I. Executive Summary
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 has had significant effects on the business community. The impact of initial cost and compliance have been been felt by financial management, and top management, in general. Of the many SOX compliance requirements, Section 404 seems to be the area companies view as the most difficult to implement and comply with:

Section 404 – Management Assessment of Internal Controls requires that, annually, management assess the internal controls in place for financial reporting and include this internal control assessment in the annual report.

As the total costs of SOX compliance become more visible, companies are turning to their IT organization to help identify and implement technology solutions that can help address the internal financial control challenges more effectively and economically.

Canon provides a unified document solution connecting imaging to distribution and management to publishing and printing. This, along with its underlying security and connectivity to the network and software systems, may play a substantial role in the implementation of a superior internal control structure for financial reporting.

Financial reporting depends on vast information that originates on paper and makes its way into the significant accounts transactions that are the basis for the financial reports. This paper-based information has to be converted and fed into the financial reporting process in a timely manner so accountants and analysts have more time to analyze and prepare financial reports and documentation.

Controls need to be set and monitored along this process in order to pronounce the internal controls system sound and effective. Canon Office Systems technologies are ubiquitous and the central point through which information is captured, converted from paper to digital, sent, stored, managed, and printed/reproduced throughout the financial reporting business process. Therefore, it is important to understand how companies can take advantage of the available features from Canon that can help them place controls around these “transformation points” to improve internal controls, secure and move information faster, reduce manual human intervention and errors, reduce the cost of compliance, and improve operating efficiency.

This paper explains the variety of Canon products and features available so companies can make intelligent decisions about how to deploy Canon Office Systems products strategically. Strategic deployment can help a company leap beyond just achieving an incremental improvement in its internal control structure for financial reporting; it can actually achieve efficiencies, lower costs, and improve information security.

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