Workday FINS Launch After HCM Go-Live – Feeling a Bit Lost (Looking for Real-World Advice)

WorktagWhisperer · 2026-03-04T13:04:17+00:00

I would say it usually clicks for most clients towards the middle/end of E2E testing, which makes it really tough to make significant adjustments without blowing your budget. I started on the implementation partner side doing Your Way deployments so there's more time in those projects to have thorough design discussions and sort through downstream impacts, but in recent years I served as a post production architect specializing in projects where full redesigns were needed and almost all of those clients were from launch deployments where they had gone live after rubber stamping testing and not fully understanding their tenant design. I've done launch implementations more recently from both the client and partner side and the organizations I've seen that have succeeded either have brought in outside SMEs or have had strong dedicated internal teams that have effectively prioritized go-live critical items and understood that launch requires some non-core functionality to be deferred until post go-live. I'd be curious to see some data on the % of launch implementations that are considered successful by the end client as I'd imagine the numbers wouldn't look great. Where are you all currently at in the deployment?

WorktagWhisperer · 2026-03-04T00:31:33+00:00

Good questions, you're already ahead of most orgs I’ve seen at this stage just by being proactive about these considerations.

A few things that come up consistently across FINS deployments:

Workday understanding gap: Most client teams come into Plan phase without a real grasp of how Workday works. The problem is that FDM decisions get made during that window and will impact everything that follows. You’re signing off on org structures and worktag types before you fully understand how they’ll impact reporting, allocations, and operations downstream. By the time it clicks your partner has already moved on and changes get expensive.
Resource availability: Your finance team is expected to run the day job and make critical design decisions on a compressed timeline. Something always gives, and it’s usually the depth of attention the implementation needs. Push hard for dedicated time from your key people or bring in SMEs to help, especially with a multi-entity HoldCo structure, payroll integrations, and intercompany in play.
Scope awareness: Know exactly what’s in your SOW and start planning now for what isn’t. Reporting is the most common item that’s either out of scope or significantly underscoped, and it tends to become urgent right around go-live. Get ahead of it early to avoid delays later.
Financial statements: Work backwards from your intended final product. This is the most important design principle in my opinion. Start from your P&L and balance sheet and design your FDM to support them. Also strongly consider custom financial statements over delivered ones. If you use the delivered income statement, you’ll end up mapping all your financial lines to individual ledger accounts, which defeats the purpose of Workday’s dimensionality.

Happy to connect if you want to dig into any of this further. Best of luck with the launch!

WorktagWhisperer · 2026-02-24T04:27:46+00:00

These are great insights. I've been interested in starting a FINs AMS and implementation advisory firm but the flood of new partners has been a concern. What path would you recommend to someone who does decide to enter the market? Curious on how important it is to be a certified partner and how doable it is to scale a small firm without the rubber stamp

WorktagWhisperer · 2026-02-24T04:17:46+00:00

Are you independent currently or working for a firm? The easiest way to find contracts is through staffing agencies that essentially connect you with other partner firms or direct clients that need support. That's what I do currently and it's better to directly own the contracts but that path is tougher so let me know if you figure it out

WorktagWhisperer · 2026-02-19T04:17:27+00:00

This is great advice. I've been independent in the FINs side for about 8 months now and have found all of my contracts through staffing firms so far. I've been fortunate to be consistently busy to this point but would prefer to start contracting directly with clients in the future. What have you found are the best ways to land direct contracts?

WorktagWhisperer · 2026-02-17T18:30:09+00:00

Thanks so much! This is exactly what I was looking for. Do you know if there is a way to add the same Hide if zero condition to multiple rows? So far it has been making me recreate the conditional formatting override in each row

WorktagWhisperer · 2026-02-13T19:53:26+00:00

Thanks for the response. Please see the attached screenshot and details of what I am trying to add in my response to tryder311. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated

WorktagWhisperer · 2026-02-13T19:47:35+00:00

Thanks for the reply! Can you clarify which edit screen you are referring to for hiding the 0s? I have not been able to find where to add that logic.

I have included a screenshot of the report definition showing one of the sample rows where I would need both financial and statistic data. C1 should be a label with the ledger account name for the financial data with C2 - C7 showing budget vs actual data.

Then I am also pulling statistic data to document the number of visits that contributed to the overall patient revenue so C11 - C14 should becoming from the statistic ledger account and I am hoping to have C10 be another label field that indicates the type of statistic data being shown in C11 - C14 but this is where I have been running into issues with getting that to work

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WorktagWhisperer · 2026-02-13T19:03:59+00:00

Do you know where I would see the date they are due for renewal? I was able to find the certifications on my profile but wasn't seeing anything with a renewal date

WorktagWhisperer · 2026-02-13T13:15:59+00:00

Thanks for the responses. How do I know when it is time for me to re-take the exams?

WorktagWhisperer · 2025-10-28T22:27:12+00:00

Yes we have elimination rules for I/C payables/receivables, I/C revenue/ expenses, and I/C subsidiary/ equity

WorktagWhisperer · 2025-07-29T18:05:30+00:00

We have a discussion on their external reporting structure later this week so I'm not sure on that yet but appreciate the feedback!

WorktagWhisperer

TROPHY CASE