AptSoft Verifies Sarb-Ox Section 404 Compliance with Complex Event Processing.

BURLINGTON, Mass. -- New quick-start framework helps companies "police" process conformance to reduce recurring costs and risks of onerous Sarbanes-Oxley provisions

AptSoft Corporation, a pioneer in complex event processing technology, today announced availability of a quick-start framework for its AptSoft Director(TM) series platform that can help companies ensure employees are following and adhering to corporate processes, as required by Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley (Sarb-Ox) Act.

Companies focused on documenting and automating business procedures are coming up a crucial step short in meeting Sarb-Ox mandates. According to Section 404, documenting and automating a process does not qualify as verification it is being followed. While it is mandatory companies offer evidence of process adherence, validating this is not an easy task. In addition, recent Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) guidance underscores the evolving scope of internal control testing procedures, which increases the risk of costly oversights by introducing more subjectivity into the audit. The AptSoft Director for Compliance quick-start framework solves both problems.

Acting like a "cop on the beat," AptSoft Director for Compliance uses its complex event processing (CEP) capabilities to track myriad patterns of activity and outcomes over time, across any number of systems. Activities and outcomes that deviate from approved procedures trigger automated event alerts that can be logged and investigated. For example, a "revenue recognition" event would be flagged if the documented process includes any sales, contractual, or shipping milestones that have not been met.

"Many businesses are now realizing that a key challenge of Section 404 compliance is not simply meeting this year's July 15 deadline for non-accelerated filers, but doing it completely and consistently every year from now on," said Robert Miller, senior audit manager at Braver and Company, P.C. "The dynamic nature of business operations and the introduction of technology to facilitate process change have the potential to further complicate annual compliance verification," Miller added.

Once in place, however, AptSoft Director for Compliance provides automated, continuous, comprehensive self-auditing of key processes, enabling companies to prove on an ongoing basis that documented policies and procedures are not being circumvented. Outside auditors seeking to verify the efficacy of internal controls can be easily supplied with any and all required evidence, eliminating the risk of subjectivity inherent in audit sampling. This can also help limit the length and scope of an annual audit and significantly reduce its cost. And, since the CEP-based technology in Director can easily adapt to new or revised procedures, it allows businesses to remain nimble and verifiably compliant with regulations.

Operating as part of a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), CEP is a new class of technology that can identify, correlate, evaluate, and act on the countless "events" crossing an enterprise IT infrastructure. Because it can be dynamically configured to understand patterns, dependencies and hierarchies within and among these events, CEP is uniquely suited to provide the automation and compliance verification of the processes and systems companies rely on to do business.

"The introduction of new and more stringent regulations has helped boost investor confidence and tighten operations but present real cost and agility issues for companies that need to comply," said Frank Chisholm, president and CEO of AptSoft. "This new quick-start framework can help preserve the benefits of process improvement and reduce the recurring costs associated with annual compliance verification."

According to a survey conducted by Financial Executives International, from July 2004 to March of 2005 external auditor fees increased by 58 percent. The survey of 217 public companies with average revenues of $5 billion found auditor fees for Section 404 compliance averaged $1.3 million.

About AptSoft Corporation

AptSoft Corporation, based in Burlington, Mass., is an enterprise software company focused on aligning a company's existing systems with unpredictable, dynamic, closed-loop processes like those found in Fraud, Compliance, and Cross-sell applications. To automate these types of processes AptSoft's complex event processing technology platform is twice as collaborative between IT and business process owners, three times as cost-effective, five times faster, and 10 times more flexible than custom application development. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.aptsoft.com.