FloQast Introduces Compliance Management Solution for Continuous Audit Readiness and Controls Optimization

Solution integrates controls capture directly into Financial Close and other processes, reducing complexity, costs, and compliance implementation and maintenance efforts

 FloQast, a provider of accounting workflow automation software created by accountants for accountants, announced the launch of FloQast Compliance Management, an advanced workflow solution that helps finance, accounting, and internal audit teams centrally manage and integrate compliance into business processes for continuous audit readiness and integrity. Offered as part of FloQast’s cloud-native Accounting Operations Platform, FloQast Compliance Management integrates with FloQast Close Management and FloQast Ops to deliver the ability to set up controls capture directly into the Financial Close and other business operations like payroll processing and financial reporting. Now, organizations can monitor controls in real-time and align around their compliance program, reducing risk and giving control owners clear visibility into ownership and accountability.

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FloQast Compliance Management reduces the cost and effort of implementing and maintaining new compliance and controls programs. Organizations can streamline end-to-end compliance management, reducing manual effort and gaining the scalability and agility to meet changing business environments and compliance regulations. FloQast Compliance Management complements additional, existing compliance-related solutions and coexists seamlessly with the tools control managers rely on to manage their compliance program, including spreadsheets, cloud storage, email, and messaging platforms.

“Internal compliance teams are under huge amounts of pressure to deliver more detailed information to external auditors and organizational leadership, but too often rely on disconnected solutions and manual processes to manage compliance programs,” said Mike Whitmire, CEO and co-founder of FloQast, CPA. “FloQast Compliance Management automates these manual efforts for a more data-driven, collaborative audit that better empowers organizations to respond to changing regulatory and business environments and foster happier teams.”

The burden of compliance on organizations has never been greater. Between a complex and ever-evolving regulatory environment, staffing shortages, and rising compliance costs, many companies struggle with the visibility and coordination required to navigate the compliance landscape. In fact, recent research from FloQast indicated the average organization spends about $2.4 million annually on compliance and control processes, however only 26% of professionals feel their existing compliance and control management processes add significant value to the organization.

According to Michael Rasmussen, GRC 2020 Pundit and Analyst, “There will only be more regulatory requirements, complexity and costs to maintain GRC programs on the horizon. To more effectively manage this reality companies will need to adopt GRC 6.0 – Business Integrated GRC, which integrates risk, compliance and controls management into core business processes, that will deliver greater visibility, assurance, and efficiency across all their compliance efforts.”

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FloQast Compliance Management optimizes organizations’ compliance and controls programs through:

• Continuous Controls Capture for Better Visibility and Accountability: With FloQast Compliance Management, teams capture financial controls while performing daily tasks like the Close or account reconciliation for clear visibility into control ownership, responsibilities, and execution. Teams can enforce control testing and shift accountability back to business task owners.
• Synchronized Risk Control Matrix (RCM), Process Narratives, and Flowcharts: FloQast Compliance Management automatically synchronizes teams’ Risk Control Matrix (RCM) to process narratives and flowcharts for real-time capture and storage of audit evidence that is always current and in sync, reducing the time and effort needed to prepare for audit by both accountants and auditors.
• PBC Automation for Simplified Collaboration: FloQast Compliance Management automates Prepared By Client (PBC) processes for easier collaboration between Finance, Accounting, and Audit by capturing audit evidence during financial control execution and synchronizing it to teams’ RCM. Internal and external auditors can now work in parallel off a single source of audit truth, eliminating duplicate audit activities and complexity by reducing the number of requests for information and clarifications. The Audit becomes more efficient with reduced audit cycle times and cleaner audit data that is easier to access and share
• Embedded Testing for Audit Efficiency: Internal auditors can now track control owners’ assignments while defining and executing their testing plans in the system, eliminating the need for a separate testing platform. With intuitive dashboards, auditors and financial control owners have real-time visibility into the progress of both controls and testing with easy drill-downs back to each business process. Finance, Accounting, and Audit can work as a unified team to find and address control design gaps for continuous optimization and total compliance assurance.

Brandon Peters, Director of SOX Compliance & Head of Internal Audit, a.k.a Brands said, “With FloQast Compliance Management, we have centralized our compliance program for one source of truth and linked controls to checklist items, capturing evidence during financial close task execution and increasing accountability and visibility among control owners.”

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