Sarbanes Oxley. When most companies hear this term, it doesn’t represent a positive change. It means employee headaches, extra work hours, and added costs.
The Open Compliance & Ethics Group (OCEG) estimated that compliance with Sarbanes Oxley costs $500,000 to $1 million per $1 billion in revenue and that doesn’t include the additional compliance cost that applies to U.S. Companies. With companies spending this kind of money on compliance it becomes important to use the changes they make to their advantage.
Read how one company turned the compliance work they had done for Sarbanes Oxley into a process improvement opportunity. Let this article inspire you do to the same for your company.
During compliance work American Electrical Power noticed an opportunity to decrease duplicate invoices and payment errors that occurred in the accounts payable process. They invested in software that provided automatic detection of irregular payments, thus reducing their companies A/P cost by 75%.
Process Improvement & Compliance Offers 2 Payoffs
1) Decrease negative events that can hurt a company’s reputation.
2) Impress shareholders by showing more transparency.
This article highlights the importance of meeting regulation compliance, and simultaneously using the regulations to improve internal functions to become more efficient. Companies will benefit by doing both.
“The Process Improvement Payoff” by Eric Krell
Business Finance, November 2005
During her time at Glenbrook, Erin focused on client engagements in business payments, cross-border transactions, bill payment, and the intersection of corporate finance, banking, and ERP/accounting. She has nearly twenty years of experience leading increasingly complex payment initiatives for corporate clients and advising financial institutions and payment technologists on the development of their payment capabilities.
Erin is also the founder of Forte Financial, a consulting firm focused on corporate finance efficiency, technology, and process improvement. She is a past president of the Financial Women’s Association of San Francisco and also a two-term past president of the San Francisco Treasury Management Association. Erin is no longer with Glenbrook, but contributed greatly during her time at the firm.