HRM/Payroll Cycle Case Study

Trinity’s project team began the implementation of SOX with pilot projects to obtain a general idea of what was going to be required across the entire company. During the scoping phase of implementation, Trinity selected two business units, Highway Safety and Marine Tank-Barge, to assist the SOX compliance team in understanding how much time and effort would be needed, what control documentation would be required, and what control gaps would be identified (Schultze, 2011, p. 96). Trinity’s team worked closely with members of each business unit and conducted interviews with the goal of documenting the processes and controls of those units. The next step was that the team performed a gap analysis to identify gaps of the processes and controls and rectified the gaps when discovered. The identified controls were then assigned to various employees and quarterly those employees would have to complete a control certification letter, which would allow the

Macys is a department store that was established in the late 1800’s. Macy’s has over 700 stores and over 150,000 employees in the U.S, Puerto Rico and Dubai. Because Macy’s has an enormous amount of employees, it is important that they have a solid Human Resource Information System to manage all of their employees. Joe talked about their system which is an employee portal that has all of the data for each employee. This system provides employees with information on their scheduling, pay stubs, compensation, training, time off and many other functions that HR is responsible for. This type of employee portal would be considered an Enterprise Resource Planning application. This system is web based and also linked to each register in the store. This system takes information from the register and stores the data in the portal and allows Joe’s HR unit to be more productive. Now that the HR staff doesn’t have to worry about some of the transactional tasked associated with HR, they can be more involved in the strategic planning process. HR staff

To execute this plan, it sets requirements for Executive Officers, guidelines for tipsters and procedures for all employees. Specifically, section 404 of SOX works towards fraud prevention by enforcing procedures. This section holds company management and their external audits accountable for regulating the internal controls, and ensuring any material weaknesses or deficiencies are disclosed. The requirements for proper disclosure includes reporting any material change that could change the mind of investor. The company should provide reasonable assurance that details accurately and fairly reflect actual transactions in the business, they comply with GAAP and they are finding unauthorized transactions in a timely manner. Keeping in mind, the primary purpose of the implementation and continual regulation of the internal controls is to prevent fraud. Without the presence of effective and reliable internal controls, companies are susceptible to fraudulent activities. The punishment for failing to provide of the required disclosures includes $5 million fine and up to 20 years in prison. In addition to the increase in severity of punishment, businesses have also felt the raising costs associated with section 404

What some companies forgot about was that internal controls systems needed to be in place and effective long before SOX. However, there was no mandate. After SOX, companies had to update their internal controls and “catch up” to the new requirements. With the need to “catch up” the companies were now hurting because they were spending millions of dollars to be in compliance (Coates, Srinivasan pg 28).

COSO established an internal control framework is placed into policies, rules, and regulations by numerous businesses and organizations to enhance control over their activities in order to move in a direction to achieve established goals and objectives. The five private sectors making up COSO include the Institute of Management Accountants, The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Institutes of Internal Auditor, and the Financial Executives International. The Theadway commission formed

In an internal control standards system, there are five components that is known to be effective which has gained world acceptance. These five components were initially presented by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO). They believe that these standards could effectually and capably develop and uphold internal control systems. This could be an enrichment of getting engage with the entity’s objectives and adaptation to business and operating environments successfully (Everson, et al., 2013). There are five integrated components that are used accordingly which is starting from control environment. This becomes the initial component in which it provides the foundation for implementing internal control across

Called and left a voice message answering why his SNAP went down $100.00. Because he reported his utilities are included in his rent. If that is not the case, I suggested him to take a copy of his utility bill and send it to his case manager.

Risk assessment is the most basic function of internal control that helps companies to prevent risks. Risks are analyzed, considering possibility and influence, as a basis for determining how they should be dealt with, thus, those potential risks can be identified before financial losses occur (Feng et al., 2009). For example, a company purchases an advanced fire-prevention system including the smoke detectors and fire alarms. This control behavior can reduce the possibility of fire accidents that may destroy the company’s physical assets. Therefore, the system is worthwhile because it prevents the company suffering from the likelihood of fire and avoids financial losses. Internal control systems have been advocated as a mechanism for establishing high quality management (Altamuro et al., 2010). It is impossible to run companies without any risks. What managers need to do is to assess the possibility of the risk and take relevant measures to prevent it occurring. The model of risk assessment is applied to decide whether the control should be implemented. There is a tiny flaw of the internal control. From the example it can be seen that if the cost of purchasing the fire-prevention system surpasses the total value of the company assets, this kind of control will lose its significance. Internal control makes great contribution to reducing

After being the sole HR person in Canada for the last three years, management approved an addition of a head to the HR dept. The addition of a HR head will ensure continuity in the Canadian HR, payroll and benefits business.

Data face many threats in various forms which can accessed by unauthorized people who can misuse it and can damage the company. Here is the series of potential risks and attacks which the data could face:

demand and supply of labour, succession planning and the overall management of the three phases of the employment cycle: establishment, maintenance and termination.

Although they contribute to the implementation of an effective and reliable internal control system, both frameworks are subject to the same general limitations. First of all, they are not able to eliminate every risk, but rather to ensure a reasonable assurance and control over the substantial threats (Romney & Steinbart, 2015). The reason for this is that not all events are under direct control of the company. Moreover, there is always the pitfall of human mistakes and flawed decision-making, especially as the application of the frameworks requires some professional judgement. Lastly, the resources of every organisation are limited and therefore cost-benefit considerations might affect the structure of the internal control system as well. (COSO,

As outlined in the International Organization for Standardization ISO/IEC 31000:2009 standard, “the success of risk management will depend on the effectiveness of the management framework providing the foundations and arrangements that will embed it throughout the organization at all levels” .

As more and more changes take place in the workplace, people have now adopted new ways to work and business revolution enabled by the new technology have led to many major changes in how businesses operate. In 1990’s organizations have invested in software systems that combine the automated customer relations management, logistics, payroll and accounting and these software systems were called the ERP systems. However, in an organization there are far more systems required than just and ERP tool suite. Performance management is a key module of the HR management system and plays a crucial role in determining which employee matters the most. The performance management module is cross functional enabling the HR personnel and the employee to fill in their reviews and feedback and this is analyzed while rating an employee’s performance. But this system has

Payroll systems in organizations are often computerized. According to Devansh (2011), payroll systems are usually one of the first systems to be computerized. The system is computerized in order to obtain accurate results and provide information during auditing processes. Employees of the payroll department should be able to view employees data but shouldn’t be able to add, delete or modify the data. The timesheet of employees received from the personnel department can be viewed but should not be able to be edited by employees of the payroll department.