Making Sarbanes Oxley compliance cost less is a challenge, making it yield a pay-off is even more challenging but far from impossible if executed properly. Investors are willing to pay a premium for good corporate governance but far too many SOX projects apply a "checkbox" approach and are never able to yield anything but costs to the organization. The investor is looking at four main areas as an outcome of the SOX process: Transparancy, Accuracy, Reliability and Timeliness. A well structured compliance project should be able to meet all four of these objectives.

CHARTERING NEW TERRAIN
Although Sarbanes Oxley is a US legislation, foreign companies filing with the SEC as well as domestic must comply with the regulations.

Section 404 in the act states that a public company must file an internal control report with the annual report asserting whether its internal control over financial reporting is effective, in both design and operation, in providing reasonable assurance of the reliability of its financial reporting process. To achieve this outcome, you need a cost effective, top-down and risk-based approach to minimize non-value added activity and maximize the effectiveness of the resources you deploy. Section 303 in the act defines the CFO and CEO responsibilities when it comes to company financial reporting and the frequency of certifications and control reviews. The crunchline in this section is that a company needs to rework the internal control review process and certification process and ensure that a quarterly certification and control review has taken place. Consuit offers both support on the risk assessement side and SOX implementation as well as providing a solution for the recurring testing through the Structured Testing solution.

Consuit offers the advice as someone who has "been there, done that" with numerous clients in both Europe and the US, companies that faced with the same problems as you are facing and facing the same challenge rolling out a Sarbanes Oxley Compliance project in several countries across different cultures and management styles. Our methodology provides you with a risk-based solution to help you get organized, set the foundation, document your processes and controls, and evaluate whether those processes and controls are achieving the intended results (design effectiveness) and performing effectively (operational effectiveness). Through our thought leadership, methodology, and extensive experience across numerous companies, countries and industries combined with our competencies in processes, risks and controls, will help you comply successfully.

MAKING COMPLIANCE COST LESS AND GIVE PAY BACK
After filing your first internal control report, there are significant opportunities to improve the sustainability of your internal control structure and increase the cost-effectiveness of the compliance process. To manage your transition from "project to process," you need an ongoing infrastructure that leverages your first year learning, institutionalizes your compliance approach, meets audit committee expectations and "mines the data" for value-added opportunities and migration to a faster, more efficient close.

Your "project to process" transition requires a structured approach that will help you evaluate your options for designing the organizational structure that facilitates ongoing compliance. We have many product offerings to assist you in your transition to an ongoing process. We begin by helping you focus on your immediate priorities, including a prior year "debrief" to identify "lessons learned" and determine near-term strategies for quarterly certifications, monitoring change, testing controls, executing remediation plans and addressing change management issues. We help you think longer term, make the right choices and create value as you improve sustainability.

Our approach is flexible and comprehensive. It is driven by your customized roadmap addressing your immediate priorities, your planned improvements, your longer term strategic improvements and your designated timetable.