Ever since the Sarbanes-Oxley Act passed in 2002, compliance with the law, known as “SOX,” has been a bit of a thorn in the side of many companies. In earlier years, companies spent millions of dollars and hundreds of employee-hours each to ensure the sophisticated controls over financial reporting that Read More
Guest Blog Post The whole point of most children’s fairytales is to teach life lessons. Occasionally, these lessons can even be applied to our work lives and professional circumstances. Of course, the complexity and nuance of professional decision-making goes well beyond the broad moral brush strokes of most fables, but Read More
Editor’s Note: This is part five of a six-part series on the Internal Audit Value Chain, which can act as a blueprint for building a successful internal audit function. Click here for the other articles in the series. One of the biggest myths about internal auditors is that they are Read More
The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed changes that would limit the need to adhere to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) requirements to obtain audits of their financial controls over financial reporting (SOX 404) to larger public companies. The SEC voted yesterday to propose amendments to the accelerated filer and large Read More
In the post–Sarbanes-Oxley world, internal auditors have increasingly assumed a larger role in corporate governance. For example, Deloitte notes that “if not for the internal audit profession, the business landscape would likely be littered with significantly more disclosures of material weaknesses and revelations of noncompliance with the [Sarbanes-Oxley] Act” (“Optimizing Read More
GUEST BLOG One thing I know for certain … the times they are a-changin’ … and internal audit is no exception. I spent the last several months interviewing many chief audit executives (CAEs) from all over the world to gain a better understanding of the current state of internal audit. Read More
Nearly two-thirds of corporate controllers feel pressure to “cook the books,” according to a new international survey, and many of them feel that misrepresenting their company’s performance is just part of their job. The survey, by FloQast, a provider of close management software for corporate accounting departments, found that 64 Read More
The Securities and Exchange Commission has settled charges against four public companies for failing to maintain internal control over financial reporting (ICFR) for several annual reporting periods. Two of the charged companies also failed to complete the required evaluation of the effectiveness of ICFR for two consecutive annual reporting periods. Read More
An internal investigation launched at the behest of the audit committee of USA Technologies, a cashless payments processor for vending machines, has found revenue recognition and other accounting problems. The company is working to remediate the problems and enhance internal controls and governance. The probe found that for some transactions Read More
Financial Executives International has released two new guides to help companies with internal controls during implementation of two new accounting standards: leasing and current expected credit loss (CECL). The guides, ICFR: Insights, Issues, and Practices, address internal control considerations for preparers’ adoption of the new standards, and were issued by FEI’s Committee Read More
