Manager's Guide to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act: Improving Internal Controls to Prevent Fraud

The new rules imposed by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that mandate management to report on internal control over financial reporting will go into effect for most companies on or after June 15. Are you and your top executives ready for these changes? The author, a CPA with years of control advisory experience at a range of firms, knows that most managers are ethical and have the interests of their shareholders in mind. But in manners of operational controls, they have been too willing to relegate oversight to accountants and financial officers. Given recent events, this is no longer satisfactory. "What managers at all levels need is a simple, practical template to help them assess operational risk," says the author. And that is what is offered via the author's "Control Smart Approach" encompassing five points: See the threats coming, know yourself, identify vulnerabilities, protect yourself, and monitor your health. A chapter on explaining and providing practical guidelines for each point includes case studies about what happened when such guidelines were not followed.