Oversight Systems.

Oversight Systems has released Oversight 4.0, which the Atlanta-based company calls "the first risk-based solution for managing segregation of duties across all financial systems and financial processes."

Segregation of duties (SOD) is a key component of preventing fraud; for example, it stipulates that a person who has responsibility for billing isn't also involved with collections and could write a check to himself or herself. However, says Oversight, some conflicts may be a necessary part of structuring wide-ranging responsibilities.

Oversight, which does continuous monitoring of transactions and matches them against user privileges, enables companies to:

* Automate the detection of SOD conflicts within financial systems;

* Prioritize conflicts based on risk; and

* Continuously monitor and analyze activities to eliminate risk from unresolved SOD conflicts.

"Internal controls monitoring and automation is the second wave of [Sarbanes-Oxley] compliance software, which is rapidly gaining momentum," wrote Paul Hamerman, vice president of Forrester Research, in a report. "These solutions monitor user activity and apply predefined rules to detect potential violations, limiting opportunity for fraud."

Oversight says that 4.0 ships with standard audit tests for maintaining SOD protocols for most major enterprise software vendors, such as SAP, Oracle Financials, Ariba, J.D. Edwards and Siebel CRM. The company adds that compliance managers also can define these new tests through Oversight 4.0's web interface.

CEO Patrick Taylor said in an interview that Oversight has tended to sell to large organizations, including the federal government, but has "seen an uptick in the mid-market" for its applications. He jokingly calls this group the "less fortunate 5,000," with revenues under $750 million or so.

Web: www.oversightsystems.com