July 2010 - Posts

• Spotlight on Forsythe Technology, Inc.'s policyIQ Implementation

  policyIQ team members often get questions about the process involved in implementing policyIQ for a new use and how long such an implementation might take. Our answer is always, “It depends”. It depends on how much of the process that takes place outside of policyIQ needs to be developed, the resources available to devote to the implementation and the alignment of the new implementation with the execution of competing projects. To help address this question, we thought that we’d provide a real life example… April 30th Jim Blickendorf, the Director of Accounting Operations at Forsythe Technology, Inc., made the decision to purchase policyIQ for Account Reconciliations in April of this year and shortly thereafter, he appointed Senior Business Analyst, Rae Muranski, to oversee the implementation of policyIQ. May 4th Rae hit the ground running; scheduling a planning and configuration meeting with her policyIQ implementation partner. Rae took some time to learn how policyIQ works for Account Reconciliations and made a point to review Forsythe’s Account Reconciliation process. This was the ideal time to refine their process and to implement best practices going forward. Rae made decisions about which variables would be most valuable for her organization to track going forward. She considered who would be involved in the process and what their responsibilities would be. May 11th After mapping out her wishes, Rae determined the implementation path that would best accommodate Forsythe’s needs—that is, whether to go with a single Form Template or multiple Form Templates (broken down by approver). For more information on what goes into this decision, check out our recent blog post: Account Reconciliations: One Form Template or Multiple? Upon reviewing the options, Rae determined that Forsythe would benefit by the reporting advantages of developing their Account Reconciliation List Templates based on a single Form Template. June 3rd Forsythe has a few hundred balance sheet accounts to reconcile on a monthly basis. Rather than building each of the Form List Templates with specific account data for each account manually, she engaged the services of the policyIQ Support Team to add these Customized List Templates directly into the database. Rae also took advantage of her ability to import users rather than adding each one manually. Because Rae utilized the services of the policyIQ Help Desk to import her List Templates, she was able to designate the preparer and the approvers (which she previously imported) as a part of the List Templates creation process carried out by the policyIQ Support team. June 25th Rae moved on to exercising the assignment of reconciliations to preparers, developing a solid understanding of the features available to Form Template Administrators. She then proceeded to explore the reporting options available to her. So, in less than 60 days, Rae Muranski performed a complete sweep of her organization’s Account Reconciliation process, refining the process and incorporating best practices in the process while learning how to use a new application and to apply that tool to bring automation and powerful oversight capability to the Account Reconciliation process. Wow! That’s impressive! Posted Jul 27 2010, 07:02 AM by stepheniebuehrle with no comments

• Automate your annual corporate policy sign-offs!

  In May of this year, we talked about how policyIQ can be configured to manage a corporate policy sign-off process.  Since we're celebrating the "Forms of July" this month, we'd like to give an overview of this process and explain how policyIQ can help you simplify your current work and realize specific gains.   If your organization is like many, your employees are required to read a handful of corporate policies on an annual basis and also indicate their agreement to abide by those policies. In many cases, someone in HR will need to send out a blast email pointing employees to the corporate policies. But how do you then gather the employee agreements? Perhaps the employees download a sign-off form, print it out, pencil in some answers and then route it back to HR. That process will work, but it's error-prone, non-secure, and certainly not very green! Save time, reduce errors and minimize your paper usage! policyIQ provides a great solution for automating this process and cutting down on the possibilities for errors. Using policyIQ Forms: You can create a sign-off form that includes the exact language you want your employees to agree to (the sign-off statement). Your users can access their sign-off forms simply by logging into policyIQ. There's never any risk that they'll be accessing an outdated form. Their sign-off forms will be waiting for them on their policyIQ Dashboard, so there's no other navigating required. On each sign-off form, you have the option to display the related policy in the body of the form, ensuring that your employees have the information right in front of them as they indicate their compliance. Once your employees submit their forms, you have a permanent record of their responses. policyIQ reporting makes it easy to review all answers of a certain type - e.g., which employees indicated that they do not agree to abide by a particular policy? You can get this kind of information in a matter of seconds, as opposed to browsing files or thumbing through papers.   Do you have dozens of these sign-off forms to distribute to hundreds of employees? Large-scale processes like this are simple in policyIQ. Our Form List feature makes it really easy to bundle all of your forms together in one list and distribute them to all employees on a specified date.     Managing your sign-off process from year to year is also very easy. Simply make a copy of last year's list, make any necessary adjustments, and run the new list!   If you'd like to learn more about implementing your own annual policy sign-off process in policyIQ, contact your account manager at support@policyIQ.com. We'd be happy to demonstrate this feature and help you get your process up and running! Posted Jul 22 2010, 08:44 AM by scottpalermo with no comments Filed under: tips, forms, process, policy, P&P

• Forms Reporting: Review the responses you’ve received—or see what is outstanding—with the click of a button!

