Complying with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act

• Comply with Section 404
• Sarbanes-Oxley Q&A
• Learn About Sarbanes-Oxley
• Take Control of Internal Controls
• Sarbanes-Oxley Links

According to the SEC's preliminary ruling, public companies must certify that their 'internal controls' ensure that:

1. Transactions are properly authorized
2. Assets are safeguarded against unauthorized or improper use
3. Transactions are properly recorded

Concur's Corporate Expense Management solutions help ensure compliance with each of these requirements. Here's how:

1. Transactions are properly authorized:
Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley states that reliable processes are in place to ensure data accuracy.

The consequences for not meeting these requirements are significant. Beyond the possibility of fines that could escalate into the millions of dollars, few public companies can afford to breach the hard won trust of their shareholders.

Concur Expense provides the controls to help you ensure that every expense report is legitimate. Your organization's own business rules dictate the level of approval required and a comprehensive workflow engine then routes reports to the appropriate manager to secure the proper approvals before processing.

2. Assets are safeguarded against unauthorized or improper use:
To truly safeguard your assets, you need a redundant and failsafe process. One that not only detects a breach when it happens, but one that can also proactively alert and fix a problem before it's too late.

Concur Expense helps customers detect and avoid expense fraud by incorporating customizable audit rules, flexible work-flow configurations, and state-of-the-art business intelligence tools that enable you to quickly identify and react to expense anomalies.

Section 404 compliance covers many different areas of expense reporting. From rank and file employees padding their expenses to new restrictions on executive loans and other use of company assets. With Concur's flexible T&E policy administration, separate rules and reports can be implemented for different groups, so it's simple to make the rules governing the executive team different from those of the rest of the organization. In fact, the system administrators can apply different policies to different groups of individuals in order to assure compliance with their auditor's interpretation of Sarbanes-Oxley.

3. Transactions are properly recorded and reported:
The transparency and visibility of your expense data is paramount when it comes to proving that your transactions are properly recorded and reported. No other Corporate Expense Management provider can match Concur's built-in business intelligence capabilities.

Concur Analysis is a robust reporting and analysis tool and is built right into Concur Expense, providing instant Web-based access to the expense data you need without requiring help from IT or reporting "specialists". Concur makes it easy to leverage the power of reporting and analytics by providing companies with unprecedented visibility into their expense database, unlocking hidden trends, and delivering the information you need.