Few things motivate salespeople like a well-designed incentive plan. Commissions, bonuses, accelerators, sales contests, and President’s Club trips have been driving sales performance for decades. Done well, incentive programs align employee behavior with company strategy, reward high performers, and fuel growth. Done poorly, they can encourage questionable sales practices, create Read More
From the moment a customer places an order to the point cash is collected and revenue is recognized, the order-to-cash (O2C) cycle is one of the most complex and consequential processes in any organization. Despite being well understood in theory, it consistently produces significant control failures in practice. The handoffs Read More
In today’s fast-paced business environment, regulatory compliance has become both more critical and more complex. Organizations are expected to maintain rigorous internal controls, ensure transparency, and respond swiftly to audits all while managing sprawling IT ecosystems and evolving risk landscapes. Regulations like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) demand companies adhere to Read More
GUEST BLOG POST In many organizations compliance is treated like a seasonal performance, where everything is polished just in time for the audit. Controls are executed, evidence is gathered, standard operating procedures (SOPs) are followed to the letter, but only because someone is watching. Once the audit concludes, attention fades, Read More
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) redefined corporate accountability by mandating transparency and oversight in financial reporting. Evaluating internal controls over financial reporting (ICFR) is at the core of SOX compliance, particularly Section 404. Entity-level controls (ELCs) are core to this: enterprise-wide mechanisms that influence governance, risk management, ethics, and Read More
Last August, Northern Marine Management India, a shipping company located in Powai, a suburb of Mumbai, India, discovered that it has been the victim of a bold heist. The company kept gold coins that it used to honor employees at their retirements. Depending on their years of service, retiring employees Read More
GUEST BLOG POST As internal auditors, we provide assurance, advice, and insight on the system of internal controls over the more significant risks to enterprise objectives. Internal controls provide the basis, the foundation, on which management and the board rely as they manage and direct the organization to success. The Read More
GUEST BLOG POST When I was working at a Big 4 audit firm, we always used to have a clause on our reports that went something like this: “The engagement does not uncover all risks that relate from collusion between employees or with third-parties, that a more extensive review would Read More
Evolution is a process of change. In recent years we have seen a significant change in the human resources auditing process, in the value derived from HR auditing, and in the tools that companies are using to audit HR. HR audits have evolved from a simple checklist of dos and Read More
A new study finds that rapid transformation to the digital economy is putting a strain on control systems within organizations. The speed and intensity of changes, brought by the COVID-19 pandemic and rapid shifts in the economy, have disrupted staffing and increased the adoption of advanced technology, which has impacted Read More