  The policyIQ team is spending some time examining and sharing information on our Forms functionality in the month of July. We’ve talked to you about how some clients are using policyIQ to gather monthly Account Reconciliations, Control Self Assessments, Corporate Policy Sign-offs, System Access Requests and more. It’s one thing to have a system or platform for gathering this information and something much more exciting and useful to have a mechanism for easily pulling information back out again and being able to review, analyze and interpret the results of your employees’ responses. Let’s look at what you have at your policyIQ fingertips… Go to your Dashboard: We all know that the Dashboard contains quick links that take us to our areas of responsibility (i.e. Pages Checked Out To Me) or to our areas of interest (Blogs or Favorites). Did you know that you can add a window pane to your Dashboard for Forms To Approve? If you’re an Approver of Forms, with one click, you can easily see and review the Forms that have been submitted to your attention from your Dashboard. Check out Activities: If you want to see a full breakdown of the Forms that remain Open, those that have been Submitted and those that have been Approved, Administrators and Approvers can easily review this information in the Forms’ Activities area. The Activities table is great because it provides data similar to what you get from a Summary Report and you don’t have to go to the Reports module to create it!  Look in your Folders: Okay…this one might be two clicks: The Administrators of your Forms have the ability to direct approved form responses to designated Folders so that they may be easily viewed by selected viewers. Do you want your external auditors to have access to your 302 certification responses? Create a Folder for 302 Responses and list the “External Auditors” group among the permitted Viewers. You can specify these Folders and Viewers when creating your 302 Certification Form Template and Form Lists. Once logged into policyIQ, your external auditors can click on the appropriate Folder (perhaps they have saved it in their “Favorite Folders”) and then click on the Form of their choice in the list to see the responses within the Form. Reporting on the Status of Responses Administrators of Form Templates and Form Lists can create reports that allow them to verify the status of Form Responses. Here are some examples of Status related reports that you can create:  Want to know who has responded to quarterly certifications in 2010?  You can narrow down to just those who have responded to Q2 certifications, if you’d like.  Interested in following up on a particular individual?  Are you responsible for getting a reminder out to employees who havent yet responded to the annual corporate policy sign-off?  Maybe you need to alert the Compliance Officer’s back up that forms have been submitted and are awaiting approval in the Compliance Officer’s vacation absence. If you wish to access any of this information on a regular basis (i.e. monthly, quarterly, etc), then you can add your Report to your Favorites; granting you truly one-click access from your policyIQ Dashboard. If you want more specific guidance on how to create a Status Report, look to the Forms Reports manual within your Help guide online in policyIQ: Reporting on the Details within Users’ Responses Reports can also aid Approvers and specified Viewers in analyzing Form Responses. By using filters, such as filters for Form Templates or filters on Fields within Templates, an Approver can create actionable results like those listed below: Create a list of users who responded negatively to a certification or a satisfaction survey.  Do you want to follow up on those that said that they agree with the assertion, yet included a comment to qualify their responses? Do you want to see which accounts reported unreconciled balances in the previous month? Which process owners reported that procedures had changed and the process is now different than in the previous quarter? Each of these reports listed above is likely one that an approver or authorized viewer would want to review on a regular basis—definitely good candidates for adding to Favorite Reports and accessing in one click from the Dashboard. In addition to following the guidance provided in Help, users can contact Support@policyIQ.com to request assistance in creating reports such as those highlighted above. Posted Jul 20 2010, 09:57 AM by stepheniebuehrle with no comments

• Control Self-Assessments: Let us make it easier!

