SAS announces Sarbanes-Oxley compliance solution

There's yet another regulatory challenge that is looming for companies publicly traded in the US. With the introduction of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, these companies must comply with an extensive new set of corporate provisions.

To help them comply with these stipulations - and to add further value by exploiting the process for better management - SAS Institute has announced a new software solution, SAS Corporate Compliance for Sarbanes-Oxley.

"While the provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley apply only to those companies listed in the US, subsidiaries around the world must comply," says Bruce Jones, General Manager: Commercial Sector, at SAS Institute SA.

SAS's solution helps publicly-traded organisations satisfy their Sarbanes-Oxley requirements through an auditable, searchable and authenticated infrastructure which is flexible enough to prepare them for future governance and compliance requirements as well.

According to an AMR Research survey, "nearly 77% companies will spend more on IT, business process change, corporate governance, and/or consulting this year as a direct result of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance".

Julie Rahal, research analyst at IDC, says: "When implementing software to support Sarbanes-Oxley requirements, organisations are aiming to improve business efficiencies as well as comply with the Act. SAS's comprehensive analytics and data management capabilities, combined with its workflow module, differentiate SAS Corporate Compliance for Sarbanes-Oxley in the marketplace and enable organisations to address other business needs such as risk management, customer relationship management and performance management."

Jones maintains that SAS Corporate Compliance for Sarbanes-Oxley provides the intelligence that corporations need to turn regulatory burden into an opportunity.

"One of the spin-offs of being compliant, is that organisations become more attractive to the investment community. With the SAS solution, companies can evaluate the overall success of their financial systems and performance management strategies," he adds.

He says the solution enables rapid and accurate consolidation of financial data from disparate sources - ERP, general ledger, and other operational and legacy systems from across the globe, for example - to help organisations meet Sarbanes-Oxley reporting deadlines. It also gives finance departments more time to analyse and verify numbers.

SAS Corporate Compliance for Sarbanes-Oxley includes a repository function for working on financial documents, processes and controls, which provides additional insight and transparency into the preparation of financial reports. In addition, financial statements can be assessed and validated with SAS's world-class reporting and analytic capabilities.

"An important differentiator for SAS Corporate Compliance for Sarbanes-Oxley is its enterprise-wide platform, which spans all channels of the organisation to ensure consistency in risk measurement and reporting. Through this platform's monitoring and evaluation tools, organisations can gauge the effectiveness of their internal controls and achieve the financial transparency required by Sarbanes-Oxley," says Jones.

A dashboard on top of this platform provides a comprehensive and intuitive view of compliance status while generating alerts when compliance requirements an organisation has set are in danger of not being attained. "With this solution, organisations can implement continuous monitoring and reporting against the risk of failing to meet the compliance standards they have established," Jones concludes.