“The pandemic presents a new normal. Financial leaders will likely need to expand their ICFR focus to include a review of current processes and assess the potential disruptors to those processes,” said Andrej Suskavcevic, CAE, President and CEO of FEI.

MORRISTOWN, N.J. (PRWEB)
May 28, 2020

The Financial Education & Research Foundation (FERF)—the independent non-profit research affiliate of Financial Executives International (FEI)—today released a whitepaper entitled The State of ICFR Going into the 2020s. The paper shows a trend baseline for filings with and without material weaknesses prior to the business world’s coronavirus pandemic response. It also explores the potential impact of recent COVID-19 protocols—particularly work-from-home—on future Internal Control over Financial Reporting (ICFR). Greenlight Technologies, a leading provider of integrated risk management solutions, sponsored the paper.

Two years of historical filings of 10-Ks and 10-Qs with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from various-sized companies show that material weakness disclosures have a seasonally adjusted average of over 18 percent of total filings. Since many companies with material weaknesses are late filers, the data shows that Q1 filings are the lowest at approximately 15 percent, as many 10-Ks are filed late and increase to almost 20 percent in Q4 as filers get caught up. That Q1 to Q4 delta is expected to continue and likely increase given the current business climate.

“We have a strong sense of historical behavior with respect to ICFR disclosures and a consistent number of companies reporting material weaknesses year over year has existed,” said Andrej Suskavcevic, CAE, President and CEO of Financial Executives International. “However, the pandemic presents a new normal, at least for now. We are learning that financial leaders will likely need to expand their ICFR focus to include a review of current processes and assess the potential disruptors to those processes in order to continue to lead their organization though a clean, accurate and timely reporting process.”

Looking into 2020 and beyond, the paper explores COVID-19’s effects on ICFR. Based on these considerations, three significant projections regarding the future of ICFR due to a remote workforce emerged:

• 
  Increase in the number of filers disclosing material weakness
• Increase in the number of delayed filings
• Development of new or redesigned controls to be deployed to satisfy external auditors

The paper also examines the financial reporting disruptions behind those projections. Notably, the remote workforce strategy currently being exercised by many businesses nationwide is the biggest driver—causing several potential issues:

Inaccessible or Reassigned Staff: Unavailability of key personnel due to facility closures, remote work arrangements, illness, or adjusted work assignments may create gaps in an organization’s productivity.

Reduced Oversight or Communication: Distributed staff can lead to greater challenges in clear, consistent communication or performance oversight.

Insufficient Evidence: Given auditors require evidence that controls are performed as intended, tangible proof may be unavailable due to limited access to the equipment (printers, scanners, etc.) needed to record and deliver that evidence.

Insufficient Resources: Mitigating the above issues largely relies on adequate IT solutions, flexible processes, and accessible equipment that may or may not currently exist within organizations. For example, businesses will need to ensure that cybersecurity and shared network solutions are capable of supporting secured remote access via desktop and mobile devices. They will also need to ensure that any new or modified internal controls are not rolled out in too rushed a manner, limiting the company’s ability to completely vet the process. And, lastly, remote staff will need access to the right physical resources (printers, scanners, etc.) to satisfy their responsibilities.

Failure to successfully navigate the above may lead to new material weaknesses in a financial preparer’s ICFR ecosystem.

“We’re operating in unchartered territory. We’ve got an enormous influx of work-from-home scenarios, people juggling new responsibilities, and leaderships fighting to maintain productivity,” said Mark Kissman, CFO, Greenlight Technologies. “However, audits and reporting don’t stop because our day-to-day has changed. In fact, timely and meaningful disclosures about COVID-19’s effect on a company’s financial health, performance, risk management strategies, and overall viability are arguably more important now than ever before to maintain shareholder trust. Revisiting this paper’s analysis after Q2 filings will present an important snapshot of how agile our businesses truly are.”

About Greenlight Technologies

Greenlight Technologies is changing the way organizations assure compliance by automating enterprise control monitoring and certification. Our enterprise platform monitors everything – all applications, all users, all transactions, all risks – all the time and automatically identifies, analyzes, calculates financial impact, and reports on actual risks; so the business understands the financial exposure the risks present and can easily act on them. Leading global companies rely on Greenlight Technologies to make managing risk and staying ahead of audit issues easier, more effective and significantly less costly. Our customers have saved millions in labor costs, audit fees and loss prevention. Learn more at https://greenlightcorp.com.

About Financial Education & Research Foundation, Inc.