  My favorite part of my job comes when I can help someone take a cumbersome process and simplify it using policyIQ.  Knowing that I've just saved someone time in their busy day (or prevented a migraine caused by extreme frustration) puts a smile on my face. For that reason, when I work with any client who is using policyIQ to track internal controls, I want to learn about their process for gathering self-assessments from their control owners for those controls. Why perform Control Self-Assessments? Most organizations tracking Internal Controls have some process in place for collecting an assessment of the control from the control owner.  Who better than the person who performs the control to tell you: Is the control currently documented correctly (as it is actually performed)? Is the control designed in a way that effectively mitigates the risk? Is the control operating effectively? Is the control efficient? Is there a better way to mitigate that risk? Okay - so very few organizations are asking that last question - but why not?  If you are already reaching out to control owners, why not take the opportunity to find out if there are better ideas out there?  And if your control owners are given an opportunity to offer their "better" suggestions and have a sense of ownership over their duties, they are less likely to complain about the process.  (At least, they are less likely to complain out loud.) What does your Control Self-Assessment process look like? If you are currently doing Control Self-Assessments, what does your process look like?  Does it involve a spreadsheet and email?  Are there reports to be run in advance, worksheets to be compiled for each control owner, and emails to be sent out? Do you find yourself spending hours trying to track people down to get those spreadsheets back?  Are you combing through your email Folders to figure where you accidentally misfiled that response from the CFO, because you know you received it but now you can't find it and you REALLY don't want to tell her that you lost her email? Are you then recompiling a hundred or more responses into a new spreadsheet and making updates to your final documentation in policyIQ? Are you repeating this hassle every quarter, feeling like you've barely finished the last round when the new round of self-assessments need to be sent out?   Or are you skipping it and doing it less frequently than you'd like, just because it's too much work. STOP!  We have a better way. policyIQ Forms offer a really terrific solution for Control Self-Assessments, allowing you to create a List of Forms that gets sent out to Control Owners on your preferred frequency asking them to review the most current control documentation (already in policyIQ and linked to their forms).  The process solves a number of headaches for you: You don't have to create a report and send something out of policyIQ to the Control Owner. You are asking them to log in and review the most current information in your primary system of record. (Time saved and errors avoided!) Easily track who has responded and who has not. Send email reminders to those who still must submit their responses! Reporting lets you easily narrow down which responses you must review and act on - such as ONLY those responses where changes must be made or on which the Control Owner has indicated an ineffective design or operation. You'll never "lose" a response. Everything is submitted within policyIQ - and will be retained for reporting and audit purposes alongside all other internal control and testing information. Get started with a better Control Self-Assessment process today! Convinced?  Fired up?  Ready to go?  If you are like most organizations, your third quarter of the year has just started on July 1st, so you have lots of time to put a new plan in place for Q3 Self-Assessments!  (Want to do Q2 Self-Assessments?  Stop reading and call us right now - we'll get you started.) We can't lie - setting up a new Control Self-Assessment Form List can take some time.  Our recommended setup is to create a Form List with a Form customized for every Control that should have a self-assessment completed.  The "customization" means linking the Form to the Control Page in policyIQ, assigning it to the appropriate Control Owner, and editing the name to reflect the Control in question.  But after that initial setup, the process practically runs itself - and the time you save just within the first Control Self-Assessment cycle will make it worthwhile!  Once set up, you simply copy your work from last quarter, make any adjustments that you need to for new Controls or changes in Control Owner.  If the Control details have changed, you don't have to worry about it.  You've already made the updates in policyIQ - and your Control Owners will be looking at the most recent documentation! Your online policyIQ Help has detailed step-by-step instructions on how to set up your Form Template, Form List and Forms for Control Self-Assessments.  Follow the navigation displayed below - or just click on the image to launch into the Help page on this topic! Questions?  Want to talk about other ways to customize the process?  Contact us at support@policyIQ.com and we'd be happy to discuss it!   Posted Jul 16 2010, 10:04 AM by chrisburd with 2 comment(s) Filed under: SOX, tips, Training, features, best practices, configuration, forms, sarbanes-oxley

• Account Reconciliations: One Form Template or Multiple?

