Section 404
Researching a company that has had publicly known problems with internal controls is not that hard to find. These controls are put into place to reduce the possibility of fraud, waste, and abuse (FWA) on the annual financial reports of a company. “The Commission voted to adopt rule and form amendments to implement requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002” (SEC, 2003). Section 404 is one of the hardest, most argued, and most expensive to actualize of all Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) for compliance. There must be an Internal Control Report explaining what the managements job is, and a “satisfactory” internal control structure; there should also be a management description of the efficiency of the control structure (SOX, 2016).
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One method would be that they segregate accounting duties. That could mean that if the company has the same person approving invoices, preparing checks and signing checks, it could lead to fraud; so therefore, by having this position rotating and changing between qualified people would make it harder for fraud to happen. Having an online pay service that can be accessed from anywhere increases the control of the payment process; or the company can also have the signer of the checks be different from the person writing the check. Another improvement that can be made is, “business owners need to make it a priority to review financial reports and understand the trend and changes in the business’ financial data” (Selhorn, 2015). A third recommendation is to make sure the employee that is covering the financial data take a vacation. With this person gone for a while, the company has the opportunity to bring in an outside auditor to review the books, or simply gets another trusted employee with the experience and knowledge of accounting to go over the financial reports. There are many reasons that employees decide to commit fraud, waste, and abuse. When the employee believes, the company won’t “miss this little amount of money” that is being taken by the said employee, it can cost a company a lot of heartache. If the FWA is still happening in a company, then the internal controls are not working and the controls should be reevaluated as soon as possible for the company’s sake. With all this being said, as for QSGI, they are up and running with Mr. Sherman as their CEO. They are still having trouble with their financial reports and in the limelight of the
One method would be that they segregate accounting duties. That could mean that if the company has the same person approving invoices, preparing checks and signing checks, it could lead to fraud; so therefore, by having this position rotating and changing between qualified people would make it harder for fraud to happen. Having an online pay service that can be accessed from anywhere increases the control of the payment process; or the company can also have the signer of the checks be different from the person writing the check. Another improvement that can be made is, “business owners need to make it a priority to review financial reports and understand the trend and changes in the business’ financial data” (Selhorn, 2015). A third recommendation is to make sure the employee that is covering the financial data take a vacation. With this person gone for a while, the company has the opportunity to bring in an outside auditor to review the books, or simply gets another trusted employee with the experience and knowledge of accounting to go over the financial reports. There are many reasons that employees decide to commit fraud, waste, and abuse. When the employee believes, the company won’t “miss this little amount of money” that is being taken by the said employee, it can cost a company a lot of heartache. If the FWA is still happening in a company, then the internal controls are not working and the controls should be reevaluated as soon as possible for the company’s sake. With all this being said, as for QSGI, they are up and running with Mr. Sherman as their CEO. They are still having trouble with their financial reports and in the limelight of the