Software helps design and manage control procedures.July 14, 2006 -
BizRights® Platform and Enterprise Controls Suite v3.5 enables professional services firms to conduct internal and external audits, perform control and process reviews, and design and implement enterprise-wide systems. Based on Open Controls Framework(TM), solution also lets users develop differentiated offerings that address compliance needs for specific industries and business processes. Software can also identify areas of risk, flag control exceptions, and uncover fraud/mistakes.
(Archive News Story - Products mentioned in this Archive News Story may or may not be available from the manufacturer.)
Original Press release
Approva Corp.
1950 Roland Clarke Place
Reston, VA, 20191
USA
Approva Announces Enterprise Controls Management Solution for Audit and Professional Services Firms
New Offering Enables Firms to Conduct Comprehensive Control Assessments Within and Across Enterprise Applications
RESTON, Va., June 12 -- Approva(R) Corporation, the leader in enterprise controls management software, today announced the availability of a new solution designed to meet the unique needs of audit and professional services firms. The solution enables services firms to conduct internal and external audits, perform control and process reviews, and design and implement enterprise-wide systems that comply with internal control requirements and external mandates such as Sarbanes-Oxley, Basel II and HIPAA. In addition, the solution enables services firms to develop differentiated offerings that address compliance needs for specific industries and business processes, even when they include custom-designed solutions or legacy applications.
"Auditors and consultants can improve their effectiveness, and conduct audits and control reviews more efficiently, by employing solutions that automate controls assessments to support their client engagements," said Harvey Pitt, chief executive officer of Kalorama Partners and former SEC chairman.
"Our use of Approva BizRights helps us better identify control deficiencies and process improvements for our clients because we can examine more data across multiple applications than traditional tools," said Emmett Lange, principal at Sunera Business Consultants, an international risk services firm. "Our customers benefit from improved operational excellence."
"With this new offering, we are enabling auditors and control service providers to perform more effective and efficient assessments of their clients' internal controls," said Rick Cobb, chief operating officer at Approva. "We allow auditors and consultants to capture and reuse their controls knowledge, so they can apply it consistently across their firms, reduce risk and increase the quality of services they deliver to their clients. In addition, service providers can now expand their portfolio by offering value-added services that look not just at financial controls but also at operational controls and overall process efficiency."
Approva's solution, which is based on the Open Controls Framework(TM), enables auditors and consultants to build solutions that are tailored to their firm's standards and methodologies. It enables them to independently assess their clients' control environments and business processes to identify areas of risk, flag control exceptions and uncover fraud, inefficiency and mistakes that directly impact their clients' operational processes and financial statements. In addition, the new solution enables firms to design, implement and validate company-specific control procedures when implementing new enterprise applications. By utilizing Approva's solution, auditors and consultants will -- for the first time -- be able to use a packaged software application to address the most pervasive and complex compliance challenges that their clients face today including:
o Rationalizing and optimizing internal controls across heterogeneous IT environments
o Identifying and eliminating segregation of duties and sensitive access violations within and across applications
o Identifying incorrect system configuration settings
o Controlling access to master data to guard intellectual property and to ensure that personal data privacy is protected
o Comprehensively analyzing business processes and transactions to identify fraud, mistakes and inefficiency
o Expanding controls initiatives from financial to operational processes
o Ensuring that new ERP deployments and upgrades go live without control exceptions
o Designing compliance into business processes as part of enterprise-wide deployments
The new solution is built on Approva's BizRights(R) Platform and includes four components. The first component is a set of pre-defined rules, reports and adapters that address the most common controls for major ERP and financial applications. The second component includes new functionality within BizRights that enables users to securely and efficiently obtain and normalize the data required to perform control assessments. The third component includes the four BizRights Authoring Studios, which provide the ability for services firms to build additional rules, reports, adapters and applications that are consistent with their own methodologies and which meet their clients' most pressing controls needs. The fourth component is comprised of Approva Certified Professional training and support services tailored to the needs of auditors and services firms as well as access to forums for sharing best practices.
This new solution provides significant benefits to both services firms and their customers. Services firms benefit by offering differentiated packaged solutions that comprehensively and consistently address their clients' controls challenges. Their clients can benefit by reducing the cost of compliance as a result of more comprehensive and actionable control assessments and implementing stronger control environments that reduce the risk of fraud, enforce internal policies and protect intellectual property and personal information.
The solution is available as part of version 3.5 of Approva's BizRights Platform and Enterprise Controls Suite. Licensing is available on a per- engagement or enterprise-wide subscription basis, and can be made available in a secure, hosted environment.
About Approva
Approva(R) Corporation is the industry-leading provider of Enterprise Controls Management software. We enable business, finance, IT and audit professionals to automate the on-demand testing, closed-loop remediation and continuous, exception-based monitoring of controls within and across their business systems. Using our solutions, customers are able to significantly increase visibility into their controls, streamline the audit process, cost- effectively sustain their compliance initiatives and reduce exposure to mistakes, fraud and inefficiencies for business processes such as procurement, sales and delivery, payroll and financial close. In addition, our automated solutions act as key preventative and detective controls, further strengthening our customers' financial and operational control environments. Global companies such as Campbell Soup Company, Colgate-Palmolive, DirecTV, Discovery Communications, McCormick & Company, P&G, Pratt & Whitney, Siemens and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts rely on Approva BizRights(R) Platform and Enterprise Controls Suite to reduce compliance risk, increase operational efficiency and flag exceptions to their business controls. For more information, visit http://www.approva.net/.
About the Open Controls Framework
The Open Controls Framework (OCF) is Approva's standards-based approach designed to make it easier for companies and their auditors to simplify the way they acquire data, analyze controls, report exceptions and audit key application and operational controls. OCF is designed to make it easy to capture, organize, translate and exchange controls data, rules and reports across organizational boundaries and between companies and their external auditors. One important element of the OCF is the standard XML-based controls and reporting language which it uses to represent controls-related information. More information is available on the Approva web site at http://approva.net/ocf.
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