CANADA FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
Modernizing Canadian Federal Finance with Workday ERP
From legacy bottlenecks to real-time clarity in 2026
Across Canada’s federal landscape, finance systems are due for modernization to keep pace with the speed and complexity of government today.
Built for an earlier era, these legacy platforms make it hard to maintain consistent processes, share data across departments, or even see the government’s full financial picture in real time.
For example, the 2025 budget was finally approved on November 17, 2025. This is part of a new time cycle to release the budget in the fall, but some have expressed concern about the late timing.
“It’s hard to plan or forecast when the prior year’s financial results aren’t even finalized,” said Rowan Miranda, Government Industry Managing Director, Workday.
Fragmentation amplifies the challenge. When large-scale organizations customize their platforms across their departments, that can make it difficult to get a unified view of finances and maintain consistent stewardship across agencies.
Canada’s 2026 modernization push is centered on efficiency, transparency, and long-term agility. Workday’s cloud-native ERP delivers all three by consolidating financial data into one system with real-time reporting, analytics, and auditability. But what truly differentiates Workday is its continuous innovation model. Every customer operates on the same version, gaining immediate access to the newest capabilities without complex upgrades, something legacy ERPs simply can’t match. The result is a modern platform where static reports become dynamic dashboards that agencies can confidently use to guide decisions.
Creating a Single Source of Truth for Federal Finance
Financial reporting across the Canadian government’s 100-plus agencies currently takes weeks or even months. Different systems and coding structures make even simple tasks unwieldy.
According to a Workday report on U.S. government technology usage, 48% of federal financial leaders spend nearly half their time on manual workarounds, error correction, and data reconciliation. Meanwhile, 47% report delays in updating critical financial data due to manual processes.
One of the biggest challenges currently is getting an accurate, consolidated view of a large-scale organization’s financial position at any one time. Even something as straightforward as determining how many contracts an organization has with a particular vendor is incredibly challenging.
Many of the global pressures — including volatility in tariffs and inflation — can be addressed through developing a single-source of truth for anyone who needs to track down a number.
“Workday’s platform provides the real-time insights agencies need to respond to these challenges and promote financial stewardship,” noted Miranda.
Reducing Maintenance Burden and Increasing Agility
For federal finance teams, keeping systems current can feel like an endless cycle of maintenance. Legacy platforms require costly upgrades every few years, lengthy testing periods, and specialized technical teams. This leads to downtime, delayed reporting, and lost productivity.
Since Workday ERP is seamlessly updated, it eliminates costly upgrade cycles and reduces IT burden. Its configuration-based design allows business users — and not just developers — to rapidly and easily adjust workflows, financial hierarchies, and reporting structures as policies or regulations evolve. This tremendously reduces administrative burden for finance leaders and optimizes visibility to key financial data.“That agility enables agencies to stay current while maintaining a consistent, auditable financial environment across departments,” said Edward Charter, Workday Canada’s Country Leader.
With embedded AI and machine learning, Workday surfaces insights that help identify risks, forecast spending, and improve compliance. AI can automate journal reconciliations, audit 100% of expense reports, and analyse contracts for renewal opportunities.
“An important goal of modernization is workforce sustainability,” said Miranda. “Employees want to work with modern tools and our AI capabilities help finance teams focus on more strategic and analytical work.”
Per the Workday report, U.S. federal agencies lose nearly $1 billion annually in productivity due to manual processes. To help address this problem, Workday ERP introduces intuitive self-service opportunities for employees. These tools allow workers to manage time entries, expense reports, or handle procurement requests directly from a single platform.
Just as we no longer need to visit a specific bank teller to withdraw cash (an ATM works anywhere), these self-service tools allow federal employees to complete tasks independently, removing unnecessary or redundant approval processes that previously slowed them down.
“This shift allows public servants to take on a task from start to finish, freeing them to focus on higher-value work,” said Charter.
Protecting Data Sovereignty
Data sovereignty is a top priority for any country. Federal data must remain within Canadian borders and be handled only by authorised personnel.
“Every central government wants its data kept within its borders for national security, data privacy, and protection of employee, vendor and taxpayer information,” said Miranda. “Workday is already experienced in managing highly sensitive data serving some of the largest government, commercial and financial services institutions across the globe.”
Workday continues to protect data sovereignty and meet high cybersecurity clearances, including being in compliance with Canada’s Protected B requirements and building localised infrastructure for public sector customers.
“We can meet the standards Canadian public sector agencies require, providing a secure, compliant, and reliable environment for critical financial and HR data,” said Charter.
Building a More Impactful, Transparent Government
Canada’s modernization of federal finance would mark a turning point toward smarter, more transparent stewardship of public resources. It’s a shift that goes beyond efficiency and connects data, deepens accountability, and positions Canada to meet the challenges of tomorrow with clarity and confidence.
“This is a pivotal moment for the Canadian government,” said Charter. “By modernizing financial systems with Workday ERP, federal agencies can gain real-time insights, strengthen accountability, and future-proof operations for decades to come.”