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Five Tools that Help Achieve and Maintain Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance

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Written by Liz Ernst
For Competence Software
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                 Five Tools that Help Achieve and Maintain
                          Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance

For most companies bound to whistleblower laws, achieving and maintaining the first 12 months of compliance puts everyone in the often challenging position of learning the overall compliance process and finding strategies for integrating compliance procedures with the objective of achieving a sustainable internal control framework.

With the Supreme Court’s approval March 4 of new provisions to SOX that require private businesses that contract with public vendors, who also hire contractors and subcontracts to work with them, be responsible to the same compliance regulations that public companies have followed for 12 years already. Fortunately, private business owners will find plenty of resources to help them through the first critical months of compliance, and tools to keep them going.

1. Hotline reporting services are among the most important compliance tools available to small businesses. Today’s incident reporting methods are far more advanced than anything seen before both nationally and globally. All reports –whether via anonymous hotline/helpline, custom web portal or manager open- door report form – are captured in a central repository to support investigation, remediation, reporting and trend analysis. Telephone and Internet-based hotline reporting are available. 

2. FDA-quality systems for SOX compliance have been implemented in health care and Life Sciences companies’ system IT departments to meet FDA and EMEA requirements, only to discover after just a few years that their storage systems were inadequate for managing the levels of compliance required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). Now they have two quality systems that make it difficult for IT personnel to know which to use, often causing redundancy. Look for FDA-quality systems for SOX at the following tech retailer websites:

·      BrightTalk     

·      IsacaCobit             

·      Rabid 7

·      ISOXpress ISO

3. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act in Perspective, 2013-2014 ed.(Securities Law           Handbook) offers a comprehensive analysis of the whistleblower regulations and .   provides insight for business owners and managers who want to do more  than just learn what they have to. Authored by attorneys and Samuel Wolff and Harold Blumenthal, both experts in securities regulation, the Securities Law Handbooh offers a comprehensive analysis of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOA), and the rules and regulations that have followed its establishment. From Enron and the legislative history to civil and criminal penalties, this title provides a detailed discussion of SOA and its impact. It provides coverage of reporting, corporate governance, professional responsibility of attorneys, public accountants, regulation of analysts, SEC enforcement, and private actions. Keep this handy guide with you to help you become an expert on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act as you implement compliance activities in your business.

                               

4. Sarbanes-Oxley training software can be found free online from companies like Competence Software, who offers the first few lessons from their full course for free.Business ethics as applied to financial reporting as well as financial disclosure and risk management have become a matter of shared responsibility. Compliance with whistleblower laws the law requires financial literacy and a firm grasp of Finance Basics.

Financial training and investment training E-learning courses are in use by more than 500,000 individuals in corporations large and small. They serve as a valuable supplement to compliance training and risk management programs in any corporation. 

Competence Software offers the first few lessons from the full courses.

5.  Sarbanes-Oxley Auditing Tools focus the audit spotlight on IT. After years of  false starts, regulation, and mortifying data breaches, top management is finally at the IT helm—and they even understand it.! That’s right, even the highest levels of management are now comfortably discussing  IT controls and audit results, as it’s no longer a secret language known only to the AV team.  And the quality expectations are rising. Where IT once performed audits annually, many now support quarterly, monthly, and ad hoc exercises. Each audit expands the scope of the technologies assessed, measured, and proven compliant. Broader scope means more complexity and more work. With the Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Kit, you can increase timeliness and heighten  accuracy of audit data, while reducing IT audit efforts, disruptions and costs. Visit the Janco and Associates website and check out the top tier compliance, auditing and security auditing tools available for career starter and seasoned professionals.

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