policyIQ Blog

FASB issues proposal for Impairment of Indefinite-Lived Intangible Assets

2012-01-25T18:21:00Z

Earlier today, the FASB issued a proposal for impairment of indefinite-lived intangible assets (other than goodwill). The proposal simplifies impairment testing for these assets by allowing entities to first assess qualitative factors in determining whether the fair value of the asset is less than the carrying amount.

The Finance and Accounting practice at Resources Global Professionals has issued the following Financial Alert to help organizations get a handle on the proposed changes. If you have questions or if you need assistance, contact us and we'll put you in touch with your local Resources office. At Resources, we provide strong technical accounting, project management, internal controls and information systems expertise and can help businesses with all aspects of financial reporting, including assessing the impact of this proposed accounting standards update on your business.

FASB ISSUES PROPOSAL FOR IMPAIRMENT OF INDEFINITE-LIVED INTANGIBLE ASSETS (SUBTOPIC 350-30: INTANGIBLES-GOODWILL AND OTHER-GENERAL INTANGIBLES OTHER THAN GOODWILL)

January 25, 2012, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) proposed changes to simplify current guidance for testing indefinite-lived intangible assets other than goodwill for impairment.

Background

In September 2011, the FASB issued ASU 2011-08 (Intangibles – Goodwill and other: testing for goodwill impairment) which simplified guidance for impairment testing of Goodwill. During the outreach process of developing the final standard, the FASB received input from many participants in regards to the recurring costs and complexity of performing impairment tests for indefinite-lived intangible assets other than goodwill.

Current impairment guidance for these types of assets requires that impairment testing take place at least annually, by comparing the fair value of the asset with its carrying amount. If the carrying amount exceeds the fair value, then an impairment loss is recognized.

Proposed changes

The Amendment proposes that an entity would have the option of first assessing the qualitative factors to determine whether it is more likely than not (presumed to be 50% or more likelihood) that the fair value of the indefinite-lived intangible asset is less than its carrying amount. If, after consideration of qualitative factors, an entity determines that it is not more likely than not that the fair value of the asset is less than its carrying amount then the organization would not be required to take any further action. If the conclusion is the opposite, then the entity would be required to perform impairment testing of the indefinite-lived asset.

In addition, an entity may choose to bypass the qualitative assessment for any indefinite-lived intangible asset in any period and proceed directly to calculate its fair value.

The amendments will not change how to measure an impairment loss and therefore, it is not expected to affect the information reported to users of financial statements.

Comments on the Exposure Draft are open until April 24, 2010.

Proposed effective date

The proposed amendments would be effective for annual and interim impairment tests performed for fiscal years beginning after June 15, 2012 with early adoption permitted.

Alternate configuration to streamline management of Financial Audits - Session Recap

2012-01-24T13:33:00Z

Ted Demetral, Senior Data Analyst in Forensic Audit at Delphi Corporation and Adam Garshell, Director of Internal Audit at Morgans Hotel Group, joined the policyIQ team in helping our audience to learn how they can efficiently manage their audits using policyIQ.

We’ll recap the highlights of the session below. If you’d like, you can jump over to the recording of the session or follow this link to the related materials in our online Help guide.

Common issues without a tool for managing audits

Ted Demetral described the process prior to implementing policyIQ for Internal Audit at Delphi Corporation: the organization previously did not have a formal folder structure for storing workpapers, there was no formal naming convention, audit materials were decentralized and every region managed their own audit program. As such, auditors struggled to find prior audit workpapers. Delphi also did not have a consistent method for tracking approval company-wide. Then, in 2006, they implemented policyIQ…

In our January CPE session we referred the audience to previously recorded sessions and policyIQ Help pages to refresh their memories on how to customize policyIQ Page Templates for their Risk, Control and Audit documentation. This month, we focused primarily on the structure for organizing audit-related materials and the steps for most efficiently managing the audit process.

Here is a recap of the critical steps that we recommend:

Update your structure

Create a Folder structure that houses your Audit Programs (All relevant Tests per Audit) separate from Risks and Controls.

Ensure that these “master” Test pages contain information that is consistent from one audit to the next (security, Test Objective, Sample, Testing Steps, link to relative Control)

Copy Folders with Pages and Links

Highlight and copy appropriate Audit Program Folder with Pages and Links to set up all Test pages per Audit.

