Document Management System - Opportunity Identified
Our company is actively preparing for Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance where we are currently using a simple spreadsheet to house all of our documents. However, the issue of linking controls to various risks can sometimes be a big waste of time. Also, data storage and retrieval has proven to be a cumbersome process. There have been instances of erroneous data entry by untrained people while multiple user access is restricted in a spreadsheet environment resulting in more waste of time. However, our biggest concern is that we are spending too much time on the compliance activities, which is affecting our business operations. We’d like to have a comprehensive tool for assisting in our SOX compliance measures without taking much of our time, effort and budget.

Fundamentally, Sarbanes-Oxley is concerned with information transparency and accountability, and presents new requirements for how public companies record, track, and disclose financial information. This new attention to the tracking of information relating to day-to-day operations has public companies attuned to new levels of regulatory scrutiny that also extend beyond Sarbanes-Oxley. Failure to adhere to the act can result in devastating consequences; in some cases the damage done can be irrevocable.

We saw that Sarbanes Oxley Act, however tiresome for companies in short term, presents numerous long term advantages, both strategic and tactical. It offers you, among other advantages, an opportunity to evolve innovative and sublime changes in the way you perform business. Consolidation of diverse processes and data offers not only transparency but also presents opportunities to use the consolidated data in creative decision making processes. But it also calls for a robust document management solution in place to derive the benefits.

Document Management Application: The Best Bet!
Spreadsheets have their own drawbacks, some of which you have already come across. The most harmful of the drawbacks is that it can make it difficult for an auditor to help you identify weaknesses that need shoring up. Activities as serious as SOX compliance cannot be dependent on a simple, error ridden tool. A Document Management application that seamlessly integrates data lifecycle management i.e. from creation to maintenance to disposition of data along with your company’s core ERP financial systems will reduce your burden to a considerable extent.

Our web-based Document Management Application is easy on the user and presents advanced tools not found in usual spreadsheets. Its user-friendly interface offers easy navigation that even first-timers to the application can grasp with comfort. It eliminates numerous errors common to spreadsheets like errors in data, formulaic errors and macro errors.

Multiple users can access data simultaneously with perfect ease and simplicity while restricting data access only to relevant people. This ensures data access will be unavailable to unscrupulous elements. Also, the application makes sure that the data is created, maintained and stored in a centralized data storage system no matter how many users are working on it. This guarantees a single consistent end result correlating in every aspect and attribute.

Customized compliance software: We develop the application depending on your specifications since we understand that due to the scope of the SOX act and your company operations, there cannot be a single SOX solution.

Data Management: Each user with a certain task is assigned a unique login and password and pre-programmed functions allow data manipulation, which is then saved in the centralized database.

Security Concerns: The unique login and password allows a user access to only the data that he or she is supposed to have access. This ensures full role-based security so that people can only see what they have the right to see. Using a role-based security system, you apply locking option down to micro-level, so that only authorized personnel can change data, and that is audited and logged when it occurs. Similar strictures can be applied to formulae and other facilities within the application environment.

Productivity Issues: In a spreadsheet environment, individual users undergo considerable efforts in managing their own spreadsheets—they may need to discover the location of relevant source data, they may need to extract information from previous versions of a spreadsheet and perform reconciliation procedures, or they may need to distribute their spreadsheets to colleagues raising the possibility of errors in distribution lists. Our centralized application eliminates such inconsistencies to ensure maximum productivity and minimal time wasted on cumbersome procedures.

Real Time integration with external systems: Emails and other external systems that come under compliance can be integrated in real time with our application. This ensures all records pertinent to SOX compliance are stored in a centralized database that also facilitates 24/7 data retrieval and management options.

Reports: Every user receives a set of relevant reports. At any point of time a manager or user can access these reports based on his or her particular requirements.

Features

• Application fully customized to suit your company operations and procedures
  
• Centralized data storage for consistency and ease in creation, management and disposition
  
• Role-based security
  
• Data Locking: down to the micro level, including formulae and macros
  
• Full audit trail for all changes, including macros
  
• Discovery capability
  
• Management and control of distribution
  
• Hierarchy management
  
• Support for IT-based testing of formulae and procedures
  
• Where-used capabilities so that you can track the use of data across the application

• Increased productivity among compliance personnel
  
• Long term data management capabilities for complying with the seven year retention clause in the SOX act
  
• Real-time integration with external systems like email and other procedures applicable to compliance to save external data access time
  
• Authorized personnel have 24/7 data management capabilities from anywhere around the world
  
• Augment your future creative business decision-making process that Sarbanes-Oxley offers