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.