File into appropriate “parent” folder structure (i.e. 2012 Audits)
Alternatively, if your organization has a relatively small audit group and great confidence that you are aware of any changes to Controls and, therefore, to relative Tests, then you might prefer to copy prior audit workpapers to be used in subsequent audits (as opposed to copying the master test pages that do not include detailed workpapers and test results). While Morgans Hotel Group sees revenues exceeding $225 million annually, they have a relatively small number of people updating their Risk and Control documentation and performing testing. Adam Garshell, their Director of Internal Audit, prefers this method of preparing for upcoming audits.

“Check Out To Others” in bulk

Highlight all relevant Tests and assign pages (Check Out To Others) to Tester.

As a part of that assignment, if you are among the reviewers and one of the Administrators of the Test page, have them automatically checked out to you upon completion.

Leverage Dashboard, Export

Testers watch email and “Checked Out To Me”
Reviewers watch email and “Awaiting My Approval”
Reporting! Reviewers utilize Favorite Reports and Export features to make analysis and roll-up to management more efficient.

Make your audit process run more smoothly, efficiently and with greater confidence in your results.

With a configuration similar to what we’ve described here, Delphi’s Ted Demetral reported significant gains in efficiency and integrity of information in their audits. “policyIQ’s really allowed us to tailor the pages to fit our needs so as things change, we are able to adapt with it.”

With Ted’s and Adam’s help, we pulled together this list of benefits related to the implementation of policyIQ for Financial Audits:

Consistent audit process company wide
Centralized access to workpapers
Simplified administration of process
Ability to leverage audit programs and previous audits
Communication streamlined
Monitoring of status nearly instantaneous
Management and Audit Committee Reporting is simplified

A special thanks to…

…Adam Garshell and Ted Demetral for your support in developing this session and in addressing attendees’ questions. Thank you, too, to our attendees for your active participation! Here’s a peek at part of our Chat conversation:

Facilitator Comment: Related to a comment regarding moving Test pages out of the “By Process” folder and into their own folder
Customer Reply: “We have found that recommendation critical for reporting. Otherwise, items often become comingled.”

Customer Question: “How do most users control access to the Audit Programs and/or test templates (i.e., are non-auditors given access to unpublished audit documents)?”
Customer Reply: “We assign security and segregate viewing to the individual pages or workprogram templates.”
Customer Reply: “For SOX, we create groups with access to individual folders.”

Facilitator Comment: “Sometimes copying the previous audit [for re-use in current audit] is more efficient. Others require that the audit be started with completely blank templates.”
Note: Both are possible in policyIQ (re-use previous audit workpapers or start from Audit Program “master” test pages).
Customer Note: “You can never hurt anything (from previous audits or in Audit Programs). It’s always a copy.”

Customer Comment: “Every time I take one of your trainings, my whiteboard fills up with ideas. :)”

Customer Comment: “bulk changes = invaluable”

Customer Question: “We link our test templates to the related controls that management identifies each year. If you copy tests as you described, will the links remain intact?”
Facilitator Reply: “Yes - and that's critical, you are right. When you copy the folder and pages, the 4th option on the Copy Folder feature is specifically designed to maintain those links.”

Customer Comment: “It’s also beneficial to build reports to perform bulk changes on pages across folders.”
Facilitator Response: “…that's a great point. I typically work from Reports rather than Folders, because my reports have the columns and fields that I want to see.”

Customer Question: “Do any of the participants have any suggestions about how to use policyIQ for internal audit reports? I mean written reports for distribution to audit committees, etc.”
Customer Responses in recording: both customer responders indicate that they use policyIQ to report on information, then export the information to Excel (option within the print/export feature) to reformat and present in the desired layout for audit committee and others.
Customer Response: “We also do manual reports but we use policyIQ for our deficiency logs that are requested by external auditors and others.”

“Available for Checkout”: Black Hole of policyIQ or Misunderstood Gem?

2012-01-19T15:15:00Z

I find myself frequently saying the words, "I don't recommend using the Available for Checkout stage as a part of your process" - and I have a lot of good reasons. Available for Checkout essentially means this: a page in policyIQ is not published, but it is also not currently sitting in someone's queue to be worked on. You can see how easily these pages might be overlooked and forgotten. If the responsibility isn't spelled out, it's easy to assume that someone else will take care of it.

And then a funny thing happened. A few months ago, I found myself specifically recommending the Available for Checkout stage for one of our policyIQ users - for exactly the reasons that I would normally avoid it.

