Global Companies Leverage Compliance Analytics & Automation Software for Accelerated IPO-Readiness

The Need

Securities laws in various jurisdictions require publicly traded companies, otherwise known as issuers, to make and keep accurate books, accounts, and records and to devise and maintain a system of internal accounting controls. Many cases, particularly in the FCPA space, have imposed liability on companies when a compliance program does not have sufficient processes and internal controls in place or when resulting accounting records are inaccurate. Some of those processes and controls include approvals and disclosures processes, third-party risk management processes, and monitoring and auditing protocols.

Many companies have run afoul of these laws requiring accurate books and records where an improper payment is made but is accounted for inaccurately. For example, a sales person pays a bribe, but in the accounting entries, the bribe payment is documented as “miscellaneous consulting.” Although the payment is described in all of its related documentation, from the sham contract to the sham invoices and inaccurate accounting entries, as miscellaneous consulting, it is an improper payment to a government official in reality.

Pre-IPO, most companies already have some controls, compliance, and risk management processes in place. However, they are often not sufficiently robust to meet the higher standards imposed on a publicly traded company. In order to comply with the applicable laws and regulations, these companies need to create a robust, integrated program that balances those needs and expectations with their budget, timeline, and resources.

The Solution

Companies in multiple jurisdictions have implemented Case IQ’s platform to help meet the internal controls and books and records requirements of these securities laws. Case IQ has helped the Compliance teams at multiple companies at the pre-IPO stage in the IPO preparation process, otherwise known as IPO readiness. Our software provides solutions for the entire lifecycle of spend, from approval and third party onboarding to compliance monitoring using data analytics after the spend has been incurred.

Our Approvals and Disclosures software manages approvals of compliance-sensitive matters, such as giving and receiving gifts and hospitality, providing donations and sponsorships and disclosing employee conflicts of interest. Our Third-Party Risk Management software manages the end-to-end onboarding of third parties, from the submission of a business need/rationale to risk scoring the third party engagement and sending due diligence questionnaires to the third party. Both products also allow companies to easily screen counter-parties for sanctions, government connections and adverse media.

Our Compliance Monitoring software ingests financial transactions from the company’s financial systems (e.g., SAP, Oracle, Concur, etc.) and risk scores transactions in realtime to identify anomalous activity that may be indicative of fraud, bribery, sanctions violations or conflicts of interest. Our Compliance Monitoring software can even validate pre-approved amounts of spend against actual spend amounts to identify the potential contravention of controls.

Both our workflow and compliance data analytics offerings help smaller pre-IPO companies to have world-class technology to ensure that the company has sufficient internal controls and is maintaining accurate books and records.

The Results

Case IQ has helped small and large companies prepare for their IPOs with out-of-the-box software to meet the books and records and internal controls provisions of securities laws. We give companies of all sizes access to world-class compliance tools and technology that have previously only been accessible to the largest companies in the world due to the complications of cost-prohibitive, complex custom-built compliance software. We provide organizations with the same tools those companies have much earlier in the process, helping level the playing field. Pre- IPO companies often have lean compliance teams, small budgets, and limited time. Case IQ’s innovative functionality, like complex branching approval logic and aggregate spend caps,
allow small compliance teams to do much more with less human resources, without sacrificing any degree of risk scrutiny. The software enables Compliance teams to focus on high-risk transactions, approvals and disclosures, and high-risk third parties, while lower-risk items can be handled by related stakeholders who are empowered to own compliance and share the accountability.

Manage Your Organization’s Compliance Program with Confidence Using Case IQ

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