DocDoc Consulting - Documentation Management and Control Systems

Sarbanes-Oxley Act

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act And Your Organization’s Documentation

What is this law?
In today's competitive market, earnings surprises can impair stock values and undermine investor confidence. To avoid unexpected occurrences, organizations must gain 360-degree insight into their business operations. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (S-OX) aims to strengthen overall business operations by providing guidelines to help efficiently manage internal controls and enhance financial reporting practices.

Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 in response to the wave of corporate accounting scandals. The intent of the law was to make corporate executives accountable for their companies' financial statements, and to require a strict adherence to accepted accounting practices.

What are some of the important highlights of the act?
A central feature of S-OX is the documentation of key financial processes, such as accounts payable activities, cash disbursements, purchases, and earning statements. Process flow diagrams are a key part of the documentation

Another aspect is documenting the controls on the financial software. This defines how users get access, describes the security against hackers getting access to sensitive information, etc. As data enters the company and moves from person to person and from IT system to IT system, the company must have adequate controls addressing

Who can access the data
Database holding the data
Utilities and programs that extract, transform, and load the data
Reports that display the data.

These controls must specify when changes can occur and why. They need to account for every link in these data chains, and how accountability is managed.

Gaps in documentation need to be evaluated, processes need to be captured. Internal controls is a key concept.

What kinds of businesses are affected and does it apply to my business?
Under Section 404 of the act, the management of all publicly owned companies must document and evaluate the effectiveness of their internal controls and their procedures for financial reporting. And an independent auditor must sign off on this report.

What are some of the major sections of the act?
302 – Signing off on final report
404 – Effectiveness of internal controls. Data in terms of end-to-end validity; Document processes, Data collections; Security of data.
409 – Automated data

More information is available at: www.sarbanes-oxley.com

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Temp Ramp-up Package
For the workers to be productive in the shortest time possible, the employer should have a package “on the shelf” to provide to the contract employees. We will create a customized package, which will guide you through the whole process, from preparing for the interviews, through the training process, to the final day check-off list.

Mergers and Acquisitions
Merging documentation systems along with merging companies is usually a daunting task. We provide turn-key integration services to combine dissimilar documentation systems.

Sarbanes-Oxley Act
Publicly held corporations must have documentation controls in place for internal financial information that affects the accuracy of corporate financial reports. We provide documentation processes and procedures tailored to your company's exact needs to meet the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

ISO 9001-2000
ISO requires specific documentation, processes, and procedures to meet and maintain the ISO certification requirements. We provide assistance for the analysis, development, and implementation services to help your company successes in its ISO certification.

Supply Chain
Many manufacturers use just-in-time delivery of raw materials, subassemblies, and modules. The real-time documentation reporting and tracking provides the information needed to monitor this process. We provide the analysis and implantation you need to make this system work efficiently.

Outsourcing
Whenever organizations establish information processing partnerships with outside teams, whether down the street or across oceans, it's the on-line documents that ensure a smooth and timely flow of information. We work with you to make sure that there is a timely and available flow of information.