Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was enacted almost thirteen years ago, yet companies continue to struggle with the compliance with some of the provisions of the Act. According to the latest annual Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Survey by consultancy Protiviti, compliance with the law has been made particularly difficult. Some of highlights from the survey include:
- The larger the company, the greater the SOX compliance costs. Overall internal compliance costs were more than $1 million for 58 percent of large companies during their last fiscal year. Almost all small companies spent less than $500,000.
- Substantial changes in high-risk processes, baseline testing of IT reports, and entity-level controls have increased by about 10 percent.
- Most companies use the new COSO framework.
- 78 percent of companies are leveraging their compliance efforts to improve the business processes that affect financial reporting.
For further details, read http://www.accountingweb.com/article/sox-compliance-still-challenge-%E2%80%93-and-costly-%E2%80%93-many-companies/224754
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