Sarbanes-Oxley demands quality in financial reporting. While the initial costs of SOX compliance have been extraordinarily high, companies can achieve a return on investment by approaching their SOX compliance with a mindset to drive quality throughout their financial operations. AMR Research estimates that companies will spend more than $6 billion in 2005 to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley. Forward-thinking executives view this as a $6 billion opportunity to improve their businesses.

Companies can achieve a return on compliance spending by using SOX as a lever to improve business processes- processes mapped as part of their SOX documentation. This paper details specific ways that companies have reduced their ongoing compliance costs and increased the quality of their financial operations to truly turn compliance into cash.

The Compliance Framework Companies determined to improve their business through SOX compliance face a substantial challenge: How can I make compliance attainable, sustainable, and cost-effective while improving quality? The answer is to build compliance requirements into the foundation of how you run your business. Companies must get past the "what do I have to do to be compliant" and now to answer the question: How do I make this a strategic part of what I do?

Active compliance goes beyond sample based audits that assess the magnitude of exceptions; it moves into the real-time transaction stream. Active compliance regiments compliance into the process instead of looking for compliance after the fact. Compliance is no longer an occasional activity but an essential part of what you do.