Understanding Sarbanes-Oxley for Operations Professionals
(5-hour workshop)

As you may already know, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was created by the Federal Government to protect Shareholders and Employees of Publicly traded companies from shady accounting practices e.g. Enron.  Since publicly traded companies must comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) requirements, it really helps to understand all of the legal/accounting requirements.  There is still much misunderstanding on the part of Operations Professionals regarding inventory/asset reporting, etc.  This class can help answer questions for companies required to comply with SOX and be beneficial to privately held companies (not under SOX) in case they become publicly traded or are acquired by a publicly traded company. After attending this class, you may find that your company is spending much more time on SOX (and documentation) than is required. Unlike other SOX classes, this class focuses exclusively on the parts of SOX that directly impact Operations Professionals (e.g. inventory/asset reporting).

Course topics

• Understand the life-cycle of SOX 404 - How it originated and what the future holds
• Testing the Control Environment
• What to expect from external audits
• Understand Process Controls and Risk Assessments
• Control Considerations: Key vs. Non-Key, Preventative vs. Detective and Manual vs. Automatic
• Internal Control Requirements
• SEC Guidance

Areas of discussion will include

Vendor Setup, Purchase Order Processing, Inventory Management, Segregation of Duties, Outsourcing and more

What students are saying about Sarbanes-Oxley Course:

“I would recommend a good overview like this class to any IT professional.  Awareness is key to success with  SOX issues. Great class!”  Doug Millhollan, Oracle, USA

“Good overview, yet specific examples of how it pertains to materials management. ISO auditing skill set aligns closely with this. Great class!”  Triche Guenin, President, Partners Through Change, Inc.

“The information provided for SOX was presented in a way that you could see the big picture, yet understand enough detail to allow an appropriate and usable understanding of the process.” Judy Billiard, Buyer  

“After this class I may not be a SOX expert, but I feel I could have an intelligent conversation on what SOX  and SOX compliance is.”  Stewart Harris, Principal Consultant, Solbourne

 “Very informative. Not only does this inform me what to expect, but also shows me how to apply what I’ve learned.”  Fred Morley, Consultant, MSS Technologies, Inc.

“A good introduction to SOX. Very good at translating ‘accountantese’ into the language of Operations.”          Mike Hurlbut, Inventory Reporting Manager, Avaya, Inc.