Building Bot Boundaries: RPA Controls in SOX Systems

As highlighted in our recent Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Compliance Survey, SOX efforts and costs continue to rise for many organizations, and organizations are increasingly interested in exploring ways in which robotic process automation (RPA) can help them balance out the SOX effort-cost equation. Yet, RPA is new territory for a majority of organizations, and the implications and risks to internal control over financial reporting (ICFR) are not yet fully appreciated.

This article examines some of the SOX compliance challenges that may result from an RPA implementation and how to avoid them.