The Effect Of Internal Controls On Corporate Governance Associated With The Revelations Of Internal Control Material Weaknesses And Their Subsequent Remediation

According to the Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 Act, it is the responsibility of the management to establish and maintain internal controls required for financial reporting. The company’s latest year assessment of

Unfortunately, all those efforts have not been vindicated because of the following reasons: Accounting did not cause the recent corporate scandals such as Enron and WorldCom. Unreliable financial statements were the results of management decisions, fraudulent or otherwise. To blame management’s misdeeds on fraudulent financial statements casts accountants as the scapegoats and misses the real issue. Reliable financial reports rely to a certain extent on effective internal controls, but effective internal controls rely to a large extent on a reliable management system coupled with strong corporate governance. when management deliberately or even unlawfully manipulates business processes in order to achieve desirable financial goals and present untruthful financial reports to the public, accounting systems are abused and victims rather than perpetrators.

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

There are many rules companies must follow whenever documenting financial information or any other data which is gather during any business transactions. In order for said companies to report financial information internal controls have to be put in place as companies have to adhere to certain laws and regulations. Internal controls can be defined as a process which companies follow in order to ensure all financial reporting is done in a reliable and lawful manner. Some think of it as a system which works within a system as it plays a major role on the success of a company’s accounting system. At the organizational level, internal control objectives relate to the reliability of financial

The swath of change brought about by Sarbanes-Oxley is wide and deep. The primary changes resulted in the creation of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the assessment of personal liability to auditors, executives and board members and creation of the Section 404. That section refers to required internal control procedures, which did not exist before Sarbanes-Oxley. Public companies are now required to include an internal control report with their annual audit. The oversight board is responsible for monitoring public accounting companies, and works with the SEC. Based on size, accounting forms undergo reviews every one to three years. In addition to the board reviews, public accounting firms now carry personal liability for their

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was passed by Congress in 2002 as a response to large corporate accounting fraud scandals that resulted from blatant abuse of self-regulation. SOX “is the most far-reaching and significant new federal regulatory statute affecting accountants and governance since the Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934” (Wegman, 2007). The main goal of SOX was to protect investors from fraud by strengthening oversight and improving internal control. In the discussion below are the advantages and disadvantages of SOX as well as an opinion regarding how successful, or unsuccessful, the SOX regulations were for the prevention of fraud and protection of small business.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed in 2002 as a response to a wave of corporate accounting scandals that damaged public trust in the controls of the US financial system. SOX therefore was created in order to create the framework for better control over accounting information and better accountability among members of senior management. Damianides (2006) notes that much of the burden of providing these tighter controls has fallen to IT departments. The Act not only sets out prescriptions for tighter internal controls, but effectively mandates that senior IT managers will need to communicate those controls to their CFO and CEO, as well as to external auditors.

In the wake of the major financial scandals, that occurred in 2001 and 2002 the United States Congress passed the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002. These financial scandals adversely affected the public’s trust in the stock market, therefore passing the SOX helped investors to regain trust in investing in the stock market. Prior to the SOX being passed “neither management or auditors of publicly traded companies were required to evaluate, audit, or publicly report on the effectiveness of internal controls over financial reporting” (Kinney & Shepardson,

Internal controls represent an organization’s processes and procedures used to meet its goals and objectives and serve as a defense in safeguarding assets and preventing and detecting errors, fraud, and abuse. Effective internal controls provide reasonable assurance that an organization’s objectives are achieved through (1) reliable financial reporting, (2) compliance with laws and regulations, and (3) effective and efficient operations. The passing of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, as well as the numerous corporate frauds and bankruptcies over the past decade—including some

A recent study by Xue Wang (Emory University) tackles how SOX has affected the compensation and turnover rates of CFOs.   They play a critical role in developing firms’ financial reporting and making voluntary disclosure decisions.   Moreover, CFOs are ultimately responsible for the quality of internal control systems.   The study provides some important insights about the impact of SOX on the executive labor market.   It shows that requiring more disclosure of information about a firm’s internal controls provides some positive benefits with respect to corporate governance, in this case making it easier for boards to monitor the activities of CFOs.   In comparing and contrasting firms with strong internal controls received an increase in salary, bonus, and total compensation in the post-SOX time periods.   In contrast, CFOs of corporations reporting a problem with their internal controls incurred a significant reduction in their compensation packages.   With respect to CFO turnover, Wang did find that CFO turnover rates generally increased form the pre- to post-SOX period.

The final responsibility for the integrity of an SEC registrant’s internal controls lies on the management team. U.S. companies need to refer to a comprehensive framework of internal control when assessing the quality of financial reporting to determine that financial statements are being presented under General Accepted Accounting Principles, GAAP. The widely used framework is referred as COSO, Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission, sponsored by the following organizations American Accounting Association, the American Institute of CPA’s, Financial Executives International, the Institute of Internal Auditors, and the Institute of Management Accountants. COSO’s defines internal control as:

Under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, reports on internal control are required. Did the company’s management acknowledge its responsibility for establishing and

“Internal controls are policies and procedures put in place to ensure the continued reliability of accounting systems” (Ingram 2017). WorldCom’s attempts at maintaining internal controls are less than favorable. Segregation of duties enables the division responsibilities to ensure that no employee completes two similar tasks. The CEO’s monitoring of WorldCom’s financial processes shows that the company has a lax segregation of duties, which makes it easier to commit fraud. Access controls protect financial data from unauthorized access, however, WorldCom’s extent is password-protected computers. No access inventories are taken to monitor employee usage, so there is no trail of when employees are doing during work.

A business can not work out without an account system, which includes internal. Internal controls are used by companies to make sure financial information is accurate and valid. Strong internal controls are signs of a financially healthy company and protect the company’s integrity. Strong internal controls can also increase a company’s profitability. There are several types of internal controls that companies used to protect themselves such as: Segregation of duties, asset purchases, supervisor review, internal audits and adequate documents and records. This paper will discuss several topics from a case study about And the Fraud

Section 404 requires public companies to establish internal controls and report annually on their effectiveness over financial reporting. The CFO and CEO are held personally responsible for the internal controls via the requirement to sign a statement certifying the adequacy of the internal control system (Moffett and Grant, 2011, p. 3). Additionally, the company’s independent auditor must issue an attestation regarding management’s assessment of the internal structure as part of the company’s annual report (Bloch, 2003, p. 68).