1. Information flows sequentially, and there are technical obstacles for each step.
2. The whole process relies on manual operations. Information is typically exchanged by e-mail. Data is stored in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. Validation and consolidation require considerable effort and time. The whole process is prone to errors.
3. Whole teams spend weeks or months gathering the [...]
Popularity: 21% [?]
1. Documentation: The mapping exercise
A company looks at SOX and other regulations to see which areas of their business are going to be affected by the regulation’s requirements. They then go through an intensive mapping process, identifying the business processes, subprocesses, and departments that are involved.
The next step is to highlight the risks and compliance [...]
Popularity: 35% [?]
1. Cheaper, with fewer errors: The average purchase-to-pay transaction can be reduced from $12.03 to $8.58 when moving from a low to a high level of automation. Automated transactions are between 10 and 25 percent less prone to error.
2. Better protection: Preventative controls embedded in a system cannot be ignored and are not subject to [...]
Popularity: 27% [?]
Benefit one: Business process improvement
One byproduct of implementing strong internal controls is business process improvement. When companies start to take a close look at their business processes and document, measure, and monitor them, they can make them more efficient and streamlined. It gives companies a chance to examine their processes closely and ask themselves probing [...]
Popularity: 19% [?]
What if you have a small branch office and just one accounting clerk? What if you have year-end closing and need to grant exceptional access to the system?
Remember the master key? The key supervisor hands it out to someone who needs it desperately, and never gets it back. The people who receive these special keys [...]
Popularity: 12% [?]