Financial Education & Research Foundation (FERF) is the non-profit 501(c)(3) research affiliate of Financial Executives International (FEI). FERF researchers identify key financial issues and develop impartial, timely research reports for FEI members and nonmembers alike, in a variety of publication formats. FERF relies primarily on voluntary tax-deductible contributions from corporations and individuals, and publications can be ordered by logging onto http://www.financialexecutives.org/Research.aspx.    

About FEI

Financial Executives International (FEI) is the leading advocate for the views of corporate financial management. Its more than 10,000 members hold policy-making positions as chief financial officers, treasurers and controllers at companies from every major industry. FEI enhances member professional development through peer networking, career management services, conferences, research and publications. Members participate in the activities of more than 65 Chapters in the U.S. FEI is located in Morristown, NJ. Visit http://www.financialexecutives.org for more information.

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Designed with efficiency in mind, CRM 10.7’s enhancements increase user productivity and improve the overall customer experience.

MENOMONEE FALLS, Wis. (PRWEB)
May 27, 2020

WorkWise, a leading ERP and CRM software application developer, announced their latest release, OnContact CRM 10.7. Building upon its OnContact CRM 10.6 predecessor, CRM 10.7 includes both Business Processes and Workflow business logic capabilities. Additional features include the Application Designer, where users can create a customized workspace, and customer service enhancements.

A unique tool designed for building business logic into the application, OnContact CRM 10.7 offers a new Business Process and Workflow feature. Utilizing the CRM Business Process feature, users can save time thanks to predefined steps that automate the processing of entity items. This feature is available for campaigns, contacts, companies, opportunities and cases, which assists both sales and marketing departments.

The task-based Workflow feature in OnContact CRM 10.7, adds alerts, creates and selects data functions, adds or removes a target to a business process and adds contacts to campaigns. Additionally, Workflow also gives users the ability to add or remove a contact and company from a list.

“WorkWise is pleased to announce the release of OnContact CRM 10.7, which places a heavy emphasis on workflow automation,” says Wayne Wedell, WorkWise President and CEO. “Designed with efficiency in mind, CRM 10.7’s enhancements increase user productivity and improve the overall customer experience.”

About WorkWise:

WorkWise is a leading developer of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions along with comprehensive implementation and support services. Our flagship products, WorkWise ERP and OnContact CRM are easy-to-use, quick to implement, provide a high return on investment and are offered either in a Cloud or on-premise deployment. Use of WorkWise applications provide more accurate and timely information that helps enable companies to grow and increase productivity.

OnContact CRM is a full-featured, award-winning, browser-based CRM software solution that automates a company’s sales, marketing and customer service areas. OnContact CRM has been awarded the TopTenREVIEWS Excellence Award in recognition of its unique design, customizability and superior features.

WorkWise ERP offers make-to-order, repetitive and mixed-mode solutions to manufacturers to shorten cycle times and optimize manufacturing information, supply chain management, and manufacturing execution and planning. WorkWise ERP enhances operations by taking time out of the business processes and increasing value-add in products and services.

In addition, WorkWise has pre-configured integration between WorkWise ERP and OnContact CRM, which is unavailable from other ERP and CRM suppliers.

WorkWise is headquartered in the greater Milwaukee, WI area and has been inspiring companies to achieve new levels of success for over 15 years. WorkWise’s proven business philosophy is customer inspired because they put customers first, listen to their requirements and deliver innovative business solutions. “Inspire Your Growth ™” to new levels of success with WorkWise software.

For ten consecutive years, WorkWise has been recognized by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for being a “Top Workplace.”

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Mark Baird, Refactr CRO

As Refactr’s CRO, Baird will carry out Refactr’s mission to accelerate adoption of DevSecOps methodologies among security and DevOps teams.

SEATTLE (PRWEB)
May 27, 2020

The DevSecOps startup Refactr announced today that it has hired Mark Baird, StorageCraft’s former Director of Sales (US West Region), to serve as Chief Revenue Officer. A winner of the United States Air Force AFWERX Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 1 20.1 contract, Refactr is providing the simplest and most collaborative automation solution built for the next era of IT; IT-as-Code.

Baird possesses 29 years of channel sales and account management experience in the technology sector. As a Sales Director at StorageCraft, Baird led the total restructuring and reorganizing of its sales and go-to-market strategies, built a new sales pipeline within 45 days of a new product launch, and increased new product core business by over 140 percent. In 2019, his division increased revenue by $4.25M from the previous year. Previously, Baird honed his craft and leadership skills at companies like Parvus Corporation (now part of Curtiss-Wright), NextPage, and 3Com Corp.

