GBQ provides flexible services designed to help public companies achieve compliance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
Our Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance’ services range from full project management and execution to providing project assistance as needed. To address your technology controls, GBQ leverages its information systems auditing capabilities and enterprise systems knowledge of its Information Technology Risk Advisory Services function.
Whether you are seeking readiness services or ongoing compliance services, our professionals are prepared to execute, direct or assist you in the performance of your compliance efforts. Sarbanes-Oxley requires management of publicly held companies to include in their annual reports a report by management on the company’s internal control over financial reporting. The report must include:
- A statement of management’s responsibility for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting for the company.
- Management’s assessment of the effectiveness of the company’s internal control over financial reporting as of the end of the company’s most recent fiscal year.
Sarbanes-Oxley §404(b) also requires every registered public accounting firm that prepares or issues an audit report on a company’s annual financial statements to attest to, and report on, the assessment made by management.
Internal control over financial reporting is defined by PCAOB Auditing Standard No. 5 as follows:
A process designed by, or under the supervision of, the company’s principal executive and principal financial officers, or persons performing similar functions, and effected by the company’s board of directors, management, and other personnel, to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles and includes those policies and procedures that:
- Pertain to the maintenance of records that, in reasonable detail, accurately and fairly reflect the transactions and dispositions of the assets of the company;
- Provide reasonable assurance that transactions are recorded as necessary to permit preparation of financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, and that receipts and expenditures of the company are being made only in accordance with authorizations of management and directors of the company;
- Provide reasonable assurance regarding prevention or timely detection of unauthorized acquisition, use or disposition of the company’s assets that could have a material effect on the financial statements.