How has the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 specifically impacted the accounting procedures of organizations?
As I see it, the greatest single impact from Sarbanes-Oxley is the fact that you now have the CFO, CEO, Controller, etc all having to personally sign off on the validity of the financial statements for their companies as materially True and Correct. This leaves these parties as targets supposing anything was incorrect even more so than ever before. The amount of oversigt required into today’s environment is a burden not just on the companies, but also the auditors, the investors, the regulators, etc. Companies are now having to have more oversight, increase the size of accounting staff, develop internal audit teams, and come up with even more internal controls than before.
