Computerworld - OpenPages Inc. this week will become the latest vendor to offer software that's designed to help companies meet the financial documentation and reporting requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
And like many other products that have been announced recently, the Web-based software suite developed by Westford, Mass.-based OpenPages specifically addresses Section 404 of the law. That section requires publicly held companies to conduct annual evaluations of their financial reporting controls and procedures.
Vendors such as Oracle Corp. and Redmond, Wash.-based Concur Technologies Inc. have also detailed Section 404 compliance tool kits (see story).
In addition, Protiviti Inc., a Menlo Park, Calif.-based firm that offers internal auditing and business-risk consulting services, last week introduced a Web-based repository for organizing and documenting Section 404 compliance plans.
OpenPages said its Sarbanes-Oxley Express 404 software is based on J2EE technology and runs on top of application servers from Oracle and San Jose-based BEA Systems Inc. The software is priced between $25,000 and $65,000, depending on the number of end users.
Many Units, One Database
Volt Information Sciences Inc., a New York-based provider of temporary staffing and IT services that has annual revenue of more than $2 billion, plans to finish installing the OpenPages software on a Windows 2000 server this week.
James J. Groberg, Volt's chief financial officer, said the company operates 12 business units, each of which has its own accounting and profit-and-loss (P&L) responsibilities. For financial reporting purposes, "you have to treat each one differently," he noted. But Volt is looking to develop a database that links the disparate accounting data under a single structured format.
After evaluating a handful of products, Volt in May settled on the one developed by OpenPages. Groberg said it helped that OpenPages was willing to make enhancements based on Volt's suggestions, including the creation of a master content chart of balance-sheet and P&L accounts.
But even though Sarbanes-Oxley compliance tools are becoming available from more vendors, many CIOs and other executives are still having a hard time comprehending the act's requirements. Sarbanes-Oxley, which was signed into law last summer, includes more than 90 sections and 300 discrete points of law.
Seeking Clarity
The mandates of Sarbanes-Oxley "aren't very clear," said Louis Boyle, a Meta Group Inc. analyst based in Hilton Head, S.C. "CIOs have been asking us, 'What is it? What do we need to do? How do we prepare for it?'"
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and other regulators haven't specified what kind of information they're looking for from companies, said Groberg. "You're almost working in the dark in terms of what you're going to have to provide," he said.
Protiviti said its SarbOx Portal software is designed to provide users with a process-based approach to documenting and evaluating their financial reporting controls.
The software is being offered only to Protiviti's consulting clients, and a company spokesman said pricing "is being kept confidential."
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