In-Depth

Hyperion and Deloitte Tout Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Offering

New solution consolidates information from different sources—including financial applications and internal controls—into a single dashboard view.

• By Stephen Swoyer
• 04/28/2004

To help enterprise IT organizations satisfy the Sarbanes-Oxley Act's stringent reporting requirements, Hyperion Solutions Corp. teamed up with Deloitte Consulting to promote an offering for financial and internal control monitoring and reporting.

Organizations must ensure reporting compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley in three key areas: integrity of their financial systems (section 404), timeliness and accuracy of financial reports (section 302), and improved monitoring to detect internal fraud (sections 404 and 409).

Hyperion says that the new offering consolidates information from a variety of different sources—such as financial applications, internal controls, and operational data—into a single dashboard view. The result is a central source of information on policies and principles that is integrated with day-to-day financial operations, such that users can analyze and take action on potential control weaknesses. The upshot, the two partners say, is that business managers can both monitor their compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley and make decisions that help to improve business performance.

Some industry watchers have speculated that savvy companies will take advantage of Sarbanes-Oxley and other regulatory requirements to reengineer their business processes and enhance corporate performance.

In this respect, Cognos, IBM, Hyperion and other vendors with strong business performance management or professional services assets have been only too happy to play along. “We know that our clients are seeking solutions that will enable them to achieve compliance not just as an end in itself, but as a critical stop on the path to improving overall business performance,” said Rich Clayton, vice president of product marketing for Hyperion, in a statement. “By integrating Hyperion’s Business Performance Management applications with Deloitte’s leading practices and internal control processes, we have designed this solution specifically to help organizations focus on superior operational and financial performance while monitoring compliance.”

Beneath the covers, the new offering taps Deloitte’s financial and internal control monitoring and reporting framework, known as OneView, along with Hyperion’s Financial Management software.

The two partners say their Sarbanes-Oxley compliance offering can help companies reduce their close-cycle times by days or weeks, as well as cut their compliance and operational costs by automating procedures that would otherwise be implemented using cumbersome manual controls.