Sarbanes-Oxley and Beyond

Sarbanes-Oxley and Beyond

1. Key Sox element: Overview of the legislation

   • Public Company Accounting Oversigh Board
     • PCAOB Administration and Public Accounting Firm Registration
       • Establish auditing standards
       • Conduct inspections of registered public accounting firms
       • Conduct investigation and disciplinary procedures
       • Registration of the public accounting firms that perform audits of corporation
       • Perform other standard and quality functions as the board determines
       • Enforce SOx compliance
     • Inspections, Investigation, and Disciplinary Procedures
     • Auditing , Quality Control, and Independence Standards
       • Audit workpapers retention
       • Concurring partner approval
       • Scope of internal control testing
       • Evaluation of internal control structure and procedures
       • Audit quality control standards
     • Accounting Standards
   • Auditor Independece
     • Limitation on external auditor services
       • Financial Information Systems design and implementation
       • Bookkeeping and financial statement service
       • Management and human resource function
       • Other prohibited service
     • Audit committee preaproval of services
     • External audit partner rotation
     • External auditor reports to audit committees
     • Conflicts of interest and mandatory rotations of external audit firms
   • Corporate Resposibility
     • Audit committee governance rules
     • Section 302: Corporate responsibility for financial report
     • Improper influance over the conduct of audit
     • Forfeitures, bars and penalties
       • Forfeiture of improper bonuses
       • Bars to officer or director service
       • Pension fund blackout periods
       • Attorney proffesional responsibility
       • Fair fund for investors
   • Enhance Financial Disclosures
     • Expanded conflict of interest provisions and disclosure
     • Management assessment of internal control: section 404
     • Financial officer code of ethic
     • Required disclosures
   • Analyst Conflicts of Interest
   • Fraud Accountability and White-Collar Crime
   • Corporate Fraud Accountability

2. Section 404 internal accounting control reviews

   • Section 404 Internal Controls Assessment Today
   • Launching the Section 404 Comliance Review
     • Identifying Key Processes
     • Internal Audit Role
       • Consultant
       • Reviewer and tester
       • Help but not get involve with reviews
     • Organizing the Project
       • Organize the Section 404 compliance project approach
       • Develop a project plan
       • Select key process for review
       • Document selected process transaction flow
       • Assess selected process risk
       • Assess control effectiveness through appropriate test procedures
       • Review compliance results with key stakeholders
       • Complete the report on the effectiveness of the internal control structure

3. SOx's Auditing Standard No. 5 (AS 5) risk-based approaches

   • Focus internal control audit on the most important matters
   • Eliminate procedures that are unnecessary to achieve their intended benefit
   • Make the audit clearly scalable to fit the size and the complexity of any enterprise
   • Simplify the text of the standard