HOW MUCH IS IT GOING TO COST? DO THE COSTS NEED TO BE ‘DISPROPORTIONATELY HIGH,’ AS SOME MEMBERS OF CONGRESS WARN?

Make sure your solution delivers

• Minimal disruption to your ongoing business operations;
• Ensures step-by-step alignment with your auditor and audit committee; and
• Provides returns on multiple levels. That is, your solution should help you to take full advantage of your compliance expense by transforming the process maps, data and performance analytics into a high value information asset helping improve your overall business performance.

THE NEWS ISN’T ALL BAD: Proven Savings

The high cost of Sarbanes mostly occurs due to the amount of testing that needs to be carried out. The greatest savings are found by reducing the number of tests and the level of rigor needed to perform these tests, and then performing them efficiently. Fewer controls and simpler test plans in the Risk Control framework will result in substantial savings.

Three areas of potential optimization stand out: risk and control redundancy; replacement of high frequency controls with compensating low frequency or entity-level controls; and standardization of controls and testing definitions. The new guidelines provide added rationale for such optimization to go wider and deeper still.