Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance

SOX, as it's widely known, refers to the package of measures introduced by US Congress in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, in the wake of corporate scandals, most notably the accounting discrepancies found at WorldCom and Enron.

SOX regulations apply to all US businesses and their subsidiaries, and any non-US SEC-listed companies. They require senior management teams to have specific controls in place to be able to track the movement of financial transactions within their business, which must be regularly audited and continually reviewed. These controls are then reviewed by external auditors, as part of the activities required in reporting on their clients' financial year-end statements.

Where clients outsource some or all of their financial processes and related activity, a SAS-70 Type II report is required by the clients' auditors to provide independent evidence that their service providers operate effective financial controls satisfying the SOX standards. This report addresses critical benchmarks such as completeness, accuracy and timeliness of their control activities and processes.

As a US-owned company ourselves, we have to comply with SOX standards and we also have to make sure that the services we are delivering comply with those standards. As part of Ceridian's responsibility to our clients, we commissioned the services of a well known independent services auditor to perform tests of effectiveness against the design and effectiveness of our service controls so we can provide a SAS-70 Type II report for those of our clients who require it.

Over the last 12 months, we've invested a considerable amount of time and money to ensure that we have the controls and standards in place to earn our SAS-70 report. We're also committed to continuing this work and have a dedicated Business Excellence team in place that is responsible for making sure that Ceridian's services continue to conform to the highest standards.