The standard
Sarbanes-Oxley is a US law designed to increase internal controls and the credibility of financial reporting by publicly traded companies. Two components of the law highlight why new standards are being imposed on IT departments:
- Section 302 - Requires personal certification by the CEO and CFO that their public company filings are complete and accurate. CEOs must also certify they have effective internal controls in place that will produce accurate financial reports in their public filings.
- Section 404 - Requires an annual report by management regarding internal controls and procedures for financial reporting, and an attestation as to the accuracy of that report by the company's external auditors. This section holds external auditors liable for losses attributable to inaccurate financial reporting.
The IT challenge
Since financial reports for most public corporations come from IT-managed accounting applications, IT departments must prove they have adequate internal controls in place on all applications that contribute to those reports. If IT cannot demonstrate adequate control over these applications, auditors will not attest to the accuracy of the numbers. The end result is that the information isn't certifiable, which puts the corporation's market value at risk.
IT must act as a strategic partner with finance to ensure the integrity of financial data and provide clear, demonstrable control over the IT environment. Without such evidence, few auditors will be willing to put their firm's liability in jeopardy by certifying questionable data.
Internal controls driven by automated support
Persystent Enterprise helps IT departments ensure that only approved applications reside on company PCs. The solution uses automated support that both enhances desktop availability and aids in fulfilling internal control and licensing requirements.
IT can automatically enforce financial application controls through flexible polices driven by software licensing and corporate usage guidelines. Additionally, detailed inventory and repair reports provide the audit trail that auditors need to be able to show the organization is aware of what is in the environment and is meeting compliance requirements. Persystent Enterprise automatically enforces policy at the desktop, repairing PCs to the authorized configuration which includes only authorized applications.
Companies that use Persystent can ensure control over the financial applications and assets at the network’s edge and have the audit trail to prove it.
Learn more about how Persystent can help you
 See a six-minute product demonstration from DEMO 2006
Brief overview of the support problem and the Persystent solution
Answers to common product questions
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