Plan Early: Implementing SOX in Your Organization

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) requires publicly traded companies to provide an annual attestation of the adequacy of design and operating effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting. Depending on the size of your company, you may also be required to obtain an opinion from your external financial statement auditor on the design and effectiveness of controls.

A well-designed SOX program provides management with peace of mind that operating policies are being followed. It is a sound monitoring practice and is a part of good corporate governance. Whether your business is facing year one of SOX compliance or working on year two and beyond, focusing on remediation, sustainability and scalability allows compliance to become a process that is maintained – and not recreated – from year to year.

For newly public or smaller organizations, conducting Sarbanes-Oxley related activities in-house may be overwhelming and impractical. And in such instances, developing a compliance plan, assessing related risks, devising controls, and maintaining documentation or other necessary activities can be outsourced to attain efficiency and optimize internal resources.

Learn more about SOX compliance and strategies to tackle it in Weaver’s SOX Insights document, covering:

• SOX requirements,
• Steps to developing a SOX compliance program,
• What’s new for SOX,
• Maintaining SOX compliance, and
• How SOX may impact you.