One of the best time savers for dealing with the mass-quantities of documentation produced in accounting departments is to store your hardcopy support in binders by month.  Whenever we suggest this to new customers who have typically stored their documents in file cabinets spread amongst the various accounting staff we ALWAYS get the response that this sounds like a waste of time and a lot of work.  On the contrary - hunting down documents is a waste of time a more work.  Vibato recommends storing your month/quarter-end documents in binders that are tabbed out by topic (JE's, recons, bank statements, etc).  A colored piece of paper can be used in lieu of tabs if you don’t have any available.  What you will actually find when you start to use a binder is that you will have a heightened sense of how far along you are at any given moment and when you or your auditors need to reference old material, you'll know right were to go.  

I had a great question asked of me today about staying current with SOX/SAS news.  With such a broad topic, it is often difficult to put a dent into all the available information.  

Use a month-end or quarter-end (at least) close checklist.  It is shocking how many people believe they'll remember everything they do each month but the truth is, we're human, we become sick, we get tired, and inevitably, we forget.  If someone reading this blog post isn't using a close checklist, take 3 minutes and start writing down everything you can remember that you do each month.  You will probably shock yourself at how long the list will get very quickly.  To this end, save yourself heartache, headache and embarrassment and create a list and check it each month as you get through your close.  Writing things down in this manner will also allow you to delegate better which could in the end help your stress level!

Review a list of GL users at least quarterly to ensure you approve of everyone with access.  It is easy to forget consultants or auditors who are granted "temporary" access because they often do not have to go through the formal HR channels to get access.  It is also easy to forget to remove terminated employees.  Reviewing users quarterly will help protect the security of your data!

Auditors have an unnatural ability to select THE ONE sample you know will get you in trouble...that one sample that caused you heartburn and you were glad to see posted and filed....and that one sample that is almost a year old and you cannot remember the clear details about.  Unfortunately, you cannot simply ask your auditors to select a new sample to make your life easier.  Once your auditors start asking questions and realize that you can't fully remember why that sample isn't as easy to explain as they would hope, they may conclude that the rest of your samples should be scrutinized even further. So the tip is to write everything down on the journal entry itself, regardless of how ugly it looks! Those notes will keep you sane at the end of your audit period because you'll never remember why you didn't write it all down in the first place!