| [September 25, 2007] |
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Compassoft Announces First Automated Spreadsheet Risk Detection and Continuous Control Monitoring Solution for the Enterprise
SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- Compassoft, the leading provider of spreadsheet discovery, validation and control solutions for the enterprise, today announced the availability of Compassoft Enterprise v3.5(TM), the first automated, policy-based software framework that can continuously assess risk factors in every spreadsheet on every laptop, desktop and database within the enterprise. Now large companies and organizations can cast a much wider net to find and prioritize sources of risk as it emerges in new or changed spreadsheets, and implement continuous monitoring controls within their most mission-critical spreadsheets.
Automated Risk Discovery
With Compassoft Enterprise 3.5, chief financial officers, controllers and internal auditors can set risk policies based on their business. Compassoft's solution uses these policies to continuously flag potential problems within spreadsheets down to the cell level. By automating spreadsheet quality control, auditors can immediately detect violations to company spreadsheet policies in new or revised spreadsheets to mitigate financial risk from honest mistakes or fraud. More than 70 rules reflecting the standard industry practices of the Big Four accounting firms are packaged with the 3.5 version, and additional custom rules can be created to reflect corporate policies and industry requirements.
Continuous Control Monitoring
Individuals and financial groups responsible for data integrity and compliance will have added peace of mind with the new continuous control monitoring feature that scans mission critical spreadsheets. This new feature introduced in Compassoft Enterprise v3.5 triggers an alert if the contents of a spreadsheet fall outside of acceptable standards and rules set by the companies themselves.
"Spreadsheet control must be a process, not a one-time project because spreadsheets are continuously being altered, and changes to a single data field inside a spreadsheet can have a profound ripple effect throughout an organization," said Paul Bach, CEO of Compassoft. "Compassoft Enterprise 3.5 comprehensively examines all the financial, analytical and operational spreadsheets within the enterprise system determining what is high, medium and low risk, and rectifying the errors and fraud vulnerabilities in real-time."
Five Elements of a Spreadsheet Control Process
Compassoft Enterprise 3.5 works within the parameters of a continuous spreadsheet control process that includes the following five elements:
1. Set control policy to determine spreadsheet risk parameters and the appropriate alerts and processes that will be triggered by the criteria;
2. Create a living inventory of all new and changed spreadsheets on an ongoing basis -- without the need for a desktop agent on the monitored computers;
3. Automate risk assessment and prioritization to make it possible to continuously enforce policies, monitoring and controlling thousands or even millions of spreadsheets that would be impossible if done manually;
4. Analyze and baseline the data to detect and remove errors, eliminate fraud vulnerabilities and create documentation;
5. Monitor and manage spreadsheet contents and external dependencies based on risk category.
Improved Interoperability: Microsoft SharePoint and Other New Features
In addition to the enhanced automated risk assessment and control monitoring capabilities, Compassoft Enterprise v3.5 includes new features for Microsoft SharePoint, Crystal Reports and user interface enhancements:
-- Improved integration with Microsoft SharePoint 2007
-- Ad-hoc reporting using industry-standard Crystal Reports
-- Deeper spreadsheet analytics, including 71 types of external links and embedded VBA macro detection and analysis
-- User interface improvements, including analytics shortcuts, graphics drilldown, and improved audit trail browsing
Bloor Research Comments
"The policy-based automation introduced by Compassoft in this release represents a major step forward in the battle to manage spreadsheets," said Philip Howard, research director at Bloor Research. "I have not seen another product that can automate the entire process of discovering and managing spreadsheets to such a degree."
HiredBrains Comments
"Spreadsheets allow people to express themselves without constraint and to communicate their ideas freely," said Neil Raden, president at Hired Brains Research. "No organization could function today without them. Inherent in this degree of autonomy is a great deal of risk due to error, malfeasance, data quality, duplication of effort and distortion. The solution is not to replace spreadsheets, but rather to embrace them. Compassoft offers a unique solution that constantly scours the entire enterprise computing environment to identify spreadsheet risk that might easily go undetected with manual quality control procedures."
Protiviti Comments
"The risk associated with the use of spreadsheets has become increasingly high profile over the last couple of years," said Ed Hill, managing director of Protiviti, a leading provider of independent internal audit and business and technology risk consulting services who work with their clients to help them manage these risks. "Having prepared the inventories and assessed this risk, many businesses have not been able to identify practical solutions and have found themselves asking the question, what do we do next? Spreadsheet management solutions provide that level of validation and control over spreadsheets that would be virtually impossible to achieve manually."
Ventana Research Comments
"In order to have any chance of success, software designed to improve the accuracy, usability and productivity of spreadsheets must allow people to continue doing their jobs the way they've always done them," said Robert Kugel, SVP and research director for financial performance management at Ventana Research. "By automating a comprehensive spreadsheet monitoring and control process, Compassoft offers an attractive spreadsheet management solution for those companies that want to address the inherent problems with spreadsheets without having to make major changes in how people work."
Pricing and Availability
Pricing for Compassoft Enterprise 3.5 is based on the number of servers required and the number of machines being monitored, and the analysis seats required.
Compassoft Enterprise v3.5 is available now - for more information contact info@compassoft.com.
About Compassoft
Compassoft is the market leader for enterprise spreadsheet risk management and control. Compassoft Enterprise(TM) enables corporations to manage and control spreadsheets based on business risk policy, automating the continuous discovery and prioritization of spreadsheets throughout the enterprise. By detecting policy exceptions among the thousands or even millions of spreadsheets and providing a secure control framework for them, Compassoft's solutions have improved controls at more than 180 major companies, including the Big Four accounting firms, Allergan, ABN AMRO, Allied Irish Banks, Bruce Power, CitiGroup, Eli Lilly, FreddieMac, HP, Lloyds TSB, Prudential, Sydney Futures Exchange, Tulane University, Tyson and Venetian Casinos. For more information, please visit www.compassoft.com.
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