Published on: 13 November 2021
Last Updated on: 18 January 2025
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) is a federal law established in 2002 to combat corporate fraud. The act requires public companies, private companies with more than 500 employees, and bank holding companies to maintain adequate internal control systems. If you are one of these organizations, then this blog post will go over the SOX requirementsto help you become SOX compliant!
What is SOX Compliance?
SOX compliance is a set of regulations created to protect investors and the financial markets from fraudulent activities. The act requires organizations listed above to test their internal controls through an independent third party, such as AICPA or COSO. In addition, they must document all findings in detail and implement changes that will correct any deficiencies.
The Four Areas of Compliance Are:
Financial reporting (SOX 404)– This section requires businesses to have adequate internal financial controls.
Internal control structure (SOX 302)– This area ensures your business has procedures and documentation for employees responsible for recording transactions, processing payments, and monitoring risk.
Compliance with laws/regulations (SOX 404)– SOX compliance provides a set of procedures to help monitor compliance with laws and regulations.
Internal audit function (SOX 404)– This area ensures your business has an internal auditing system in place that reviews financial transactions, lines of authority, IT security controls, physical access, etc.
Why it’s Important to be Compliant
The consequences for failing to become compliant with SOX can be serious. Not only can your organization face fines and penalties up to USD 15 million, but you might even cause a financial crisis in the market! The SEC has increased their monitoring of companies required to comply with these regulations and will take immediate action when they see any signs of misconduct.
How to Stay Compliant
There are five ways that you can maintain compliance with SOX. You must have a clear understanding of the risks facing your organization, establish internal controls to minimize those risks, create an environment for open communication between management and employees, avoid conflicts of interest within the company, and finally document all policies following these rules.
If you need help making sure you’re SOX compliant, then don’t hesitate to contact our compliance experts!
Tools for Staying Compliant
If you are looking for a way to simplify being SOX compliant, hire experts to help you. You can find a wide range of companies specializing in SOX compliance, and they will save you from having to deal with headaches. In addition, most experts can help you meet all your deadlines for each stage of the audit process!
Resources for Staying Compliant
The SEC has an excellent FAQ section that will give you the answers to any questions about SOX compliance and what it means for your organization. The COSO ERM Framework is another great tool that can be used by managers who want a better understanding of how to create an efficient company.
Ensuring that your company is SOX compliant can seem like more than you want to take on, but it’s not as difficult or overwhelming as some might make it out to be. If you are having trouble understanding the requirements of this legislation, talk with us about how our team can help. We have a wealth of knowledge and experience in dealing with complex compliance issues for small businesses just like yours!
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The outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic taught us a lot of things. This is despite the negatives that came with it. For instance, it helped us better understand the concept of essential and non-essential services.
Speaking of essential services, the food and beverage industry is important and should always be up and running. This is why these companies need a perfect approach to hiring operational and non-operational staff members.
One of the best ways to go about this is engaging the services of a capable beverage and food recruitment company. These professional services consist of staff members that are specially trained to source the right candidates for the food and beverage industry.
They also help draw up contracts between employees and their clients. For the most part, the contract details are in the best interest of their clients.
Considering the importance of these recruiters in the industry, this article will discuss how to find and hire a good one. This is so that you end up with the right staff and have a good working relationship with the recruiting agency.
Tips on How to Hire the Right Food and Beverage Recruitment Company-
Hiring the right hands to fill various positions in the food industry is non-negotiable. To make sure this is the case, here are some tips to help you:
Years of Active Experience:
Frankly, these are one of the service providers that thrive on the experience. For this reason, make sure the agency you end up with has a wealth of experience.
This will enable you to check their profile and see if they are up to the task. This is very important considering that you cannot afford to take chances when it comes to hiring the right employees.
Helping your H.R Team:
Engaging the service of a recruitment agency does not mean you should not have a fully functional HR department. This is because this department is very essential in the food and beverage industry.
For instance, this department helps to come up with the right reward system to motivate the staff of the company. Also, they ensure that operational and non-operational staff members undergo the needed training when necessary. If you are interested in finding out more about their responsibilities, you can check here.
Well, a good recruitment firm should do more than just helping with the recruitment process. They can help the HR department in some other ways. For instance, this might be about suggesting training and resource persons that can handle the training.
The Required Area of Core Competence:
The truth is that experience is not all it takes to hire the right recruitment agency. You also have to be certain the engaged service provider is good at supplying the kind of staff members you need. This is why you should know their area of core competence before bringing them on board.
For instance, if your company is into the production of organic food items, you should make sure the agency has a good history of supplying the right kind of candidates to such companies.
The point is that it is not enough to hire a random recruitment agency. Be sure that they understand the responsibilities of the employees that you need and can deliver to expectations.
