Although the entire 66-page, 11-part Sarbanes-Oxley Act may not be
applicable to your company, section 404 ought to trigger compliance to
standards by which you can measure internal controls.  Section 404 --
process, documentation and monitoring, originally required for September, 2003, and now pushed ahead to June, 2004 -- is also a requirement in June, 2005, for multinationals who have a foot in Wall Street.  In a recent meeting with a Director of Internal Audit, he said, "Despite the fact that we are a privately held American corporation, ethics and the display of integrity are important to us. Though we do not have to, we will comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act."

The recent provocative coverage of former Enron treasurer, Ben Glisan, being led in chains from the federal courthouse in Houston, has led some
C-level people to correctly believe that non-compliance to this legislation could someday result in a peer being led away in handcuffs. And most people incorrectly believe that to achieve Sarbanes compliance, they must purchase new technology.

Hardest hit by the decrease in corporate IT buying, software companies have been quick to offer the Sarbanes-Oxley Holy Grail. Mr. Richard Mogull, an analyst with tech-research firm Gartner, declares, "Sarbanes-Oxley has no technology requirement. If someone comes up to you and tries to tell you that you have to buy software to become compliant, my advice is not to let them in the front door." He advises companies to bring in auditors first.

Transparency and Disclosure

Bringing in the guys with clipboards, either to provide you with the roadmap to compliance or to apply the principles of Sarbanes-Oxley, is recommended by all of the well informed. One would agree with good reason that every C-level person wants to ensure his or her reputation by demonstrating fiduciary duty of transparency and disclosure to stakeholders.

During the period from March, 2000 to July, 2002, public companies lost $7.7 trillion in market capitalization. This will never happen again. Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 legislates an annual evaluation of internal controls and procedures and requires management to assess and vouch for the effectiveness of these controls. In addition, Sarbanes-Oxley requires that an independent auditor file a separate report attesting to the accuracy of management's assessment

Whether you are Sarbanes compliant or not, a second set of eyes is required for an audit. Consider assigning the 404-challenge to BetaWatch because we have the knowledge, infrastructure, and teamsmanship to enable corporate information management. To let you get to know us better, in a fortnight, BetaWatch will commence posting a biweekly electronic note to help you follow the principles and enact the digital due diligence ™ aspect of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002, section 404.  In the meantime we offer you a synopsis.

ßetaWatch Inc. digital due diligence™

ßetaWatch Inc. President and Senior Consultant Temi Grafstein and her team provide Sarbanes- Oxley compliant Internal Controls and an Integrated Framework that provides assurance regarding the achievement of effectiveness and efficiency of operations and compliance with applicable laws and regulations. We comply with the International Organization for Standardization’s document, ISO 9126, a worldwide standard for software-product evaluation and quality characteristics.

We have provided technology audit services for clients in a wide range of technologies including middleware, virtual private network, customer-relationship management, e-commerce, firewall, knowledge management, transaction switch, point of sale, media convergence, online auction, information warehousing, and P2P.

Grafstein developed ßetaWatch's propriety software and system audit tools, digital due diligence™, to accelerate revenue growth.

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