Big4Guy

Sarbanes Oxley compliance requires company's management to document, test, evalute and report on internal controls. Since the inception of sarbanes oxley, CPA's have come to play a major role in sarbanes oxley compliance. Though IT auditors, fraud examiners and internal auditors too play an important role, CPA's within an organization have taken the limelight. The roles and responsibilities of all the above professions is different viz. CIA, CFE, CISA and CPA. CPA's beacuse of their indepth knowledge of fundamentals of auditing, can help in compliance with the requirements of SEC and PCOAB. CPA's normally find it easier to adapt in a sarbanes oxley consulting environment. The CPA profession has an edge beacuse of their expertise in -

1. The Financial Reporting Process
2. Financial Statement Assertions
3. Documentation of Internal Controls
4. Gathering evidence for internal control effectiveness
5. Testing internal controls
6. COSO Internal Control Framework
7. Identifying control deficiencies and material weaknesses.

CPA's due to their professional experience and training are in a unique position to help company's meet the sarbanes oxley challenge.