The client uses policyIQ to manage their Sarbanes-Oxley documentation, with multiple business units and locations. Some processes in certain business units are not in scope - but the risk assessments and controls are retained, and test pages are even created each year. For those units not in scope, the information is simply left in a Draft state so that it is available should a situation occur to change the scope.

The audit team, however, actively uses their Checked Out to Me queue to manage their workload - and several hundred pages of not-in-scope Risks, Controls and Tests really gum up the works.

We considered some options. They could simply publish the pages, but they need to be sure that their final audit reports, made available to external auditors within policyIQ, do not include these out of scope pages. View security could accomplish this, but then every auditor would need to remember to update the View security if an item were to be changed to in scope (or to remove security if something were discovered to be out of scope).

Ultimately the right - and simple - answer was to pull all of those pages into Available for Checkout and keep them out of the queue for active work.

After this experience, I find myself rephrasing my previous words to be more clear. "Typically, we don't recommend using Available for Checkout as a part of your active workflow, because pages may be lost or forgotten."

Client Survey 2012 – We want to hear from you. Yes, YOU!

2012-01-10T16:14:00Z

Did you know that 2012 marks the 10th anniversary of policyIQ? It’s true – policyIQ has been helping clients manage content for an entire decade. policyIQ has changed a lot over the years, but thanks to our amazing community of users, the product has continued to improve as it ages. Much like myself. (Yeah, I just rolled my own eyes. It was just too easy.)

Changes in policyIQ happen because of our user community. YOU tell us what works and (often with a bit more conviction) what doesn’t work in the application – and we strive to make those improvements. And you all have made some fantastic suggestions over the years. Can you even imagine that once upon a time, policyIQ didn’t have customizable Templates for content?

As we move into our second decade, we need your feedback now more than ever.

Can you give us 10 minutes to take our 2012 Client Survey and tell us how we can improve the product and services that we offer?

We want to hear from every policyIQ user – from the casual, read-only user to the highly experienced Site Administrators. We want to know about your work environment, your training and support needs, and your hopes and dreams for policyIQ’s future.

Please pass along this policyIQ survey link to your colleagues who use policyIQ, regardless of their level of experience or degree of involvement. The broad range of voices will help us to better understand all of our users’ needs and create a better policyIQ for the next ten years.

Featured Feature: Bulk Changes in policyIQ

2012-01-09T22:00:00Z

It’s human nature…we figure out the steps required to complete our work and then re-perform those same steps again and again. It is rarer for people to regularly explore alternate and improved means to accomplish their routine tasks. If this sounds familiar to you, we are here to help. We will regularly make a point to highlight a feature that you might not be aware of and let you know how it may be useful.

This time around, we want to be sure that you know that you can make changes in bulk. Any place where you see a list of policyIQ items in the table (Items within a Folder, Report results, Items in your “Checked Out To Me” list, etc.), you can highlight multiple items and choose appropriate options from the toolbar above. These might be tasks like:

Assign all Tests within a particular folder to a tester at once
Change or update a field that many Pages have in common at once (like a Status field or Owner field, for example)
Index several items at once into a specific Folder.

For more information and examples, check out these resources:

Forum post: “Make changes to a list of Pages at one time”
Help Page: “Bulk Changes”

Keep an eye out for “Featured Features” in our monthly policyIQ Newsletter.

Is there a feature that you recently discovered that is a life saver--or at least a time saver--for you? Add a Comment below to share it with others!

Top 10 Finance and Accounting Issues for 2012 from Resources' Expert

2012-01-04T20:55:00Z

As we're all aware, the FASB and the IASB have been focusing their efforts in the past several years on convergence activities to converge US GAAP with IFRS. As we move into 2012, Resources Global Professional’s Colleen Cunningham, Global Managing Director of Accounting & Finance, highlights some of the biggest issues that she sees for the coming year, including…

Revenue recognition standards expected to be finalized;
Lease accounting standards to be finalized;
Conflict Minerals;
SEC decision on IFRS.

Check out Colleen’s Top 10 Finance and Accounting Issues for 2012 at her blog.

Better manage information and cost in 2012 and you could be a winner many times over!

2012-01-03T15:03:00Z

Consolidate management of standard processes in policyIQ

Work more efficiently by

streamlining hand-offs,
bringing automation to review and approval processes,
eliminating confusion around multiple versions of important information, and
availing your important information to employees in a centrally accessible environment.

