Sarbanes Oxley Act Section 302

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, unremarkably referred to as SOX, was designed with the goal of implementing accounting and disclosure requirements that increase transparency in corporate governance and financial reporting with a formalized system of internal checks and balances.

Effective in 2006, all publicly-traded companies in the United States, including all wholly-owned subsidiaries and all publicly-traded non-United states companies doing in business in the US, are required to implement and report internal accounting controls to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for compliance under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. In improver, certain provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley besides apply to privately-held companies that are preparing for their initial public offering (IPO).

Formal penalties for non-compliance with SOX can include:

Fines
Removal from listings on public stock exchanges
Invalidation of Directors and Officers (D&O) insurance policies

CEOs and CFOs who willfully submit an incorrect certification to a SOX compliance inspect tin confront fines of up to $5 million and upward to twenty years in jail.

Each system that contributes to financial reports and disclosures must be monitored and tracked with audit trails in order to comply with SOX regulations. Under the SOX constabulary, organizations must exercise tight command over fiscal reports and transactions, including document controls, disclosure methods and executives' approving. An constructive Content Services Platform/Digital Document Management solution contains powerful organizational tools that elevate any organization'due south compliance program with the ability to manage data with workflow automation, a complete audit trail, and security features.

There are two sections of the SOX Human action which take clear implications for data management, audit trail reporting and security:

Section 302 Corporate Responsibility for Financial Reports:

This section relates to a company's fiscal reporting. The act requires a company's CEO and CFO to personally certify that all records are complete and accurate. Specifically, they must confirm that they accept personal responsibility for all internal controls and take reviewed these controls in the past xc days.

Department 404 Management Assessment of Internal Controls:

This section states that annual disclosures and quarterly updates must be provided to shareholders and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It stipulates further requirements for the monitoring and maintenance of internal controls related to the company'southward accounting and financials. It requires businesses to have an annual inspect of these controls performed past an outside firm. This audit assesses the effectiveness of all internal controls and reports its findings back directly to the SEC.

Automating AP Processes Enables Compliance with SOX

Organizations are faced with regulations that require them to command information, retain it and brand information technology accessible to external auditors. Three key areas that can assist back up standardized, secure, internal controls for business processes include; Digital certificate management, automated workflows and record retention solutions implemented to ensure compliance procedures are consistently followed and tin can exist hands tracked and audited.

An effective Content Services Platform/Digital Document Direction solution provides internal controls with clear visibility into the network with consummate oversight and command of secure access to the network, applications, databases, and sensitive information. Automation of internal [AP] processes enforces standardized operating procedures that ensure data actuality, integrity, compliance and retention. With a verifiable audit trail, staff can certificate every step to auditors and provide them with detailed reports that demonstrate changes made to information systems can exist detected, corrections verified, and variances explained.

A centralized solution allows organizations to organize, and maintain records on these automated processes in a secure, dynamic environment. In addition, it eases the cost and burden of manually monitoring systems and provides enhanced reports to evaluate procedures and ensure consistent and repeatable activities and processes.

In addition to ensuring that your system passes external compliance audits for Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, and other industry-specific regulations, you can relieve time and resources by implementing certificate management best practices.An optimized digital document management solution can assist your organization comply with SOX with monitored, logged and audited activities including; information access, login, network, user, account and database activity.

Data Direction with Workflow Automation

Replace manual processes and provide a documented audit trail for the menses of data and documents.
Track all activity with automated workflow functionality that enables you to electronically match and route invoices for approving, review and exceptions resolution and post to ERP system.
Capture, alphabetize and analyze all electronic data, including report data from print streams and items within workflows.
Enable robust search and retrieval of documents and transactions with multiple indexing capabilities.
Automate document capture, classification and coding to reduce input errors.
Ensure processes and procedures are followed and reports are available to perform self-auditing checks for internal compliance.
Support version control for documents which allows visibility into when and who accessed which files, and the deportment taken.
Granular content-type and class-level admission control with characteristic and function permissions.

Compliance and Tape Retentivity

Automate life bicycle management to process records and record folders according to a life cycle, through creation, retrieval, storage, hold status and terminal disposition with automatic e-mail notification to an approver before deletion.
Create custom file and folder structure and configure retention rules specific to the system and in full compliance with authorities or industry regulations to prevent inappropriate or premature file deletion.
Gives you lot instant, comprehensive visibility into your repository, workflows and record retention activity to quickly generate reports of records currently eligible for cutoff, transfer, and devastation dispositions, and vital record review or records on hold.
Simplify the audit process, centralize your documents, images, photos, emails, phonation files, faxes, and other documents in a fully searchable repository, or signal to their location in other applications for fast, piece of cake retrieval.
Demonstrate controls that reflect standards set by Generally Accustomed Accounting Principles (GAAP).
Robust search and retrieval functionality — information is instantly bachelor and search results or requested documents can be apace and easily burned to CD or DVD for auditors' employ.

Security and Audit Trail

Role based access controls — divers access rights and permissions for individual users, groups and roles to information assets within the system and assignment of privileges, such as viewing, editing, printing and downloading, which restrict unauthorized activity.
Tracks information access, login, users, network, applications, database activity and access to sensitive data with reporting to perform self-auditing checks for internal compliance.
Security nomenclature hierarchy with segregation of duties and reports showing who handled, routed, approved and processed transactions.
Unchangeable audit log — all central usage is recorded and unchangeable including logging and auditing of permission and security changes.
Preserve data in its purest grade — admission to historical data for audit and forensic requirements and evidentiary presentation.
Tracks unauthorized modifications of data and configurations — automatically flags altered database files so that internal and external auditors can exist confident they are viewing accurate and complete information

Fundamental Benefits of AP Automation

Mitigate Risk and Avert Noncompliance Fines
Prevent Fraud
Improve Visibility, Efficiency and Profitability
Develop Accurate Financial Reporting
Comply with Applicable Federal, State, Local Laws and Business concern Rules
Access to Historical Data for Audit and Forensic Activities
Improved Determination Making
Leverage AP Staff Resources on Higher–value Activities
Reduce Price of AP Processes and Compliance
Capture Bachelor Early Pay Discounts
Automating Document Retention and Destruction
Reducing the Costs of Long-term Data Preservation
Eliminating the Costs of Offsite Storage
Lowering the Costs of In-house Storage

A holistic Content Services Platform with digital document management, automated workflows, record retention and security controls forth with the alignment of people, processes, and policy controls, helps enable organizations to satisfy the requirements for sections 302 and 404 and run into SOX requirements. By leveraging existing applied science and tools, organizations can identify, assess, and study on the status and security of financial-related processes and information, and can provide auditors with tangible evidence of their information security initiatives.

With a verifiable audit trail, staff can then document every step to auditors or assessors and provide them with detailed reports that demonstrate changes made to information systems can be detected, corrections verified, and anomalies explained.

By implementing effective, comprehensive policies and procedures for establishing accountability and consistent data drove, retentivity, and reporting practices, your system can mitigate chance and enhance compliance for SOX Sections 302 and 404 requirements and continue costs under control.

For more information on how process automation can help your organization gain a strategic advantage and tackle the challenges of invoice processing, take a look at this infographic.

SOX Compliance Checklist

Download and utilize this interactive checklist to facilitate internal discussions and assess progress towards improving controls across your system's ecosystem.

Click here to view the consummate H.R. 3763 Sarbanes – Oxley Human action of 2002 / text.