In the United States, Sarbanes-Oxley legislation put responsibility for the design, maintenance, and effective operation of internal control squarely on the shoulders of senior management, specifically, the CEO and the CFO. To comply with this legislation, the SEC requires the CEO and CFO of publicly traded companies over a certain size to opine on the design adequacy and operating effectiveness of ICFR as part of the annual filing of financial statements with the SEC, as well as report substantial changes in ICFR, if any, on a quarterly basis. Organizations have been able to successfully apply the COSO framework in their efforts to comply with Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley, despite encountering significant unanticipated costs. In an effort to reduce the cost to comply with Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley, many organizations are evaluating and pursuing more cost-effective approaches to validating their system of ICFR. Utilize the Knowledge Leader website and perform the following:
A. Authenticate to the Knowledge Leader website using your username and password.
B. Perform research and identify alternative approaches to more cost effectively validate an organization’s operating effectiveness of their ICFR.
C. Submit a brief write-up indicating the results of your research to your instructor.