Key Takeaways
- Eight out of ten federal finance leaders say they lack the visibility needed to manage risk effectively.
- Legacy financial systems, hampered by years of piecemeal upgrades and budget constraints, cause manual work that consumes roughly one‑third of finance teams’ hours.
- Planning functions rate moderately well, but execution and reconciliation drop sharply, creating an “execution gap” that slows audit readiness and mission delivery.
- A strong majority (96%) view responsible AI as essential for improving accuracy, audit readiness, and linking budget to mission performance.
- Leaders prioritize cloud‑based platforms that enhance data quality, spend management, and close‑and‑reconciliation speed.
- Workday Government positions its enterprise AI platform as a single source of truth that unifies finance, HR, and planning, delivering real‑time insight and automated audit support.
Visibility and Risk Management Challenge
The survey reveals a stark visibility problem: 80 % of senior federal finance decision‑makers report they do not have the insight required to effectively manage risk. Without real‑time, holistic views of financial data, leaders struggle to anticipate vulnerabilities, track expenditures against mission goals, or respond swiftly to emerging threats. This gap is not merely an inconvenience; it directly undermines the ability of agencies to safeguard public funds and maintain operational readiness. The pressure to make decisions with incomplete or stale information heightens the likelihood of overspending, compliance breaches, and missed opportunities to reallocate resources where they are needed most.
Legacy Systems and Piecemeal Upgrades
Respondents attribute the visibility shortfall to decades‑old financial management systems that have been patched rather than replaced. Years of incremental upgrades, driven by tight budgets and program‑by‑program fixes, have layered new functionalities atop outdated cores, creating siloed data stores and cumbersome workflows. The result is a fragmented technology landscape where information must be manually extracted, reconciled, and cleaned before it can be used for analysis. These legacy constraints impose an operational tax that drains both time and financial resources, leaving finance teams firefighting data quality issues instead of focusing on strategic mission support.
Operational Tax and Manual Work
The report quantifies the cost of these inefficiencies: finance teams lose about one‑third of their work hours to manual reporting and data‑clean‑up tasks. Four out of five (80 %) agree that outdated systems hinder mission success, and nearly two‑thirds (64 %) say current platforms make it harder—not easier—to see the full cost of agency programs. Moreover, 55 % indicate their financial reports are “often” or “almost always” outdated by the time they are shared, while 56 % describe their systems as functionally stuck in the 2010s or earlier. This reliance on stale information forces leaders to make critical budgetary and operational decisions based on yesterday’s data, increasing risk and reducing agility.
Execution Gap in Planning versus Execution
While federal finance leaders rate their systems moderately effective for planning and budgeting (just over half deem them “very effective”), confidence drops sharply when it comes to execution (44 %) and reconciliation (36 %). This divergence highlights an execution gap where plans look sound on paper but falter in practice. Teams spend excessive time chasing down errors, reconciling data across disparate systems, and preparing for audits, diverting effort from mission‑centric activities. Furthermore, 85 % report that they devote more time to preparing financial reports than to acting on the insights those reports contain, turning routine financial questions into slow, manual processes that delay corrective action.
Impact on Taxpayers and Mission Delivery
The execution and audit gap has tangible consequences for taxpayers, who depend on agencies to detect issues quickly, course‑correct, and ensure resources are directed where they are most needed. When finance teams are bogged down by manual reconciliations and stale reports, the ability to spot irregularities or reallocate funds in response to changing mission priorities diminishes. This delay can erode public trust, waste taxpayer dollars, and compromise national security objectives. Modernization, therefore, is not merely an internal efficiency project; it is a prerequisite for accountable governance and effective mission outcomes.
Modernization Priorities and Responsible AI
Leaders overwhelmingly recognize the transformative potential of responsible artificial intelligence, with 96 % citing it as critical to improving financial accuracy and oversight. Expected benefits include stronger audit readiness, tighter linkage between budget allocations and mission performance, and heightened operational efficiencies. In line with the U.S. Treasury’s 2018 vision, agencies are prioritizing foundational upgrades: better data quality (54 %), stronger spend management (51 %), and faster close and reconciliation cycles (45 %). Cloud‑based enterprise AI platforms are seen as the key enablers that can adapt swiftly to policy shifts, funding changes, and emerging mission demands while maintaining the controls required for federal compliance.
Workday’s Solution and Value Proposition
Workday Government positions its enterprise AI platform as the answer to these challenges. By unifying finance, HR, and planning on a single intelligent core, Workday delivers real‑time visibility into funds and mission costs, automates close and audit support, and provides a trusted source of truth that links financial decisions directly to mission outcomes. The platform’s AI foundation, dubbed Sana, supplies “superintelligence for work” through AI agents that operate within core workflows and federal controls, ensuring every AI‑driven action is permission‑aware and fully auditable. This approach reduces manual data handling, accelerates reporting cycles, and empowers finance professionals to focus on higher‑value analysis rather than data wrangling.
Study Methodology and About Workday Government
The insights stem from a December 2025 survey of 100 senior finance decision‑makers across civilian federal agencies, the Department of War, and the intelligence community. Over 90 % of participants play an active role in final decisions concerning financial systems, planning, or processes, lending the findings strong relevance to those who shape agency financial strategy. Workday Government, a wholly owned subsidiary of Workday, Inc., serves the U.S. government by integrating HR and finance on an AI‑driven platform that aims to provide clarity, confidence, and agility at every level. The company supports agencies across civilian, defense, and intelligence domains, advocating for a future where technology enables mission readiness rather than impeding it.
For additional details, visit the Workday Federal Forum on April 28, 2026, in Washington D.C., or explore the resources linked in the original press release.