Sign Up for Annual Subscription and Save

At the same time, you can optimize the value of your policyIQ Information Management Plan by signing up for an Annual Subscription. This plan includes the equivalent of two months free as compared to the Monthly Subscription plan. As we said previously, we also allow you to add users, as needed, throughout the year without the hassle of signing new agreements and you only pay for what you use—the remaining portion of the year for those users. We will not charge you for the entire year. This is not typical practice as software firms go--we're happy to be atypical!

You Could Win Two Advanced Users for a Year at No Charge

Bonus! Those with Annual Subscriptions as of January 31st will be eligible and automatically entered for a chance to win an additional two Advanced Users (at a value of $1100) in our User Giveaway Sweepstakes.

Of course you’re interested in saving money and having a chance to win two more users at no charge—so, Monthly Subscription clients, get in touch with us and let us know that you’d like to switch to the Annual Subscription!

New COSO Framework available for public comment: Have you reviewed the draft yet?

2011-12-28T15:42:00Z

When the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed in 2002, publicly held companies were required to put a structure around their internal controls over financial reporting. The Integrated Controls Framework that had been created and issued in 1992 by The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) became a standard framework of internal controls.

On December 19^th, COSO issued an update on their Framework for public review and comment. The update is intended to help organizations better perform in the current environment. Per COSO, “Enhancements to the Framework are not intended to alter the core principles first developed in 1992, but rather facilitate more robust discussion of internal control.”

For those of you involved in risk management, compliance, internal controls, financial reporting or any other aspect of Governance, Risk and Compliance within your organization, take the time to review the new draft and offer your perspectives – and you can influence the next generation of internal controls.

This draft is open for comment until March 31, 2012.

What will $55,000 buy you? Make the most cost-effective investment available to you.

2011-12-26T14:45:00Z

We often find ourselves being asked by new companies and existing customers to help them make a financial and functional comparison between policyIQ and other options available to them. Here’s the skinny:

If you’re interested in automating your anti-money laundering compliance efforts, centralizing and streamlining your FCPA process, or finally managing and distributing your policies and procedures in a secure and electronic environment, then you’re going to need to consider how that effort will be managed, accomplished and then supported on a day to day basis.

“Build-versus-buy decision points remain the same: cost, time to market, politics, architecture, skill sets, and strategic value”¹. While $55,000 a year might cover the salary of one junior project manager (per www.salary.com), with policyIQ, it buys you:

100 Advanced Users’ access to policyIQ
An unlimited number of read-only users with access to policyIQ
A policyIQ “Super user” to act as your ongoing implementation and business partner
Our Support Desk with a reputation for excellence in helpfulness and responsiveness
Our development team working continuously on new features and refining existing features
Our team of experienced testers
Our technical team overseeing and managing your database
Our data center hosts overseeing center, server and site security
All necessary hardware and software, relative maintenance
Regular upgrades to software functionality and features
Routine Training and configuration support
Access to a network of experienced project professionals ready to hit the ground running

All of this is priced for affordability, scalability and you can begin tailoring for your business needs immediately. There are no add-on modules and no additional development costs when you want to expand. You simply pay for the users who will be accessing policyIQ for anything more than basic read-only access.

In a related post on InfoWorld, Mark Lutchen, former global CIO of PricewaterhouseCoopers, now head of the firm’s IT Effectiveness practice says “Everybody knows that the more standardized you are and the more you buy off-the-shelf, the more cost effective it will be for both implementation and ongoing maintenance.”

Toby Redshaw, corporate vice president of strategy, architecture, and e-business at Motorola underscores Lutchen’s point saying SaaS is “a better sales model and return model for the enterprise...[it] incurs no hardware or software capital investment and drives maintenance costs lower still.”

It is true that we, on the policyIQ team, do not aim to meet every organization’s custom needs in various areas of the business. We do pride ourselves on offering a cost effective content management application that lends itself to automation of a wide range of standard business processes.

As you’re considering how to best utilize your IT, application and infrastructure budget for 2012, consider how you might consolidate the management and streamlining of multiple processes in policyIQ—and let us take it from there! We are looking forward to brainstorming with your process champions and helping you to realize cost savings and gains in efficiency in the coming year. Email us (Support@policyIQ.com) or call for more information (1-866-753-1231).

