Profitable Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance: Attain Improved Shareholder Value and Bottom-Line Results.Profitable Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance: Attain Improved Shareholder Value and Bottom-Line Results. By C. Lynn Northrup. J. Ross Publishing, 274 pages. $54.95. Sarbanes-Oxley compliance has been a critical issue for years, and the stuff of many financial executives' nightmares. Would they really want to read a book about it? Well, perhaps they should. C. Lynn Northrup, head of his own CPA (Computer Press Association, Landing, NJ) An earlier membership organization founded in 1983 that promoted excellence in computer journalism. Its annual awards honored outstanding examples in print, broadcast and electronic media. The CPA disbanded in 2000. firm and a former financial executive, auditor and financial consultant, has put together a very thoughtful, logical and thorough guidebook covering various aspects of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. Northrup starts with a quick recap re·cap 1 tr.v. re·capped, re·cap·ping, re·caps 1. To replace a cap or caplike covering on: recapped the bottle. 2. of the events that triggered Sarbanes-Oxley, most importantly Adv. 1. most importantly - above and beyond all other consideration; "above all, you must be independent" above all, most especially the collapse of Enron and its auditor, Arthur Andersen For the U.S. Supreme Court case commonly known as Arthur Andersen, see . Arthur Andersen LLP, based in Chicago, was once one of the "Big Five" accounting firms (the other four are PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young and KPMG), performing . He then quickly sketches the law and its intent before delving into such key concepts as tone at the top, the importance of good boards, the COSO COSO Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission COSO Church of Spiral Oak COSO Corporate South COSO Class of Service Override COSO Combat Oriented Supply Operations (USAF) framework and risk management. Chapters are devoted to subjects such as internal controls, their design and environment; information technology issues and challenges, such as security; governance and management's internal assessments. Charts and illustrations are helpful and effective. The author stresses that Sarbanes-Oxley, far from going away, "will become the standard that all organizations will seek to attain." As well as being lucidly lu·cid adj. 1. Easily understood; intelligible. 2. Mentally sound; sane or rational. 3. Translucent or transparent. See Synonyms at clear. written, Profitable Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance shows a real mastery of detail and process. Much of the content may seem like old news to executives who've been dealing with the law's compliance demands for the better part of three years. But the book makes a highly effective primer on how companies can best go about living with it--and even gaining from it. |
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