Meeting Sarbanes-Oxley Requirements with DB Audit

Meeting Sarbanes-Oxley Requirements with DB Audit Copyright © 2006 SoftTree Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Introduction In the wake of numerous corporate accounting scandals our Nation’s law makers have responded with a backlash of regulatory oversight. Today most enterprises must contend with new laws designed to make internal processes more visible to investors and protect personal information from being shared without the owner’s consent. Perhaps the best known regulation introduced in the past decade, the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act of 2002 regulates how financial data must be handled and protected, and imposes new requirements for firms publicly traded on US markets to validate the accuracy and integrity of their financial statements. SOX addresses the handling of all financial data, including electronic data as well as the processing of that data. Section 404 of the Act requires the annual evaluation and documentation of the internal controls and procedures in place to produce financial statements. Internal controls must be documented, and a system must be implemented to monitor their effectiveness. Section 302 requires the CEO and CFO to quarterly certify the existence of internal controls and to sign off on the veracity of the company’s financial statements Penalties for non-compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act include ...