More than 880 chief financial officers and senior information technology executives participated in a survey during a June seminar on best practices for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance sponsored by PeopleSoft and Business Finance Magazine.

"Companies are seriously concerned that they don't have the appropriate internal controls and financial management processes in place to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley," said John Van Decker, vice president of technology research services at META Group, which analyzed the survey results. "In fact, almost 90 percent of the companies surveyed are already engaged in evaluating or implementing a Sarbanes-Oxley project, and 40 percent intend to upgrade current processes and systems in their compliance efforts."

The following survey results highlight the top compliance strategies and initiatives that companies are pursuing to meet new Sarbanes-Oxley mandates:

• 86 percent of respondents were already engaged in evaluating or implementing a Sarbanes-Oxley project
• 56 percent planning to implement a Sarbanes-Oxley solution in the next three to six months
• 71 percent believe that Section 404, which requires business process audits and documentation to support internal controls certification, is the most critical part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
• 65 percent will seek to leverage their Sarbanes-Oxley initiatives to achieve process improvements that will increase business efficiencies and competitive advantage
• 54 percent are moving forward with their Section 404 compliance initiatives, despite the SEC's May decision to extend the compliance deadline to June 15, 2004. Public companies with a fiscal year ending on or after June 15, 2004 must now include a management report on internal controls in their annual report
• 40 percent of respondents believe that they will need to upgrade current financial processes and systems to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley. Top initiatives under consideration include: business performance management solutions; internal compliance dashboards/portals; enabling workflow; replacing/upgrading finance systems; and consolidating ERP instances