SOX Software | ProcessGene

Solution & Benefits

ProcessGene™ SOX Software – Introduction

The ProcessGene™ GRC software suite provides a complete solution for SOX compliance. The SOX software is implemented within days, immediately creating compliance visibility and centralized control.

The SOX software establishes an automated workflow that reduces the time and cost of compliance enforcement and eliminates manual labor, maintenance of multiple excel spreadsheets, etc. ProcessGene™’s SOX software is designed for multi-subsidiary organizations, based on our Multi-Org technology.

ProcessGene is acknowledged worldwide as a leading provider of Business Process Management (BPM) software solutions (see Gartner’s report on ProcessGene).

SOX Compliance in a Changing Business Environment

In today’s highly regulated environment, enterprises are increasingly strained by regulatory compliance concerns, while at the same time having to promote the ongoing conduct of business. Executive officers are specifically required to demonstrate capabilities for effective regulatory compliance, and to ensure corporate transparency and visibility into the business.

ProcessGene™ GRC software provides a complete solution for SOX compliance. The SOX software is implemented within days, and uses automation to reduce the time and cost of compliance enforcement.

Compliance Challenge

The Sarbanes-Oxley regulation (also known as “SOX”, “Sarbox”, “US-SOX”, “Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act”, “Corporate and Auditing Accountability and Responsibility Act”) was introduced 2002 by the USA Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and has been continually maintained and updated to reflect the dynamic changes in business environment. The Sarbanes-Oxley regulation is aimed at protecting shareholders and the general public from accounting errors and fraudulent practices in the enterprise. SOX applies to all U.S. public company boards, management, and public accounting firms.

SOX is a United States federal law. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is organized into eleven titles, among which sections 302, 401, 404, 409, 802 and 906 are the most significant with respect to compliance (mainly SOX section 404) and internal control. In addition to the financial aspects, the legislation also affects the enterprise IT departments. According to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, all business records (hardcopies and electronic ones), must be saved for “not less than five years”. IT departments are therefore required to manage processes that implement this requirement, while assuring their security and accuracy.

Ensuring compliance with the SOX regulation is an important organizational task, which requires ongoing management of compliance data. The compliance process is continuous and needs to be repeated periodically and closely monitored. Managing officers are personally responsible to maintain the SOX compliance, and this responsibility requires significant management attention and allocation of time and effort. Beyond self assessments or assessments of compensated third parties (such as accounting auditors or regulation consultants), the organization may also confront other external audits, such as SEC, that show little if any tolerance to deficiencies. The ProcessGene credo in this matter is that objective compliance data, maintained by the organization itself, has much higher value than opinions of compensated third parties. We also believe that only an ongoing, continuous process can ensure actual compliance and audit clearance.

Compliance Challenge for Multi-Subsidiary Organizations

Multi-subsidiary organizations are confronting even more complex compliance challenges, due to differences between the business processes and operational characteristics of subsidiaries. Hence, the management and communication of SOX compliance in a multi-subsidiary environment becomes an extremely complex task when managed manually or by tools that are not specifically designed for Multi-Org operations.

Sarbanes-Oxley Section 302 Certification

Sarbanes-Oxley Section 302 certification form an essential part of the SOX regulatory compliance process. In a nutshell, section 302 deals with internal control over financial reporting, aiming to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reports. The accordance baseline for 302 SOX are accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.

Internal control over financial reporting requires maintaining records that accurately and fairly reflect transactions, and provide reasonable assurance that transactions are recorded as necessary for the concise preparation of financial statements. In particular, the controls aim to provide reasonable assurance that financial activities are carried out in accordance with management authorization, and to ascertain that any deficiency that could have a material effect on financial statements would be prevented or detected on a timely basis. According to section 302, management (and in particular the CEO and CFO), must certify periodically that they are responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting for the company and its subsidiaries.

SOX 302 Certification Realization Challenges

The complexity of SOX compliance enforcement is determined by both the size of the organization and the complexity of operations. Complexity can be significantly higher for multi-subsidiary organizations that manage several parallel sets of financial reporting- processes.

A typical SOX 302 certification requires a hierarchal completion of a signing process. This certification process can involve several hierarchies within a subsidiary, then a hierarchy between subsidiaries / geographical locations and finally an intra-organizational/managerial signing process at the group CFO/CEO level.

The SOX certification process normally involves a large amount of employees – at a various geographical locations. When managed manually, using MS Excel spreadsheets and email follow-ups, this repetitive quarterly certification process is not only time-consuming, but also prawn to errors due to the significant amount of data that is being managed either manually or by a set of un-integrated tools such as text editors, spreadsheets, email programs, etc.

SOX Compliance with the ProcessGene™ GRC Software Suite: Solution & Benefits

ProcessGene™ GRC software provides a complete solution for SOX compliance. Our Multi-Org software solution automates the SOX compliance lifecycle and offers the following benefits:

Very fast implementation, the SOX software is up and running within days
The SOX software is based on Multi-Org technology, designed for SOX compliance in multi-subsidiary organizations
The SOX software features full automation of the SOX compliance process using the ProcessGene™ BPM workflow engine, making it the most powerful system in the industry – yet the most intuitive and user friendly
The SOX software features central cockpit with dashboards for data analysis and diagnostics- showing quantitative SOX compliance fulfillment levels
The SOX software features easy and fast access to objective evidence used for external audits
The SOX software features direct connectivity to ERP systems (e.g. SAP / Oracle) and ability to extract and process data in real time, and run automated tests
The SOX software covers not only SOX compliance but also hundreds of other regulations and frameworks – all within the same framework
The most seasoned and comprehensive SaaS (Software as a Service) solution in the GRC domain (see Gartner’s report on ProcessGene)
The SOX software improves the quality of SOX internal audits and self-assessments
An intuitive and central management of hierarchal SOX 302 certification

ProcessGene™ “Multi-Org” Technology

ProcessGene™ has been a pioneer and global leader in Multi-Org technology. During the past decade we have mastered a unique expertise in providing software solutions to multi-subsidiary organizations worldwide (see Gartner’s report on ProcessGene). Our SOX compliance software has been specifically designed for multi-subsidiary organizations and it features the most comprehensive solution for complex, distributed compliance challenges. Read more about ProcessGene Multi-Org technology.