision with an approver.

Fix what you found at the source where you can, and put anything that has to stay manual on the recurring checklist with a named owner. For a printable version of the copy and date steps, use the Workiva roll-forward checklist. If a value changed in a spreadsheet and the document did not follow, start with the safe checks for a Workiva report that has not updated.