Compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley or SOX demands the attention of executive, finance and IT managers and is about BOTH process and technology. Technology, especially business management applications, plays a MAJOR role in providing a foundation for compliance experts such as Accounting firms, who are supporting or delivering compliance with Sections 404 and 409.
Technology issues that can complicate compliance
- Multiple non-integrated systems within an organization.
- Disconnected spreadsheets to reformat and “massage” information extracted from systems.
- Non integrated BI solutions that enable different views of the data to be presented
- Custom built add ons for use with ERP systems
- Possible errors as data is transferred
- Some transactions will not be logged within the system audit trails.
- Difficulty tracing transaction sources
- Multiple sources for the same data
- Bypassing of secure posting routines
Many of the business processes on which SOX compliance depends, rely on the use of high quality software applications across all domains. The responsibility for putting the processes and controls in place is in the hands of application owners – both IT (Process enabler) and Finance (Process owner).
To understand the financial reporting process, management and compliance experts need a way to review the design and the workflows of the process itself. Using Dynamics GP properly can assure that:
- It is not possible to add transactions, change transactions or delete transactions without these events being logged by audit trail reports.
- The numbers reflected in financial statements reflect the latest postings and can be thoroughly investigated using drilldown capabilities.
- Process controls include the use of formal approvals and passwords to control access to functions, data and financial reports.
- Financial reports can be produced automatically or upon request and communicated to all stakeholders to make sure that no stakeholder is left out of the loop.
Micro Force Consulting can help provide a solid foundation for compliance with Sections 404 and 409. This can be augmented by the Microsoft Office Solution Accelerator for Sarbanes-Oxley om addition to providing add-ons or custom software to assist compliance specialists.
Dynamics GP delivers a range of business management solutions across 4 domains:
- Analytics - Analysis and Reporting/Budget and Planning/KPI/Consolidations
- CRM – Sales force automation/marketing automation/service management
- Financial Management - Financials/HR/Payroll and Benefits/Project Mgmt
- Supply Chain Management – Inv control/SO/PO/EDI/Manuf.
