Efficiently Achieving Sustainable Compliance
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) has been in effect for more than 15 years, yet many companies still have not streamlined key elements of their compliance process. They continue to use manual processes for testing controls as well as attesting to their effectiveness. Many key controls are detective in nature and involve checks and re-checks performed after the fact to achieve the assurance that organizations need. Spreadsheets and email messages remain the most common way to manage the data collection, attestations and affirmations that compliance requires.
The act has been successful in that there has not been a widespread recurrence of the financial-statement manipulation and fraud that spurred its passage. Yet over the years, companies have continually disclosed material weaknesses, underscoring the need for the Act. And that success has come at a cost—companies have found that the price tag for complying with the law has remained high, often running more than $1 million annually for accelerated and large accelerated filers, according to the consulting organization Protiviti.