¹Traylor, P. To build or to buy IT applications? The oldest question in IT keeps getting more complicated as new options emerge. Here's how MCI, Motorola, Visa, and others are tackling the problem. InfoWorld. Retrieved from: http://www.infoworld.com/d/applications/build-or-buy-it-applications-676?page=0,0.

Financial Reporting Alert

2011-12-21T15:50:00Z

The policyIQ team is a division of Resources Global Professionals. Our organization issued this alert on December 19th and we want to be sure to pass it along to our policyIQ community. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out directly to your Resources Client Service Director or you may contact us and we'll help to connect you with your representative.

FASB AND IASB ISSUE COMMON DISCLOSURE REQUIREMENTS
FOR OFFSETTING ASSETS AND LIABILITIES

On December 16, 2011, The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) issued common disclosure requirements for the offsetting of assets and liabilities on the Statement of Financial Position (FASB: ASU 2011-11;Topic 210 Balance Sheet, IASB: Amendments to IAS 32: Financial Instruments Presentation).

Background

The differences in offsetting requirements under US GAAP and IFRS account for significant differences in the comparability of the Statement of Financial Position (balance sheet) for certain industries. As such, the users of financial statements requested both boards to address this issue in order to better enhance the comparability of the financial statements under both standards.

Offsetting, or netting, is the presentation of assets and liabilities as a single amount on the balance sheet. Unlike IFRS, US GAAP allows companies the option to present net on their balance sheets derivatives that are subject to a legally enforceable netting arrangement with the same party when rights of set-off are only available in the event of default or bankruptcy.

Main Provisions

Rather than converge on the actual requirements, the boards retained their existing offsetting models and instead issued new disclosure requirements to allow users to better compare financial statements presented in accordance with US GAAP or IFRS.

Entities are required to disclose both gross information and net information about both instruments and transactions eligible for offset in the statement of financial position and instruments and transactions subject to an agreement similar to a master netting arrangement. The scope includes derivatives, sale and repurchase agreements and reverse sale and repurchase agreements, and securities borrowing and securities lending arrangements.

Effective Date

US GAAP: For annual reporting periods beginning on or after January 1, 2013 and interim periods within those annual periods.

IFRS: Annual periods beginning on or after January 1, 2014.

Disclosure requirements are to be applied retrospectively under both standards.

How Resources Can Help

We provide strong technical accounting, project management, internal controls and information systems expertise and can help businesses with all aspects of financial reporting, including assessing the impact of this standards update on your business. Please contact your client service director for more information.

ABOUT RESOURCES GLOBAL PROFESSIONALS
Resources Global Professionals is a multinational professional services firm that helps business leaders execute internal initiatives. Working as members of client teams, we solve problems, execute and transfer knowledge. Partnering with business leaders, we drive internal change across all parts of a global enterprise - finance and accounting, information management, internal audit, human capital, legal services and supply chain management.

Resources Global was founded in 1996 within a Big Four accounting firm. Today, we are a publicly traded company with over 2,700 professionals, from more than 80 practice offices, serving 2,200 clients around the world. Headquartered in Irvine, California, Resources Global has served 81 of the Fortune 100 companies.

For additional information, please contact your Resources Global Professionals Client Service Director. www.resourcesglobal.com 1(800)900-1131.

Wishing you a very happy holiday season!

2011-12-21T13:41:00Z

We're extremely grateful for the opportunities that we have had to get to know all of you within the policyIQ user community. Of course, it is wonderful to know you on a professional level - what are your goals, what makes you successful, and where can we help. But I also love when I get the chance to spend a few minutes getting to know YOU, those things we have in common and the wonderful (and sometimes not so wonderful) things happening in your lives.

Just within the last year, I've...

Celebrated with you as you brought twins into the world.
Shared the process of buying a new home, and commiserated about all of the "little" projects that continue to eat up our free time.
Sympathized with the stresses that a new job brings.
Finally met you in person after years of working together, and discovered a shared love of theater.
Mourned with you over the loss of a dear pet.
Shared your excitement and apprehension as you moved your family halfway across the world for a new career opportunity.
Laughed with you over vacation mishaps worthy of sitcom writers.

Any one of our team members could be writing this blog post, and would have just as many great connections to share.

