SOX as a service streamlines compliance, reduces risk and frees internal resources.
Key takeaways
Outsourcing SOX compliance enables tailored frameworks, real-time data analytics and scalable solutions.
Modernizing SOX processes with managed services improves reporting, retention and competitive advantage.
SOX as a service can reduce risk, improve compliance and free internal resources
As businesses look for ways to simplify processes, boost compliance and improve reporting, a growing number are turning to managed services to alleviate complexity and optimize internal resources.
Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) as a service is a scalable, turnkey solution that helps organizations efficiently meet compliance requirements. By outsourcing SOX functions—technology, processes and oversight—companies can reduce administrative burden, improve reporting accuracy and gain budget certainty. Quick to stand up and deploy, SOX as a service also allows for a better employee experience.
This checklist can help you determine if outsourcing SOX compliance is the right choice for your company.
Define your weaknesses
One of the more formidable challenges related to SOX compliance is understanding where current tools and software fall short. No two organizations face the same set of compliance issues and internal reporting requirements. Over time, gaps and vulnerabilities may appear because your tools are no longer tailored to your company’s specific needs, preventing you from adapting and scaling as conditions change.
This challenge is especially true in the internal audit space, which has been burdened by the ever-changing regulatory landscape. However, SOX outsourcing allows you to introduce improved insight, auditing, data analytics and reporting to your SOX structure. In fact, SOX as a service can supercharge your entire regulatory framework and deliver real-time visibility through process automation and third-party oversight.
By targeting weaknesses, improvements can include:
- Identifying gaps in control design and operating effectiveness
- Gaining real-time visibility through automation
- Leveraging third-party oversight for objective assessments
Key question: Are we confident that we can identify all SOX gaps or vulnerabilities?
Understand your footprint
Beyond knowing your technology and process restrictions, it’s vital to understand how your organization’s risk exposure measures up geographically as well as across different segments of the business. Developing a framework that encompasses your technology, resources and risk exposure requires in-depth analysis of the regulatory environment and your business’s strategic goals.
Many SOX as a service providers have specialized knowledge built into their services, making it easy to tailor your SOX framework to the specific needs of your organization. During deployment, SOX as a service considers everything from the initial assessment of your framework design to the operating effectiveness of your controls. Additionally, automation tools that come with SOX as a service solutions can streamline complex information flows and reduce the risk of errors.
By understanding exposure, improvements can include:
- Tailoring your SOX framework to business size and complexity
- Streamlining control testing across geographies
- Scaling compliance as regulatory needs evolve
Key question: Do we have a good handle on how to address the complexities and intricacies of SOX across departments, regions and countries?
Get a handle on your data
Fully understanding data and how it affects business events and regulatory risks is critical. Yet many organizations wind up mired in inefficiency because—although the data exists—they can’t tap into it precisely when and where it matters. Addressing data analytics and risk management through a SOX as a service platform can help tame that chaos.
Integration with a governance, risk and compliance solution saves time, significantly reduces manual errors and produces data that can be used for process improvement and strategic planning. When your organization adds automated audit and other data aggregation tools to SOX as a service, you can spot vulnerabilities, gaps and deficiencies. You can also see what’s working well and replicate it. Through effective risk analytics, your organization can establish highly effective controls.
With technology enablement, improvements can include:
- Real-time dashboards and flexible reporting
- Centralized control testing via platforms like RSM Risk Monitor
Key question: Do we have state-of-the-art data analytics that support automated audits and other advanced functionality?
Focus on modernization
With the regulatory environment continuing to evolve as new requirements emerge, it’s easy for the gap between best practices and what your organization actually does to widen. This is especially true when relying on legacy systems that weren’t designed for today’s operating environment.
Bringing in external people, process and technology can reduce your overhead, technical debt and costs. Subscription-based services and automation can prove transformative. Through SOX as a service, your organization can lift the burden from your SOX team and leadership, with access to skilled support keeping your teams up to date and establishing a best-practice approach. Additionally, SOX as a service can be deployed quickly and easily, scaling to meet your business needs as you grow and keeping you in compliance with industry best practices.
With process modernization, improvements can include:
- Reducing overhead and technical debt
- Accessing skilled support on demand
- Deploying quickly and scaling with business growth
Key question: Does our software and IT framework have what it takes to handle SOX now and in the future?
Mind the gaps
Even if your organization already has a tool or a reasonably mature SOX framework in place, there may be opportunities to significantly improve processes and results. For instance, finance teams and others within your organization may struggle to stay up to date on the latest nuances of SOX compliance, which could lead to elevated business risks.
It’s possible to co-source and strategically augment staff through a SOX outsourcing framework. Among the benefits, co-sourcing enables your company to offload complex and low-value tasks or outsource aspects of data management or cyber-protection to a qualified team that proactively monitors industry and changing regulations.
By increasing collaboration, improvements can include:
- Seamless coordination between internal audit, external auditors and business units
- Flexible staffing and co-sourcing options
Key question: Even if we can identify our SOX-related risks, are we equipped to fix the problem?
Build value where others don’t
Practical improvements that revolve around performance and costs have convinced many organizations to embrace SOX outsourcing services. Yet the benefits don’t stop there. Managed services can free teams to engage in higher-value work. Outsourcing some or all roles that touch regulatory compliance can boost retention—as employees move away from manual tasks and toward more meaningful work.
SOX as a service also alleviates many of the challenges related to recruiting and retaining people with the right skills to handle highly complex compliance tasks. When your organization gets all the pieces of the puzzle in place, SOX becomes more than a compliance function—it becomes a tool for optimizing performance across finance and the broader organization.
By leveraging outsourcing, improvements can include:
- Freeing teams for higher-value work
- Improving retention by reducing manual tasks
- Using SOX data to optimize performance and gain competitive advantage
Key question: Can we use SOX data to create a competitive advantage?
The takeaway
The complexities of SOX aren’t likely to subside in the years ahead. But amid changing business conditions, an evolving regulatory environment and emerging technology requirements, the ability to optimize compliance through SOX as a service represents an opportunity. Your team can evolve beyond fractured, manual processes and adopt a highly automated framework backed by an effective third-party team that can deliver greater budget certainty, more accurate reporting and higher job satisfaction.
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