Accountants and Consultants Solve Sarbanes-Oxley Issues

Co-sourcing and consulting solutions to optimize your SOX controls

Your business is moving fast. Meeting customer demands and outperforming competitors are top priorities. These days you can’t let the burden of compliance slow you down.

The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 was enacted to protect investors from inaccurate and fraudulent financial reports. Two decades later, complying with the law’s many provisions is still an agonizing exercise for too many organizations. For some, the cost of compliance is a drain on resources that could be better spent on growing their business. For others, there’s lingering uncertainty about whether their compliance efforts will pass muster when challenged. In either case, you’re living with unnecessary risk that could impact your financial reporting process and potentially your company’s reputation. Fortunately, Breon & Associates, Accountants and Advisors, has certified experts in internal audit who can bring greater certainty of successful compliance with SOX requirements.

We make SOX compliance cost-effective with scaled services to meet your needs. Whether you’re looking to reassess your risk and control catalog, independently test controls or train your internal audit department on evaluating control design and execution, we have knowledgeable pros who can help. We believe that when SOX compliance is done well, it’s not merely “a cost of doing business.” It’s an opportunity to enhance your business processes and controls, both of which can lead to greater business success.

Common issues with Sarbanes-Oxley compliance

With eleven sections imposing standards on boards of directors, management and public accounting firms, SOX is the 500-pound gorilla of federal reporting requirements. SOX leads to all sorts of compliance challenges, including, among others:

• Control owners not fully understanding their controls and how they support SOX compliance
• Control documentation does not keep pace with changes in business processes
• Reliance on controls that miss the mark of the intended control objective
• Passing controls as to design and execution whereas the testing evidence says otherwise
• A mindset focused on numerous detailed controls where there are effective high-level oversight controls that could be relied on instead

A SOX compliance program that misses the mark in these and other areas could result in certifications to the SEC that lack foundational support.