Sarbanes-Oxley Readiness Services

Whether your business is a pre-public company or a non-accelerated filer looking to start a SOX compliance initiative, you need a consulting partner who has deep SOX experience and can help you navigate the evolving and often confusing regulatory guidelines.

We at Illumant have not only performed SOX consulting since its inception, but we have also developed a unique risk-based approach to SOX, designed to achieve efficient and cost-effective compliance. Our methodology has the following features and benefits:

We focus attention on only the most critical processes/cycles and key controls.

Many of our competitors have become accustomed to including far too many business processes and controls in scope. They justify their exorbitant project fees by claiming that having a large set of controls helps to minimize the risk of non-compliance. The reality is that with proper assessment of risk and scoping, far fewer controls can be used. Furthermore, we maximize the value of efforts beyond just compliance by addressing those areas where due diligence on internal controls is truly warranted.

We adapt to the evolving interpretation of new guidance and regulations and allow other areas to be incrementally scoped in only as required.

There is no need to over-scope a compliance project unless doing so has tangible benefits for the client and unless the client demands it. Our experience with auditors gives us the confidence to distinguish between "absolutely necessary" and "can't hurt".

We encourage our clients to minimize cost by leveraging internal resources to participate in the effort.

We are flexible in the way that we work with clients. We realize that many companies like to keep costs to a minimum but still require mentoring and additional hands-on resources. Unlike our competitors, we are happy to accommodate any combination of mentoring and hands-on work so that a company's needs are met exactly. To the extent that our clients want us to do as much of the work as possible, we are prepared to tackle all relevant compliance activities, including scoping, process flow documentation, risk assessment, gap analysis, controls documentation, policies and procedures documentation, testing, and auditor interfacing.

We do not produce unnecessary documents.

Many of our competitors produce reams of unnecessary documentation, which artificially inflates project fees and actually confuses auditors. We produce a single, integrated final document with all the components required or suggested by the auditing standards. Our document is concise, flows clearly, and demonstrates the logic of our proven methodology. Several major audit firms have enthusiastically reviewed our final documentation.

With numerous readiness engagements completed since SOX was enacted, a team with CFO and IT executive level experience, insight into the current and future direction of regulatory guidance, and a proven methodology, Illumant can help you achieve your compliance objectives.