Product Overview
Step 1: Project Planning
Effective project planning is a weak point in many organizations. To help your team get off to a clean start Compliance PARTNER, Internal Controls™ comes complete with a series of customizable project planning templates to help you Plan, Organize and Prioritize.
You will be able to formally define roles and responsibilities across the organization and clarify resource and timing requirements. You will also have access to the product's Legislation Navigator with links to the various legislative and standard setting bodies (i.e. CSA, SEC/PCAOB) to stay abreast of the latest developments.
Step 2: Scoping
Compliance PARTNER, Internal Controls™ provides a top-down, risk-based approach to help you quickly analyze quantitative and qualitative risk. This will help you to prioritize documentation and testing activities and focus on high-risk areas. There are also customized versions of the scoping tools by industry (e.g. Mining, Manufacturing, Standard edition).
Step 3: Entity-Level Control Review
Critical to any complete assessment of internal controls is an entity-level review including:
- "Tone At The Top" (Management Direction) evaluations
- Audit Committee effectiveness
- Human Resource issues and more.
Compliance PARTNER Internal Controls™ contains a strong set of customizable tools to facilitate assessment of these vital controls.
Step 4: Documentation of Processes
Those processes that affect financial reporting and related activities must be documented in detail for your organization to achieve compliance. Compliance PARTNER, Internal Controls™ allows you to review and edit "best practice" templates covering a wide variety of processes such as:
- Revenue Disbursements
- Financial Statement Preparation/Disclosures
- Financial Statement Preparation/ Disclosures
- Treasury
- IT Controls and more
You will be able to rapidly define process-level controls and responsibilities and associated risks, assertions and control attributes. With the press of a button Compliance PARTNER, Internal controls™ will automatically create a variety of reports and Microsoft Visio® flowcharts to help you assess segregation of duties trouble spots. Customizable reports can be output into tools such as Microsoft Excel® or Business Objects Crystal Report® so that you can provide information for review to your audit committee. In creating the required control documentation you can also manage and link your existing documents and systems to Compliance Partner™ to improve overall system integration and to reduce duplication and wasted project effort.
Step 5: Testing and Remediation
Compliance PARTNER, Internal Controls™ provides guidance in key areas such as Entity-Level Controls, IT Controls, and Process Controls. This phase will allow users to identify Reportable Deficiencies and Material Weaknesses in order to proceed to remediation. This system allows users to record issues and follow-on remediation. These action items can be captured, tracked and closed out.