MS Office Solution for Compliance

On this page:

Meet new business expectations

In the wake of several corporate scandals, disclosure and internal controls over financial reporting have become hot topics with American and Canadian companies alike. As securities regulators in both countries introduce new rules to improve investor confidence, many companies are rising to the challenge and proactively taking steps to demonstrate financial transparency and good corporate governance.

Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, in the United States, and Bill 198 / Multilateral Instrument 52-109, in Canada, require senior executives to certify that internal controls have been documented and tested, and that financial disclosures are accurate and complete. Senior executives now need internal control infrastructures, so they're confident there are sound bases for their certifications.

SOX and Bill 198 are not just one-time compliance exercises; they're a new way of doing business that forces you to anticipate risk and manage it carefully.

Effectively manage your compliance initiatives

We can help you manage your Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) / Bill 198 compliance initiatives with the Microsoft Office Solution for Compliance (MOSC). The solution gives you more visibility over financial processes and controls to help you comply with government regulations and oversee corporate activities.

MOSC leverages your existing business productivity software to support corporate compliance initiatives. It facilitates the documentation, evaluation, and remediation of your internal controls by providing a technology platform that includes document management, collaboration, and workflow capabilities.

The solution uses Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 forms to capture metadata for risks, controls, and tests in XML format, making the data available for reuse. The forms and data are then stored on Windows SharePoint services sites, capturing relevant information in one central location and creating visibility for all stakeholders.

By leveraging applications that are already familiar to end users, MOSC provides an intuitive and cost-effective means of managing compliance initiatives associated with the Sarbanes Oxley Act and Bill 198.

Get the help you need

The Microsoft Office Solution for Compliance (MOSC) helps you meet the requirements of SOX and align compliance and financial control management with business objectives. Built on familiar Microsoft technologies, which makes it intuitive for users across your organization, MOSC helps your company efficiently manage the extensive work required:

  • provide real-time visibility into processes, risks, and controls from a single point of access
  • manage and use information to effectively make decisions, not just collect data
  • reduce costs by facilitating and accelerating the compliance process
  • establish a flexible foundation for longer-term compliance initiatives

Benefit from core capabilities

The Microsoft Office Solution for Compliance offers the following functions:

  • document and information management
    provide intelligent information storage, categorization, and search with XML data structuring and a familiar user interface
  • process automation and workflow
    give employees the appropriate alerts, materials, and routing information needed to initiate and complete tasks
  • communication and collaboration
    allow timely information sharing between employees, task assignments, and document versioning to make it easier to collaborate on projects
  • monitoring and reporting
    provide dashboards and reports to monitor project status and enable access to critical data for real-time decision making
  • configuration practices
    teach you how to use the functionality to meet requirements beyond Sections 302 and 404
  • administration tools
    migrate data from existing SOX tools, export data to reporting platforms, and maintain and operate the solution
  • compatibility with Big Four Auditor methodologies
    uses the COSO interpretations of the Big Four Auditors (Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, and Deloitte)