Internal Controls

For smaller companies planning to file thinly supported internal control assessments, beware: Your auditor may have more leverage over your filing than you think. Auditors have been wringing their hands over the Securities and Exchange Commission’s allowance for smaller public companies to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 internal control reporting with unaudited management assessments. Now […]

In my line of work, I’m often asked exactly what internal auditing is supposed to be. According to the International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing, the answer is pretty straightforward: “Internal auditing is an independent, objective assurance and consulting activity designed to add value and improve an organization’s operations.” You might want […]

If costs to comply with Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley are finally starting to decline because of relaxed standards and corporate adaptation to the rule after five years, Calvin Yu hasn’t noticed. Yu, financial reporting manager for $1.4 million Cell Genesys in San Francisco, says that despite the advent of Auditing Standard No. 5 and a […]

A new research report on employee calls to company hotlines finds that smaller businesses are fielding fewer complaints per worker today than they were five years ago, while large companies have seen the complaint rate more than double. Exactly why that divergence has occurred—and even whether it’s a good thing or a warning sign that […]

In the latest of our conversations with compliance and governance executives, we catch up with Ross Williams, chief risk and compliance officer at Cognizant Technology Solutions. Readers can also visit our archive of Q&A interviews. DETAILS Williams Ross Williams is vice president and chief risk and compliance officer of Cognizant Technology Solutions. Williams has more […]

News that the Securities and Exchange Commission will probably give smaller companies yet another extension on the auditor’s attestation requirement of Sarbanes-Oxley has certainly set much of Corporate America abuzz—but don’t expect it to change all that much, experts say. A delay would give issuers with less than $75 million in market capitalization more time […]

It won’t happen before the holidays, but smaller companies could soon get a gift they’ve been hoping for: another delay in complying with at least a portion of Section 404. After months of insisting that no further delays would be forthcoming for small companies (they have already received two in as many years), Securities and […]

As the calendar year comes to a close, auditors are gearing up for their first audits of internal control over financial reporting under a new rulebook. Regulators will be watching closely to assure their instructions are heeded. Mark Olson, chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, last week told a packed house at the […]

As former SEC Chairman and Compliance Week Columnist Harvey Pitt wrote in these pages back in June 2004: “Management’s most important job is identifying, assessing, and managing risk.” Unfortunately, that is easier said than done, especially when it comes to communicating that risk to the board. In fact, as Pitt pointed out, management regularly fails […]

In the latest of our conversations with chief accounting, compliance, and governance officers, we catch up with Chris Anderson, corporate controller at Burger King Holdings. Anderson was appointed to his job in July 2007 and is responsible for risk management, global accounting operations, and external reporting, as well as the finance functions in Europe, Asia […]