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Internal Control Procedures for SOX

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Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404(a) Compliance Templates

Copedia SOX 404 Lite is a compliance solution template set designed for small businesses wanting hard or soft compiance with Section 404(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Even though Copedia SOX 404 Lite is designed for public issuers, many non-covered entities use our Sarbanes-Oxley policy and procedure templates for hard compliance with the Act. Copedia SOX404Lite is designed and supported by our team of CPA's, internal control experts, and IT specialists with SEC and PCAOB experience.

We can help you achieve compliance with Section 404(a) of the Act in just a few weeks, or you can license our tools standalone and manage the implementation project on your own.

Background

Congress enacted the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (“the Act”) in response to the Enron and WorldCom problems with financial transparency. As a consequence, the Act throws all publicly held business, regardless of size, into the legal requirement to maintain a documented and tested system of internal controls over financial reporting. For companies with years ending after December 15, 2009, management is required to attest to the effectiveness of its internal controls, and identify any significant deficiencies or material weaknesses. This law is referred to as Section 404(a) of the Act or SOX 404. For now, Congress has exempted small business issuers from rule 404(b), which would have required that the public company’s auditors must audit and opine on the effectiveness of the company’s internal controls over financial reporting. Compliance to rule 404(b) may have been the kiss of death for small business issuers by effectively doubling the annual audit fees.

Compliance with rule 404(a) of the Act poses numerous challenges for issuer companies, their management team, and auditors. The level of competency required by management to simply assess the effectiveness of its system of internal controls over financial reporting is daunting. Most small business issuers cannot afford a financial expert, qualified CFO, or consulting firm with the skills requisite for a quality design and implementation of internal controls. However, a thorough design and implementation of a system of internal controls over financial reporting will go a long way in validating management’s desire to create value in its company for its investors. For this reason, we have designed a simple, cost-effective, and fully quantifiable system of internal controls over financial reporting.

Internal Control

Copedia Template Library

Internal Control implementation plan with procedures, checklists and evaluation tools.

IT Controls for Accounting

IT accounting policies and procedures with IT risk controls matrix.

What We Deliver

We deliver a straightforward and simple system for you to comply with the legal requirements of the Act. You can license just the templates, get the templates with some guidance from us, or have our qualified staff manage the project for you.

SOX404Lite

Our templates for compliance with The Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The SOX404Lite Implementation Compliance Plan:

Internal Control Implementation Plan