Question about Sarbanes-Oxley.

[denverbill]

As far as my limited memory goes, Sarbanes-Oxley was about corporate responsibility. You know, preventing fraud, making sure the books aren't cooked, etc.

So everyone in the IT department just got an email from the boss, asking for a skills set list from each of us, for 'Sarbanes-Oxley' reporting.

Things like, what operating systems, languages, business areas, networking, help desk, computer operations, etc skills do you have.

Can anyone tell me what the hell that has to do with Sarbanes-Oxley? Is this just my company asking this because of their own interpretation, or are all companies providing a list of their workers and their skills to the govt?

[Not Me]

1. There are a couple sections that have to deal with defining processes

used in internal projects (Section 404)...There is a requirement for information to flow directly (ie: disallows two sets of books) from the project to the financial management and reporting systems.

I am not sure why they would want to know skill sets, unless they want to slice/dice the data by skills.

[denverbill]

2. I'm just a wee-bit suspicious about this.

After reading about govt plans for a 'skills draft', you wonder if someone didn't slip a provision into an unrelated bill that allows the govt to collect information like this.

It's probably not that. Maybe just an overzealous compliance person. Maybe there is some valid reason. Just seems odd.

[NewJeffCT]

3. probably overzealous compliance

I worked in the corporate financial reporting area for a large corporation when Sarbanes-Oxley was first implemented (they've been around #100 in the Fortune 500 the last few years at least). While it caused a lot of consternation and worry for mid to high level management (no idea on the stress on the CEO & CFO, though), I personally didn't think it was *that* big a deal, though my email volume regarding the company's 10Q tripled the first quarter from the same period the prior year.

They do have one section about practices & internal controls, and I know my company did not into nearly that detail, and my old company was considered quite conservative when it came to financial issues. I think we basically said we maintain strong internal controls by blah, blah, blah over a 1 page document. However, I know the company also had a very strong internal audit department.

[Gothmog]

4. Nothing that I can think about

Sarbanes does mandate internal control systems and systems for whistle blowers to complain about accounting/internal control issues. The survey that you receive does not appear to be related to this at all. I am very curious what provision in Sarbanes is being used by your company to justify this survey.