SOA

Sarbanes-Oxley Act

The crisis in Corporate Governance and the necessity to introduce new self regulation codes as well as new legal requirements forced American legislators in 2002 to pass the Sarbanes–Oxley Act.

The Sarbanes–Oxley Act requires modifications to the norms regarding corporate governance, internal control and accounting auditing procedures for companies with publicly traded stock on the American stock exchange.
This act is designed to address the current challenges regarding increased investment in IT and administration: the need for greater collaboration, simplification of reporting cycles and the elimination of red tape, the immediate reduction of risk, simplification of multiple company systems (which make it difficult to have an unequivocal understanding of the business), and also a reduction in the excessive amount of time necessary for employees to create the documentation required for conformity.

At PAT our HelpdeskAdvanced (HDA) solution supplies targeted functionality which guarantees conformity with the regulations; it contributes to a significant reduction in IT costs and allows the management of the complex procedures for documentation, testing, risk management and sign-off based on paragraphs 302, 404 and 409 of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act.

HDA supports Sarbanes–Oxley Act conformity with the following functionality:

• Project organization for documentation, testing and sign-off for all internal controls
• Testing procedures based on the Risk Management context as defined by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO)
• Workflow procedures aimed at reducing testing and sign-off times
• Authorization administration
• Automated creation and maintenance of rules
• Proactive simulation and conformity
• Reduction in risk and remediation
• Drill-down analysis and real-time reporting
• Management reporting

Via the archiving of all company requests in the IT field, HDA helps companies to comply with norms based on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. According to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) rules, public companies must be able to demonstrate that their internal control procedures are complete and are able to provide all data correctly and certified. Companies must keep all documentation created, sent and received, “for a potential check or audit” for a period of seven years during which time the files must be kept in such a way as they may not be rewritten or cancelled. This includes all electronic documentation such as email, especially if referring to topics, offices or subjects involved in accounting audit procedures.