Closing a Quarter for SOX Can be Difficult in New, Remote World

# Risk Management

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An internal auditor describes what his company has done to successfully close a quarter when some physical tasks can’t be done.

Part of Sarbanes-Oxley, the internal controls act released in 2002, requires a corporate’s chief executive and financial officers to certify financial and other information contained in the issuer’s quarterly and annual reports. But what happens in a crisis? What if some of that info requires someone in place to record inventory or in-person meetings when employee movement is heavily restricted during the current pandemic?

Practice. One answer is the punchline to the joke, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” Practice, practice, practice. That’s essentially what one member of NeuGroup’s Internal Audit Peer Group has done over the past few years. The company developed a robust business continuity plan where SOX was a particular focus and has used it a few times over the years for natural disasters and has audited the plan several times. So with COVID-19, “We’re in pretty good shape,” the member said.

Take a photo. Despite the company being comfortable with remote working, there still are challenges to closing the quarter amid the global pandemic. This includes practices like obtaining “wet ink” signatures, getting people in place for inventory observation or cut-off testing for shipping.

In this case, the auditor said, the company “did what it could when it came to inventory.” Local managers took photos of inventory before they were told to leave the premises. And managers were able to obtain wet signatures while keeping in mind social distancing rules. Where this couldn’t be done, e-signatures like those provided by DocuSign were allowed.

In one of NeuGroup’s treasury peer group zoom meetings recently, one practitioner in Europe said his relationship banks were permitting DocuSign functionality for 90 days.

Preparation. The member’s company listed all the controls it thought it wouldn’t be able to use when people couldn’t access company buildings or managers had little access to each other.

“We identified the controls and have been able to postpone some reporting,” he said. “It’s going to be an interesting quarter, but I think we’ll be able to close with no problems.”

Closing a Quarter for SOX Can be Difficult in New, Remote World

An internal auditor describes what his company has done to successfully close a quarter when some physical tasks can’t be done.

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