June 2010

Internal auditors must surpass Sarbanes-Oxley

From CFOZone.com.

Since the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation first came into effect seven years ago, much has changed in the US corporate landscape. At first, the new laws appeared onerous—time consuming and perhaps just a little bit of overkill. Since then, the global financial crisis occurred—putting much greater focus on internal audit, control and corporate accountability.

That focus was pushed from within companies themselves, not just from regulators or legislators, which may be why companies are coming to appreciate the benefits of Sarbanes-Oxley—at least according to a survey by global risk and business consultants Proviti. In fact, companies report that Sarbanes-Oxley does not go far enough in having companies assess and audit risk.

In the company’s fourth annual Sarbanes-Oxley survey, Proviti found that the majority of respondents were now well into their Sarbanes-Oxley changes: most were beginning to reduce the amount of time spent on Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, and many reported seeing the benefits of rebalancing their audit activities since the law was put into effect.

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