SOX Process Management for SOX Compliance
The Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX) was enacted by US Congress to prevent accounting fraudulent. SOX compliance requires the implementation of internal controls to monitor the SOX procedures. SOX processes document regulatory requirements, requiring organizations to manage compliance issues in an efficient way..
Compliance requirements are growing!
The Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX) introduced an intense new focus on the documentation, auditing, and governance of key business processes. In light of corporate scandals like Enron, Tyco and Worldcom, this type of compliance legislation served to protect investors by improving the reliability and accuracy of corporate disclosures. Managing efficiently SOX compliance processes requires the right approach and a rigourous methodoloy.
Legislation dictates increased rigor and accountability for:
- Reporting financial results
- Managing, auditing and assessing the internal business processes that drive those results
- Governing the ethical conduct of company executives, directors and officers
Implementing the new legislation means applying well-thought-out internal controls that identify weaknesses – a good overall business practice for any organization. However, it also presents business and IT managers with a complex task that involves increased responsibility and liability, and many get bogged down with auditing and reporting procedures.
Furthermore, such regulatory and compliance requirements will continue to become more complex, which makes it important to leverage the methods used to manage Sarbanes Oxley Processes (SOX) with a highly adaptable and dynamic compliance solution
A closer look at the advantages
Ensure governance and compliance
Reduce human error
Increase Transparency
Increase Overall Productivity
Make Compliance Cost-Effective
How Interfacing can help
The Enterprise Process Center Platform puts you ahead of the game
Interfacing Technologies’ Enterprise Process Center (EPC) software is a Business Process Management (BPM) solution that provides more than the ability to manage compliance initiatives. It allows you to move from a reactive approach to SOX compliance requirements, to having a fully dynamic risk management and better business process management infrastructure.
Because EPC employs a systematic approach to the management of all your organization’s processes – everything from knowledge management, to performance and compliance monitoring, to the enhancement of processes for change management and customer satisfaction – it allows you to:
- Create a governance framework,
- Ensure compliance to laws and regulations,
- Ensure the reliability of financial reporting and readiness for audits,
- Ensure all control points are clear and visible to all business partners,
- Improve the overall operational efficiency of your organization.
Interfacing Technologies’ Enterprise Process Center™ (EPC) software package meets your SOX-specific and other compliance enforcement needs, while optimizing your ongoing risk and compliance management and operational efficiency.
Complete audit trails that allow you to track all changes can be extracted and reported – a vital component for managing change and ensuring process compliance to standards and regulations. EPC’s ability to capture process performance data and make that data available to participants gives your organization the real-time feedback necessary to stay on top of process performance.
A Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) Case Study
Turning Complexity into Simplicity
The CEO of one of the United State’s leading energy marketers was faced with the challenge of ensuring managers a sense of assumed ownership and accountability of the company’s processes.
Because of its simple, straightforward methodology, even the most complex processes were simplified and understood at a glance with Interfacing’s Enterprise Process Center (EPC). Intimidation was turned into confidence and the business users found it easy to document and review their processes and related controls on an ongoing basis. For the CEO, that delivered great peace of mind.
Using the EPC software not only allowed the company to streamline its processes and engage all levels of management, but also prepared them for the regulatory SOX audits that had become a part of their daily jobs.
Furthermore, the auto web publishing allowed the CEO to view all process areas and review process-ownership reports, so he could determine who was on time and who was delayed in the review and approval of their processes and related documentation.
This transparency of ownership and actions across all levels ensures process maturity at the required level for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. Another reason why Interfacing’s EPC software is continuing to play a fundamental role in supporting the SOX process.