Internal Controls

In my opinion, internal controls are in place to protect the business and shareholders by limiting access to funds and confidential information, limit wasteful spending.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, or SOX, was created after companies such as Enron, Tyco International, Penegrine Systems, and WorldCom were affected by accounting scandals that cost investors billions of dollars when stock prices collapsed.   SOX directly impacts CPA’s, especially CPA firms that audit public companies, Publically traded companies including their officers, employees, and owners (including holders of more than 10% of the outstanding common shares, Attorneys who work for or consult publically traded companies, as well as brokers, dealers, and investment bankers or financial analysts that are employed by these companies.  
This law establishes a five member accounting oversight board that is subject to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) oversight.   Of these 5 members that are on the board, only 2 members of the board may be CPAs, in order to limit the ability for accountants to change the books.   All of these members must be appointed by the SEC.   This board is responsible for registering public accounting firms that prepare audit reports, establishing or adopting auditing, quality control, ethics, and independence standards.   It will inspect, investigate, and discipline public accounting firms and enforce compliance with the SOX act.   All public accounting firms, whether foreign or domestic, that audits public companies must register with this board, all registration and annual fees collected from these firms will go towards the costs of processing and reviewing applications and annual reports.  
All of an accounting firm’s audit and review workpapers for all audits must be retained for five years after the end of the fiscal year in which the audit was completed, information of sufficient detail to support the conclusions reached in the audit report must be kept for a...