Why I love Sarbanes Oxley

What a hoot! Let's regulate corporate financial reporting by upping the time required to file your company's Annual Report. Hey Mr. (or Ms.) Government, do you really think you are going to have so called, BETTER numbers by reporting them 2 weeks earlier?

To be honest (it was March 31st, then March 15th for last year, now the end of February for 2006), it really kind of ticks me off that our government imposes rules like these because it's completely backasswards. So that we can regulate companies better, we will just have them report numbers on a quicker basis, without consideration to what effect it may have on someone who is responsible for completetion of the Annual Report. Might it not cause undue stress, which could lead to errors?

Now don't get me wrong, I am mostly for the regulations contained within Sarbanes Oxley (thank you Enron!). They do serve the consumer and general public, I won't argue that. However, what about the people who put together a document such as the annual report? The bean counters and marketing people who actually DO the annual report. Our annual report used to be a normal project for me at the beginning of the year. This year, it is an enitre additional job! Now I have to still work on normal projects, while trying to work on the annual report at night. Ridiculous.

Needless to say, this is my reason for not posting that much, plus the fact that I had a death in the family in late January. Hopefully in the near future, I'll be in a more jovial mode.