Convivo Technologies

Sarbanes-Oxley Act

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, more commonly known as SOX is a United States federal law enacted in response to a number of major corporate and accounting scandals including those affecting Enron, Tyco International, Adelphia, Peregrine Systems and WorldCom.

These scandals, which cost investors billions of dollars when the share prices of the affected companies collapsed, shook public confidence in the nation's securities markets.

The legislation establishes new or enhanced standards for all U.S. public company boards, management, and public accounting firms. It does not apply to privately held companies.

The Act contains 11 titles, or sections, ranging from additional Corporate Board responsibilities to criminal penalties, and requires the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to implement rulings on requirements to comply with the new law. The Act also covers issues such as auditor independence, corporate governance, internal control assessment and enhanced financial disclosure

About this workshop:

This SOX workshop is designed to help individuals understand the basic framework of the Sarbanes Oxley Act and how it impacts today’s organizations. It becomes mandatory for organizations to create awareness about SOX within the organization for successful and effective implementation of SOX and to develop consistency across the organization for SOX compliance.

Benefits

This workshop has been designed to enable participants to help their organization comply with the full intent of the Sarbanes Oxley Act. An understanding of the spirit of the law will enable participants to capitalize on the valuable opportunities the Act presents.

As there is no Certification Body for SOX it is important to understand SOX in a better manner and participate in SOX implementation, controls testing and compliance programs within organizations. This could give a new direction to the participant’s career as SOX professional.

At a personal level this could give more insight to applications controls design and help develop expertise in SOX compliance requirements. Quality professionals can integrate the SOX compliance requirements with their ongoing quality projects and similarly, Process consultants can design / re-engineer the business processes in compliance with SOX. For Finance professionals the value add comes from understanding the controls framework required for financial reporting and how to fill the gaps in the current reporting process of their organization

Participants will gain an understanding of why organizations need to build an efficient SOX compliance infrastructure and how technology can be a part of the solution to design, implement and maintain an effective compliance initiative.

Who should attend

The workshop has a modular design to cater to the general audience and also to meet specific learning needs of Finance, IT and Process professionals. The participants could be responsible for IT Process & Compliance in any of the following positions in their organization:

• CEO / CFO / CIO / CTO / CISO
• Finance Manager/ Finance Controller
• Financial Process Consultants
• Information Security Managers / Officers
• System Administrators
• IT Support Staff
• IT Consultants
• IT Developers
• IT Management
• Process Consultants
• Process Managers
• Quality Assurance Professionals
• Risk & Compliance Professionals
• IT Service Providers
• IT Service Management Professionals
• Internal & External Audit Management teams
• Sarbanes-Oxley Implementation teams
• COBIT Implementation teams
• IT Auditors
• Key Business Users

Course Outline

Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX)

• Background and History
• Guidelines: Relevant Sections and Titles
• Applicability of Guidelines: Corporate Responsibility Management Assessment Role of Internal and External Audit

Controls Frameworks: A requirement for SOX Internal Controls Reporting

COSO: Internal Controls Integrated Framework

• Role of Internal Auditor and COSO Based Audit
• Financial Risk Assessment (USGAAP guidelines)
• Internal Controls for Financial Reporting
• Information Technology Controls and Applications Controls

COBIT: IT Governance Framework

• IT Controls Processes
• IT Continuity Plan
• IT Security

Other Standards associated with SOX requirements

• SAS73: For specialist service in Financial Reporting
• SAS70: Services Organization
• Clause 49

Enterprise Risk Management (ERM)

• COSO Integrated Framework: Eight Components
• Roles: Management and Internal Audit
• Internal Audit Standard
• Risk Analysis: Assessment, Management and Monitoring
• Controls: Application and General IT Controls

Case Study - SOX Implementation & Compliance

• Scoping
• Planning
• Risk Analysis: Enterprise Level, Process Level
• Internal Controls Evaluation: IT and Application Controls
• Management Reporting
• Audit - Internal and External

SOX IT Controls Testing and Control Matrices

• Process Analysis
• Risk Assessment
• Evaluation of Process and IT Controls
• General Control and Segregation of Duty matrices for organizational applications