So as the year draws to a close, we want to wish you all - our friends, colleagues and community - a very Happy Holiday Season. We have truly enjoyed sharing all the joys that the past year has brought to you, and we wish all the best for the next year to you and all those that are important in your lives.

Season's Greetings! Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! And a very Happy New Year to all!

With just 10 minutes of your time, you can influence our next release of policyIQ!

2011-12-15T18:48:00Z

Just last week, we told you about our goals for 2012. A few of you contacted us after reading that post to tell us about your goals for using policyIQ in 2012. We value those conversations, because it helps us to prioritize our efforts to deliver the most important features, training sessions and support services to our user community.

policyIQ has always been a customer-driven product, relying heavily on the feedback we receive from our users. In 2012, we’re taking that up a notch to bring you – our policyIQ user community – directly into the design process. We want to show you version 7 in its earliest stages of development (warts and all), so that we can polish the rough edges with your feedback in mind. (We’re mixing our metaphors, but we think you understand.)

It would be awesome if we could speak with every single policyIQ user at every step of the process, but that’s not practical for you or for us. Instead, we’re asking for volunteers to give us 10 minutes of their time to see a rough version 7, and to answer questions and tell us their impressions.

If you are interested in participating over the next few months, let us know! We’ll need some users right away, but we might wait and ask some of you to participate a little later. If we don’t reach out to you right away, it isn’t because we don’t value your feedback, but rather because we have too many volunteers for the first round. Contact us to participate in this early product design review!

Participate in International Anti-Corruption Day with policyIQ and Resources Global Professionals training

2011-12-08T16:31:00Z

The United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime are leading Against Corruption Today (ACT), a campaign to fight corruption across the globe. They have declared tomorrow, December 9th, to be International Anti-Corruption Day.

Anti-Corruption has been a hot topic lately for most companies, but in our business blogs, webinars and articles, we've tended to focus on the regulations and corporate financial impacts of non-compliance. The Against Corruption Today campaign focuses on the economic and social impact of corruption to regular citizens throughout the world.

Within their Call to Action Matrix, ACT recommends some familiar tactics for the private sector to improve the global economy and eliminate corrution worldwide:

Strengthen democracy…
Foster economic stability by enforcing zero-tolerance practices towards corruption.

A transparent and open business community is a cornerstone of any strong democracy.

Promote justice…
Enact policies covering gifts, supply chain, whistleblowers and other key corruption issues, educate employees about them.

Employees will work better if they feel confident that they are operating in a fair and just environment.

Bring prosperity…
Strictly enforce anti-corruption measures and use independent auditors to ensure compliance. Introduce “anti-corruption strategies” into the social dialogue (see Trade Unions).

In the private sector, corruption increases the cost of doing business through the added “tax” of bribes, the additional management cost of negotiating with corrupt officials, and the legal and financial penalties of breached agreements or getting caught.

Participate in International Anti-Corruption Day by learning more from policyIQ and Resources Global Professionals

The policyIQ team recently hosted a webinar outlining tactics for using policyIQ to manage your Anti-Corruption Compliance Program. Check out the recording, or review the wrap-up blog post from that session to learn more.

And coincidentally, Resources Global Professionals will be hosting a webinar next Tuesday, December 13th (12 pm ET) titled International Compliance Enforcement: The Need for an Effective Best Practices Compliance Program. Hosted by Thomas Robert Fox, Resources consultant and FCPA / Anti-Bribery legal expert, this session will explore the best practices for establishing an effective global compliance program. Register today to secure your spot in this fantastic upcoming webinar!

Looking ahead: Sharing our goals for 2012, including the launch of version 7

2011-12-08T16:21:00Z

I love gearing up for a brand new year. There is something about rolling over the calendar that makes me feel as though anything is possible in the coming 12 months!

As the policyIQ team gets ready to greet 2012, we really do feel like anything is possible in this upcoming year! We have some amazing things happening, and we can't wait to share them with you. Our goals for the year are aimed at helping YOU to:

Consolidate and save! We will develop new ways to apply policyIQ for the management of business content and processes so that organizations may consolidate processes within one system, save time and save money.
Network with other policyIQ users. We will foster the establishment of a collaborative environment of best practice sharing, open communication and idea generation among members of our policyIQ user community.
Enjoy excellent support. We will provide the highest quality of user support that has made policyIQ and Resources Global Professionals a valued partner to hundreds of companies around the world.
Take advantage of new tools. We will put our existing and new clients on the path to greater efficiency using a range of media to simplify and expedite the configuration and implementation of policyIQ.
Access policyIQ from any browser! We will launch version 7: a fully cross-browser compatible version of policyIQ with still more features aimed at improving the policyIQ user-experience!

