ACCT 8391: Field Study in Accounting – End of Semester Paper

Topic 1 - Describe your experience working on a project as a team member. Emphasize things you learned about accounting-related topics, things you learned about teamwork from interacting with other team members, and contributions you made to the group, both by sharing your accounting-related knowledge and expertise and by sharing your teamwork skills.

The SOX compliance works were done by the SOX compliance manager with the help from various department managers and their staffs prior to 2009. Due to the limitation in resources, some of the SOX documents were out of date. I joined the SOX compliance team in 2009 to help the documentation of SOX related processes and controls. This year’s major project is to perform a walkthrough of all the business cycles which is planned from February to early July. The purpose is to ensure the SOX documentations are up to date, as well as identify potential areas of improvement. This project is being performed by me and the SOX Compliance Manager, as well as helps from managers in various business units.
Why is it an important project? Although the documentation and the assessment of internal control over financial reporting are required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, internal controls have been exist many years before the enact of the act. The act is served as a wake-up call to the management for the importance of having effective internal control environment. Radiant Systems, inc. implemented the SOX documentations in 2004. At the time of implementation, the PCAOB had not yet published the AS 5, which emphasized a top-down approach for assessing the internal control framework. The SOX documentation and the internal controls framework of our company were based on AS 2, which required more extensive assessment and documentation. Unlike other companies which