Audit Committee: Having an audit committee consisting of non-executive board members is a must for every public company. Section 301 and Audit Standard 5, requires that the audit committee approve the hiring, scope and remuneration of the company’s auditing firm. All audit committees must have a documented audit committee charter which should describe the committee duties, responsibilities and its rights.

Code of Ethics: Implement a Code of Ethics for the key financial executives as well as other employees and stakeholders including vendors. It is a prudent practice to have key financial executives signs a declaration that they understand the code of ethics on an annual basis.

Implement a Hotline & Whistleblower Policy: Implement a hotline and ensure that your company has a whistleblower policy and it is communicated to all stakeholders. Companies should encourage their employees to raise serious concerns within the organization prior to seeking resolution outside of the organization.

Implement, Document, and Test Controls: The most important provision of the Sarbanes Oxley Act is Section 404. Companies are required to identify, document and test their key internal controls over financial reporting. CEO and CFO generally issue a Section 302 certification based on the testing of controls as required by section 404.

Implement a workpaper storage policy: Many companies are required to maintain their important documents for IRS purposes after the period end close. Sarbanes Oxley Act imposes additional responsibility on these companies. It is advisable that companies have a document policy and adequate storage facilities to preserve electronic and paper documents for a definite period of time.

Identify, Document, and Test Key Controls: Prolianze adopts a unique approach towards identifying and documenting key controls for small and emerging public companies. Small and emerging companies often have issues like segregation of duties and inadequate financial reporting controls due to lack of staff or multiple tasks performed by key individuals. We have experience working in these situations and our approach towards Section 404 compliance assist companies at a reasonable cost and get some value out of the SOX compliance.

We make an effort to understand the company’s business and evaluate what controls can be tested with the available documentation. This approach works best as we test only those controls that can be passed during the Phase I of our testing. Every effort is made to identify, any control gaps and opportunities to enhance controls during the planning phase and management is advised to address that so our professionals can test those new / enhanced controls prior to year end.

Prolianze has assisted several companies with their SOX assessment efforts, including documenting key controls, testing controls, assisting with the remediation of identified failure of controls, and so on. During the course of assisting our clients, we have worked with premier accounting firms, which has led us to develop an eight-step approach to ensuring compliance with Section 404.

Help you establish Audit Committee?  We can help your organization with the establishment of the audit committee. We have access to range of professionals who may be willing to accept a non-executive board position with your company for a retainer. Often times we reach out to our key professional at our existing clients and present a prospect of accepting a non-executive board position. Our role is just of a match maker. The final decision is between the company and the potential board executive.

Board Assistance: We help companies establish their T&E policies, audit committee charters, code of ethics, and so on. We have sample templates for all these documents which can be customized to suit your needs. We also help audit committees with the execution of its monitoring or corporate governance responsibilities as defined by it charter.