There are few who would disagree that there has been significant real dollar expense incurred by businesses related to compliance with the SarbanesOxley Act of 2002. But these costs, and the administrative challenges of keeping up with the regulation may be clouding some positive impacts to your operation.
An effective internal control profile can actually help your business perform more efficiently, reduce cost leakage and improve your line of sight to deficiencies and opportunities in the operation. Long before SOx became the law of the land, a number of process improvement methodologies advocated better control environments to help define processes and objectives – and ultimately improve alignment of resources to meet those objectives.
Another benefit may also be, as reported in some recent studies, that auditor-confirmed improvements in control environment can result in a lower cost of equity for your business.