  This month, you'll notice us talking quite a bit about how policyIQ's Forms Management feature can simplify a number of common, manual processes. We're specifically highlighting our solution for the Account Reconciliation process in a live solution-focused training session on Tuesday, July 27, which you can register for here. If you're considering implementing policyIQ Forms to manage your Account Reconciliation process, there are some things you'll want to sketch out before you get started. One of the items you'll want to consider is whether you should use one common Account Reconciliation Form Template or multiple Form Templates. To determine this, ask yourself, "Do my account reconciliations have unique reviewers?"   So which choice is best for me? Here are some general guidelines that should help you answer this question.   Single Form Template approach: You have a single reviewer who reviews and approves all Account Reconciliation Forms. You have multiple reviewers, but any one of those reviewers can review and approve any submitted Account Reconciliation Form.   Multiple Form Template approach: You have unique reviewers responsible for reviewing and approving specific accounts, and you'd like to make the process as uncomplicated as possible for your reconcilers.   Creating a single Form Template for all Account Reconciliations: If this option fits your reconciliation process, you'll find that it's the easiest path to take. You'll create a single group for your reviewers, which will include all of the users who will be reviewing the submitted Account Reconciliation Forms. Then, you'll add this Group to the Approvers field on your Form Template's Security tab. (If you have a single reviewer for all of your Account Reconciliations, you'll simply add that user to this field.) Your setup and maintenance will be easier, as you'll only ever need to update this single Form Template should there ever be any adjustments to your process. Additionally, your reporting will be easier and the report output will be more manageable, as you'll be working with a single Form Template. Just keep in mind that this approach requires a little bit of extra work if you have unique reviewers that are responsible for specific Account Reconciliations. In this case, you'll need to train your reconcilers to use policyIQ functionality to notify the correct reviewer when they submit their Forms.   Creating multiple Form Templates - one for each Reviewer: Your other option is to create one Account Reconciliation Form Template for each of your reviewers. With this approach, you'll add those individual reviewers to the Approvers field on each Form Template. This option makes the submission process easier for your reconcilers. When they submit their Form, you know that it will be routed directly to the appropriate reviewer. The reconciler doesn’t need to do anything beyond clicking the Submit button. Additionally, your reviewers never need to be concerned about whether they’re reviewing the appropriate Forms. They will never see Forms for other reviewers’ accounts, as could potentially happen in the first option we discussed above. But note that there will be more overall maintenance required with this approach. Any changes to your process (including shifting reviewer responsibilities) would require updates to multiple Form Templates. Your overall reporting will also be a bit more complicated to manage. Instead of selecting from a single set of fields, you’re going to need to select from the set of fields on each of your reviewer-specific Form Templates. To learn more about using policyIQ to manage your Account Reconciliation process, take a look at the Account Reconciliation chapter in the policyIQ Help Guide. And don’t forget that your policyIQ Account Manager would be happy to discuss this topic with you and make recommendations based on your process. Contact us any time at support@policyIQ.com!   Posted Jul 12 2010, 02:51 PM by scottpalermo with 1 comment(s)

• Sneak peek: policyIQ version 6.7!

  Version 6.7 of policyIQ is just around the corner and we're excited to offer you a sneak peek of what you can expect. As you know, all of the features we introduce in our product updates are determined by the feedback we get from YOU! So keep your recommendations and requests coming!   This latest release contains some really helpful features, and we bet you'll see something here that interests you.   Custom Alerts: Send notifications on your own terms! One of our more frequently requested enhancements is the ability to generate custom alerts based on "things" happening on your policyIQ Pages. And our users want the flexibility to be able to define what those "things" are. Some examples would be reaching a specified date (such as a Contract nearing a renewal date), a user selecting a particular value from a dropdown (such as a tester selecting a Failed status), or a change in a workflow Stage (such as a Corporate Policy being published). We're very pleased to let you know that this new feature will let you introduce this functionality into your policyIQ process. Let us share a few examples of how you can immediately take advantage of this new functionality.   Alert Process Owner of a Failed Test Let's say you're involved in a compliance effort that includes the testing of Control Pages. When your testers test a Control, they create a Test Page to document the results. Would you like to notify a manager or process owner when a Test fails? This new feature will allow you to do that. You'll specify whether the Alert should take the form of an email to a selected recipient (even individuals who don't have access to policyIQ), or a notification on a selected user's Dashboard. When the Test Page is published with a Status equal to "Failed," policyIQ will generate that Alert.     (While we're sure you'll agree that the above image is cool, don't forget that 6.7 isn't finalized yet, so this can be considered a prototype!) Alert Contract Owners of Upcoming Milestone Dates One more quick example of how you could start using this feature right away : Let's say you're managing your contracts in policyIQ and you want to ensure that the contract owners are reviewing their contracts on certain milestone dates, such as a certain number of days before the expiration date. You can use the new Custom Alerts feature to generate emails that will be sent to your contract owners when a milestone is reached.  Any given field can have multiple alerts going to multiple individuals, even with different alert messages! Trigger all of your necessary alerts from your Contract End Date - with different alerts for 30, 60 or 90 days prior. Set up email notifications to go out to the Contract Owner, Legal Department or Procurement Director - all from a single field on your Contract page!   Check out to others (any others!) If you've ever wanted to check a Page out to another user who wasn't already an Administrator or Editor on that Page, you're going to appreciate this new feature. You'll now be able to check a Page out to any other Advanced User is in your policyIQ site without needing to first give them local rights to the Page. Simply click on the new Lookup button on the Checkout to others window and select the desired user. Once you've done that, the user will be added as an Editor on the Page and the Page will be checked out to them. Check it out!   Create Report Categories that are available to all users Do you use Report Categories to organize your reports? Are you a Site Administrator who has been frustrated because you can't set up a category that all of your users can use? If so, you aren't alone. Many of you have told us that being able to set up Report Categories site-wide would make your lives much easier. Starting in version 6.7, Site Administrator level users (or users with similar custom Roles) will be able to create a Report Category and designate the Category as "site-wide." Those Categories will appear in the left hand navigation of the Reports module for all users.  Don't worry - custom user-level Categories are also still available!  Any Report can be indexed into multiple Categories , whether they are user-specific or site-wide.  Your existing Categories won't change, but now you can update them to share with others, if desired.   There are more features included in version 6.7 which will be discussed more fully in the release notes, including the following: Searches include Forms Common Report Categories across the site Send email notification to new users after User Import Bulk change Folders and Viewers on Form List Templates   We hope you've enjoyed this early preview of policyIQ version 6.7. Keep your eyes out for the full release notes coming in the near future! Posted Jul 08 2010, 09:08 AM by scottpalermo with 3 comment(s) Filed under: feature requests, features, releases

