After you publish your Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) or sustainability reporting, you may need to revise previously disclosed values. For example, you may need to revise disclosures when:
- They contain estimated values that differ from their final actual values.
- You receive new guidance or data that affects accurate reporting of the values.
- They contain inaccuracies, such as simple clerical errors or accounting mistakes.
To help track these revisions, your Data collection spreadsheet may include a Restatements sheet.
Tip: If your Data collection spreadsheet doesn't contain the Restatements sheet, you can request it from your Workiva Customer Success Manager (CSM).
From this sheet, you can:
- Track restated values previously disclosed from Sustainability Program
- Provide an audit trail for restated values found in your Factbook
Consider when to restate values
Restatements are required only when the disclosed values contain material inaccuracies. To help assess the materiality of inaccuracies, your company should define policies for whether to restate disclosures and why. For example, your policies may include thresholds that indicate when to report inaccuracies, based on:
- The variance between the disclosed value and its revision
- Whether those who receive the inaccurate disclosures could draw incorrect conclusions
Tip: With Workiva's Governance, Risk, and Controls (GRC) features, you can create and connect policies and any controls based on your restatement thresholds.
To help establish these policies, consider:
- How your company restates values disclosed for financial and other reporting outputs, such as based on Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)
- Guidance from the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO) of the Treadway Commission to achieve effective Internal Controls for Sustainability Reporting (ICSR)
- Requirements of the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard for a corporate-level GHG emissions inventory
- Best practices for disclosure controls and oversight, from Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance
Save restated values
To track a restatement of a Program metric value in your Data collection spreadsheet:
- From the Connections panel, select Incoming , and click Refresh to get the current values from Sustainability Program.
Note: To help maintain an audit trail, the Restatements sheet saves your revised values, while Sustainability Program retains the values actually disclosed in your reporting.
- From the Restatements sheet, select the ID of the metric with the value to restate.
Tip: From Sustainability Program, you can view a metric's ID from its menu.
- Select the custom dimension applied to the value, if any.
- In Reporting year and Time dimension, select the value's year and collection period — such as Annual or Q1 — within the metric.
- In Restated value, enter the revised value for the metric.
- To help determine whether to disclose the restatement based on your company policy's thresholds, refer to the previously disclosed value and its difference from the restated value in Current value and Variance, respectively.
Note: When you next refresh the sheet's outgoing and incoming connections, Current value will display the restated value.
- Enter or upload any commentary about the restated value:
- In Note, enter a comment about the restatement, such as an explanation of the inaccuracy.
- To attach a file, such as an supporting invoice or calculation, upload it from the Attachments panel, then select Y in Attachment.
- To update the Performance tables section of the Factbook spreadsheet with the restated values, select Outgoing on the Connections panel, then click Refresh connection.