Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Remediation

Case Study

Client

One of the world’s largest information technology (IT) management software companies, who’s products and services unify and simplifies the management of enterprise-wide IT.

Project Overview & Objectives

The North American Professional Services Finance division was required to deliver a “post-go-live” walkthrough of their implementation of SAP’s financial management software for their internal Sarbanes-Oxley controls compliance group and their external auditor. The resulting issues and control failures required a large remediation effort to be undertaken by the division, and testing of those remediation actions needed to be completed within 3 months.

Our Involvement

Following the successful delivery of a process documentation project, the client requested that Synaptitude return the next month to assist in the “post-go-live” walkthrough of the Finance division’s processes and controls. Synaptitude was subsequently retained to manage a larger team of consultants to address the remediation of control failures and issues across the Finance division that resulted from those walkthrough sessions. The activities involved in this effort included the planning of the remediation approach for each issue, the financial exposure analysis, the execution of that plan, support for the testing of the remediation, documentation of the remediation approach, and the walkthrough of the remediation processes to the internal controls group and external auditors. Additionally, the team also assisted the division with their periodic financial close activities and development of the associated processes.

Results and Benefits

The client credited this team’s performance to be the primary reason that a Material Weakness was avoided in the audit opinion for the yearly financial report. Synaptitude managed a team of consultants that grew from three to as large as twelve in what was originally a six week project and evolved in into an eight month engagement.