• Beyond documentation: Make policyIQ a PART of your Internal Control Environment

  A large majority of our community is using policyIQ to document, test and manage their internal control environment - whether it is for Sarbanes-Oxley, Model Audit Rule, Title 31 Anti-Money Laundering, or a number of other types of compliance requirements.  Private organizations not currently required to prove compliance with any of these regulations are using policyIQ simply to maintain documentation on their strong corporate control structure, in anticipation of a future change in status. We talk a lot about how you use policyIQ to manage your control documentation - and gaining efficiencies by combining compliance documentation into a single application.  How about making the control itself more efficient?  Every organization has controls in place that require an employee to submit documentation, provide proof, get approval or just verify that they have read something.  And that's where policyIQ comes in...again. Your accounting staff needs to complete, document and submit account reconciliations monthly and quarterly.  Your IT department keeps track of all requests to add new employees or consultants as users in critical business applications.  Your HR department is mandated to collect specific documentation on every new employee.  Any check issued to a vendor must be requested and backed up with an invoice or signed receipt.  Employees must read and sign off on the Code of Ethical Conduct every year.   How do you manage these Controls today? Account Reconciliations: Later this month, we will offer a one-hour training class on how you can use policyIQ to track the account reconciliations throughout your organization, and collect critical information for reporting and risk mitigation.  (You can register for this training class today!) What can you gain by putting your account reconciliation process into policyIQ? Track which have not yet been completed, and send email reminders. Easily assign reconciliations, with due dates. Report on key reconciliation data, such as which accounts have an unreconciled balance and the amount of those balances.   System Access Requests: As a part of virtually every new employee on-boarding process, there is a process by which a request gets submitted to IT to add the new employee as a user in all of the relevant business applications.  Do these get submitted to IT by email?  Do you have to submit your request on paper with a signature?  Does the request ever get "lost" or submitted without complete information? Using policyIQ provides benefits to make the process more efficient for managers and IT. Required fields ensure that IT gets the information that they need. Online submission is tracked back to the individual submitting the request, eliminating the need for a formal signature. Requests can be tracked by the submitter AND the IT department to easily check status and to add follow-up information.   Corporate Policy Sign-Offs: Many organizations struggle with sign-off efforts in a large organization, often reverting to a costly (and not-so-environmentally friendly) paper process to distribute critical policies and collect employee sign-offs.  In a blog post later this month, we'll further explore how an organization can send out "sign-off forms" to all employees electronically, collecting the responses, tracking progress, sending reminders and reporting on the results.   So much more: New Employee On-Boarding, Check Request Forms, Vendor Insurance Submission Forms, Gift Reporting Forms... these are just some of the other ways that policyIQ can be used to make your internal controls more efficient, "greener" and more effective.   Interested in learning more?  Stay tuned to our blog throughout the month as we bring you more information on using policyIQ Forms.  Register for our July 27th Account Reconciliation training class.  Or contact us at support@policyIQ.com for more information on how you can make policyIQ a part of your internal control process. Posted Jul 06 2010, 10:18 AM by chrisburd with no comments Filed under: SOX, tips, best practices, configuration, forms, setup, account reconciliation