Experience a more user-friendly policyIQ...from any browser!

It might seem like it has been awhile since our last feature rich upgrade to policyIQ, but don't let that fool you. Our development team has been hard at work on some truly amazing new things - and we are just taking a little longer than normal between upgrades to roll out a fantastic new interface with policyIQ version 7.

In 2012, policyIQ will be cross-browser compatible! For those of you who prefer Firefox or perhaps use Safari on your Mac when working at home, policyIQ will be fully functional on all of the major alternative browsers.

In addition to no longer requiring the use of Internet Explorer, we're updating the interface for better response times and more user-friendly navigation with features such as a resizable left navigation pane! We can't share too many details just yet, but we will soon be reaching out to some of our power users to review the upcoming changes and to solicit feedback.

Look for new ways to connect via social media!

We're also looking forward to bringing you new ways to connect with us and with each other via social media. Keep an eye out for Twitter feeds and LinkedIn groups to follow in the coming year.

Respond to our survey in January

We don't set our goals in a vacuum. We need your input! In January, we'll be launching a customer survey to help us to better understand your needs and wishes for policyIQ. Make your voices heard - and share the survey with any colleagues who are using policyIQ, as well. Keep an eye on your email for this important request.

We hope that you have all enjoyed a wonderful year in 2011 - and we're looking forward to helping you with your continued success in 2012!

Cyber Monday Special: Free CPE Credit! (Offer valid anytime! No restrictions!)

2011-11-28T16:52:00Z

It’s that time of the year again! We’re all searching and scrambling to check off our lists. No, I’m not talking about shopping for holiday gifts; I’m talking about completing all of the necessary hours to earn those Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits that you need before the end of the year.

Are free CPE credits on your holiday wish list this year? Let Resources help you out!

Did you know that Resources Global Professionals offers a free monthly CPE event? You can register for any of our webinars, which cover a broad range of topics. In 2011, we've covered subjects such as successful project management, critical compliance updates, financial reporting updates, corporate sustainability, best practices in supply chain management and software selection. Every session is lead by a subject matter expert with vast experience in the topic, and focused on the trends, current events and regulations that are impacting our businesses.

On December 13th, Resources will be presenting the last CPE webinar of 2011 - and this one will be fantastic! Check out the information below, and register for the session today.

INTERNATIONAL COMPLIANCE ENFORCEMENT: The Need for an Effective Best Practices Compliance Program

When: Tuesday December 13th, 9am PT/12pm ET

With recent SEC and DOJ compliance rulings and the passing of the UK Bribery Act, the scope of international enforcement is widening. Both the US and UK have recently put forth what they consider current ‘best practices’ for an FCPA Compliance Program and many companies are feeling a greater sense of urgency to establish an effective global compliance program which incorporates this guidance. In this session, we will discuss the best practices resulting from the top three settlements in 2011 and the UK Bribery Act as well as lessons learned for your compliance program.

Presented by: Thomas Robert Fox, Resources Consultant

Thomas Robert Fox has practiced law in Houston for over 25 years and is currently a Resources consultant, assisting companies with FCPA compliance, risk management and international transactions. Most recently, Tom was General Counsel at Drilling Controls, Inc, and previous to that, Division Counsel with Halliburton Energy Services. Tom holds a law degree from the University of Michigan and writes and speaks internationally on a wide variety of topics ranging from FCPA compliance, tax issues and protection of trade secrets.

You've heard us mention Thomas Fox previously on our blog, as a subject matter expert, blogger and consultant on compliance and legal issues. We on the policyIQ team are big fans of his blog, and we're looking forward to this fantastic event on International Compliance Enforcement! We know that many of you are responsible for the various compliance initiatives in your organizations, and we know that you'll find this session to be extremely valuable - even if you have already taken care of all of your CPE requirements for the year. Click here to register today!

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We provide registration links within our monthly newsletter to all policyIQ and Resources Global CPE events, so stay tuned through 2012 as we keep you informed of all of the free CPE that you could be earning throughout the year! In January, Resources Global will kick off a series on Change Management, which will be a valuable topic regardless of the area of the business in which you work. We hope you'll join us!

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