All,
I've started receiving feedback from folks who have seen my postings about Sarbanes-Oxley on the internet and on our site. I received a comment from Peter Nelson of LBB & Associates Ltd., LLP as follows:
Teresa: I generally understand your comment, but respectfully disagree with most of it. We are talking about smaller reporting companies here - not enron, worldcom, or any of the many others. The SEC has different rules for these companies for a reason, and you may be enlightened by other exceptions these companies are granted in periodic filings. While I can appreciate your vested interest against this legislation, this committee vote is a good sign that someone is interested in stopping the rampant and unprecedented growth of government in our country. As CPA's, we should focus on what is important, and applying 404b to smaller reporting companies is far from mission critical to the investing public or our democratic society. I operate in the SRC field almost exclusively, and my revenues would be favorably impacted by the 404b requirement for SRC's, but I remain supportive of the committee action due to the relative unimportance of this issue relative to other challenges of our country and profession. It is a cost without measurable benefit.
Even with that said, your services are of great value in the larger sector. The SRC's are likely going to end up in your fold eventually anyway, since who knows how far this committee action goes.
Regards,
Peter D. Nelson, CPA
Partner, LBB & Associates Ltd., LLP
2500 Wilcrest, Suite 150, Houston, TX 77042
Phone 713-877-9944, efax 713-583-2263
I sincerely appreciate Peter's message to me.
As you have all seen in my past posts, smaller companies are the ones who are most susceptible to errors, fraud, etc. This has been statically proven without question and is not just my opinion.
A challenge I'd like to put out there for external auditors is to follow our lead by examining the costs associated with their services and try to make the effort to make their services more affordable for their clients. There is no question that their clients but more importantly, their clients shareholders would benefit from a 404(b) audit. Are there any external auditors out there who would take the challenge and lower their audit fees or consider a fix-fee approach to help ease their client's burden? Does anyone else have any feedback for Peter?
All my best,
Teresa Bockwoldt MBA, MST
CEO & Co-Founder
Vibato®, LLC
655 Montgomery Street, 5th Floor, Suite 540 San Francisco, CA 94111
Office: 415.240.4867 | Mobile: 707.477.0008 | Fax: 888.407.7725
SOX Compliance Made Simple® | http://www.soxprofessionals.com/
Please update your records with my new email address: tbockwoldt@vibato.com
