Question

Government is cleaning up the way companies do business after accounting and governance scandals rocked investor...

Government is cleaning up the way companies do business after accounting and governance
scandals rocked investor confidence and damaged the reputation of companies large and small.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 was enacted in response to the high-profile Enron and
World Com financial scandals to protect shareholders and the public from accounting errors and
fraudulent practices by organizations. One primary component of the SOX is the definition of
which records are to be stored and for how long. For this reason, the legislation not only affects
financial departments, but also IT departments whose job it is to store electronic records. SOX
states that all business records, including electronic records and electronic messages, “must be

saved for not less than five years.” The consequences for noncompliance are fines,
imprisonment, or both. Three rules of Sarbanes-Oxley affecting the management of electronic
records address the following areas:

A. The destruction, alteration, or falsification of records. It states that persons who knowingly
alter, destroy, mutilate, conceal, or falsify documents shall be fined or imprisoned for not more
than 20 years, or both.
B. The retention period for records storage. Best practices indicate that corporations securely
store all business records using the same guidelines set for public accountants. Organizations
shall maintain all audit or review work papers for a period of five years from the end of the fiscal
period in which the audit or review was concluded.
C. The business records and communications that need to be stored, including electronic communications. IT departments are facing the challenge of creating and maintaining a corporate
records archive in a cost-effective fashion that satisfies the requirements put forth by the
legislation. Essentially, any public organization that uses IT as part of its financial business
processes must implement IT controls to comply with SOX.

BENEFITS FROM SARBANES-OXLEY
Many businesses are promoting the benefits they received from implementing SOX. General
Electric Co., which spent about $30 million on SOX compliance, has added controls that boost
investors’ confidence in the company. United Technologies used SOX to standardize
bookkeeping audits in its disparate businesses around the world. The biggest advantage of all,
though, may be the greater confidence investors have in financial results. Some officials believe
it will take another two years (around 2008) for companies, auditors, and regulators to apply the
law efficiently. That might appear to be a long time, and it may seem to be expensive; however,
it is a small price to pay to help organizations run smoothly and renew investor confidence.

IMPLEMENTING SARBANES-OXLEY
Ultimately, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance will require a great deal of work among all departments.
Compliance starts with running IT as a business and strengthening IT internal controls. The
following are a few practices organizations can follow to ensure compliance with the Sarbanes-
Oxley Act. Overhaul or upgrade financial systems to meet regulatory requirements for more
accurate, detailed, and timely filings. Examine the control processes within the IT department
and apply best practices to comply with the act’s goals. For example, segregation of duties
within the systems development staff is a widely recognized best practice that helps prevent
errors and out-right fraud. The people who code program changes should be different from the
people who test them, and a separate team should be responsible for changes in production
environments. Ensure that information system customization are not overriding controls by
working with internal and external auditors. Homegrown financial systems are fraught with
potential information-integrity issues. Although leading enterprise resource planning (ERP)
systems offer audit-trail functionality, customization of these systems often by pass those controls. Work with the CIO, CEO, CFO, and corporate attorneys to create a document-
retention-and-destruction policy that addresses what types of electronic documents should be
saved, and for how long.

Required:
i. What do you think an unethical accountant or manager at Enron thought were the rewards
and responsibilities associated with his or her job
ii. Discuss the two policies an organization can implement to achieve Sarbanes-Oxley
compliance

Homework Answers

Answer #1

1. What do you think an unethical accountant or manager at Enron thought were the rewards

and responsibilities associated with his or her job ?

ANSWER :

An unethical accountant or manager may think the following about the rewards and responsibilities associated with the job.

  • They believe that as long as the company is paying them their respective salaries and their retirement benefits are growing they ignore sharing information.
  • the managers expect use bonuses for them so long as the company books reflect profits.
  • Whistleblowers are scared of losing their jobs.

Discuss the two policies an organization can implement to achieve Sarbanes-Oxley compliance ?

ANSWER 2 :

Sarbanes oxley (SOX) is an act used to protect the shareholders from any accounting other or fraud in the organisation both from financial side and from IT side.

  • This policy says about which record to be stored in the administration and for how long time
  • If an organisation fails to do compliance with SOX organisation may face lines or imprisonment.

The two policies which an organisation can implement it to achieve Sarbanes Oxley compliance are:

  1. To achieve sarbanes-oxley compliance the organisation can implement a proper security control system to ensure that financial data or transaction is recorded and stored accurately and securely .The financial system should be updated regularly.
  2. There can be strict control process ID in the IT department duties of the step should be examined segregated and control to prevent fraud staff doing code programming should be under strict control to avoid any code leakage and to comply with the act rule.

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