At Refactr, Baird will build out the sales and marketing programs and will lead its go-to-market strategy. His immediate focus will be on building out an alliance and reseller partner network, including mid-market and enterprise focused solution providers (VARs), and large MSSPs who are targeting cloud and cybersecurity offerings.

“The opportunity to work with Mike Fraser and his ambitious founding team at Refactr is one I could not pass up,” remarked Baird. “It’s rare to find a team that has a combination of deep industry experience and an inspiring vision of how we can reach the future of IT. I look forward to enabling more teams in their quest towards software-defined everything and IT-as-Code with Refactr.”

Refactr is helping tech teams design and deliver complex, secure cloud infrastructure and applications through its all-in-one, visual automation platform. Early adopters like the US Air Force and Fortinet are using Refactr to quickly create repeatable, software-defined and secure automation solutions that can be deployed with a few clicks. In 2020, the DevSecOps startup’s target market includes cybersecurity vendors, MSSPs, enterprise, and the Department of Defense (DoD). There are plans to reach limited international recruitment as well.

About Refactr

Refactr is a Seattle-based DevSecOps startup founded in 2017 by military veteran and industry experts in cloud and cybersecurity. Its mission is to accelerate adoption of DevSecOps methodologies among security and DevOps teams. Refactr provides a simple and collaborative automation platform that enables tech teams to visually design and run modern, software-defined IT-as-Code solutions including infrastructure, configuration, integrations and security. Technology changes, people adapt. Refactr innovates to make the world more agile through the next shift of digital transformation into IT-as-Code. Learn more at https://refactr.it

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PORTLAND, Maine (PRWEB)
May 27, 2020

Logically, the leading provider of Managed IT Services to small and midsize organizations, has named Mike Cowles as its Chief Executive Officer, succeeding company co-founder Christopher Claudio. Chris will remain on the Board of Directors and continue to serve the company in a business development role. Mr. Cowles is now charged with overseeing the next phase of the firm’s meteoric growth and industry achievement.

Mr. Cowles is leading Logically’s continued organic and inorganic growth as the firm continues to deliver high quality, layered services that include OpLogic™, the industry’s first and only Intelligent MSP Platform, Professional Services, and an expansive security offering through Logically’s Security Suite.

Mr. Cowles was most recently the CEO of The Rainmaker Group and was with the company for over three years leading the organization to year-over-year double digit growth. He began his career as a technology consultant with Andersen Consulting (Accenture). Mr. Cowles previously served as SVP and General Manager of U.S. Financial Services for SAP. He also spent 14 years in various leadership roles with Ariba, most recently as SVP and General Manager of North America.

“Logically has a bold vision about the future of the Managed IT Services Industry and I am very excited to build on the successful playbook that has already been created,” says Mike Cowles, Logically’s Chief Executive Officer. “Logically will continue to grow both organically and inorganically as we acquire outstanding MSP organizations as well as bolster our organic success with new hires to join our talented team. We are committed to partner with our valued customers as we continue to lead small and mid-sized businesses to cost-effectively and securely leverage business critical information technology.”

“Mike is taking over at a time of unprecedented company performance and I am fully confident that he is the right leader to set the vision and drive Logically forward as the nation’s leading Managed IT Services provider,” said Chris Claudio. “I am honored and privileged to have served the last 21 years with such an extraordinary group of hard-working and dedicated people, and very much look forward to the next chapter for Logically under Mike’s leadership.”

Mr. Cowles has also served as a consultant to private equity firms helping them to validate potential investments and improve portfolio company performance. He holds both a B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida.

About Logically

Logically is the leading Managed IT Service Provider (MSP) to small and midsize organizations. We take care of your Information Technology, so you can take care of business. Since 1999, we have made IT management easy and secure for hundreds of corporations, healthcare organizations, nonprofits and public sector agencies. We set the standard for responsiveness and operational excellence for organizations seeking to augment existing IT teams or outsource IT completely. Logically, powered by OpLogic™, our unique Intelligent MSP platform, cost-effectively amplifies our customers’ competitiveness. We strategically implement and manage the right balance of mature and emerging information technologies that improve collaboration, security, cloud adoption, customer experiences, productivity and business results. Coupled with the support of our dedicated Care Teams, we deliver deep and complete technical expertise and customer service. As your trusted IT ally, we will run through brick walls for you. Visit http://www.logically.com to learn more.

Contact: Jennifer Noto

Jennifer.noto@logically.com

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