Good with Paperwork:
The job of a recruitment agency is not only to identify and refer the right candidate. They also need to be good at coming up with paperwork in the best interest of their clients.
While the contract details should not be geared towards extorting the candidates, it should favor the clients. For instance, there should be a clause that protects the clients from employees abruptly resigning. This is so that the essential service of the company is not affected adversely in any way or brought to a standstill.
Good at Identifying Red Flags:
Many recruiting experts and human resource personnel have come to understand that all that glitter is not gold. This is because some unworthy candidates are good at making everything look perfect to recruiters that are not quite observant.
It is for this reason that you should deal with a recruiting agency that can identify red flags on time. For instance, a highly qualified candidate that has changed jobs very often should be properly drilled. This is to be certain that your company will not experience the same fate with such a candidate.
To find out some more red flags your recruiter should be able to notice, you can watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2seM0fahBx4
Conclusion:
For us, ending up with the right employees in the food and beverage industry starts with hiring the right recruitment agency. We have shared tips on how you can end up with the right recruiting firm in this article and hope that you make informed decisions from now on.
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When you start advertising on Airbnb or similar short-term vacation rental websites your primary objective is to turn your lodging into a stable source of income. Essentially, the success of your rental project depends on your ability to attract good, payable guests who will stay in your cozy corners, get an excellent experience, share it with other travelers on the Airbnb platform, and, ultimately, turn into your brand advocates with all the perks applicable. The snag is that not all Airbnb entrepreneurs know how to embark their venture on the path to success. In this guide, we will tell you about the pillars of a flourishing Airbnb company.
Define your mission
So you choose short-term hosting as a way to earn extra dollars for your happy living. First, you need to determine a simple mission statement. Your mission vision will shape how you operate your new-born startup and the experience you deliver to your tenants. Elaborate on a business plan and define your goals by asking yourself the following questions:
How do you want to work?
How much time and resources can you pour into your business?
What is your vision of perfect hosting?
What are your goals?
How many deals do you need per month to meet expenditures and earn?
How are you going to beat competitors?
What should you do to make your listing appealing?
What actions do you need to take to run your business smoothly and effectively?
How will you protect your place from unruly guests?
How will you ensure compliance with local tax legislation?
Like any business, leasing out on Airbnb will involve certain expenses and investments. You should have a pretty clear sense of all your possible disbursements and incomes to ensure your Airbnb business is simply worth it. Even if it is a single spare room in your condo that you are going to rent, it is still a business, though quite small. And the business must be legal to thrive. To exclude any problems with the Law, consider hiring a professional accountant or an accredited Airbnb management company that will help you obtain all necessary municipal permissions and secure your total compliance with all administrative codes and tax authorities as well as assist you with procuring an LLC status as your business grows.
Survey the market
Anything you can do to elevate your listing or make it unique and attractive is a chance to charge more in your market. Scrutinize real estate websites; explore what other Airbnb hosts, lodgings, and local hotels have to offer. Find out whether they use dynamic pricing to update their rates based on various factors like seasonality, upcoming events, weekends versus weekdays, etc. The initial research will help you make the right decisions.
Now think about what you can offer to make your guests happy. Is your home stuffed with all modern comforts to ensure a relaxed stay? Is your place pet-friendly? Do you have parking, a swimming pool, or a barbecue zone? Is the interior uniquely decorated? Do you provide extra little surprises for your cherished guests such as bottled water, coffee, sweets, or a free souvenir they can take as a memento? Added sophistication, delight, and comfort renders you the right to safely increase the price for your vacation rental property.
Stay sober about your expenses and profits
Tally your costs by creating a spreadsheet of expenses that can be divided into three categories:
Upfront costs: the things you need to buy to make your spaces comfortable and beautiful before anyone experiences it including renovations, decoration elements, furniture, appliances, and photography.
Ongoing costs. These include all items consumable by the guests that you will have to periodically replenish: toilet paper, towels, batteries, light bulbs, personal hygiene supplies, broken dishware, bedding, linen, etc.
Management and maintenance costs. Think of the fees for outsourced cleaning, repair works, exterior and lawn upkeep if you are not going to tackle these issues on your own. Be in the loop with your numbers like utility bills, WI-FI, mortgage, and consider them when setting the price for your service.
Outsource professional management
Running an Airbnb business is a time-consuming and stressful venture, especially when you have to do everything on your own without competent assistants or the second host. You have to deal with bookings, verify guests, restock supplies, arrange cleaning between stays, and maintain everything in working condition to ensure a flawless stay. Just a hell of a work. If you are not very sure about your managerial efficiency, yet, you want your Airbnb enterprise to thrive, hiring a team of professional rental managers can be a smart move. Ask yourself whether you have time and knowledge to cope with the multiple Airbnb fuss and bother on your own, or you can outsource a dedicated and competent Airbnb manager to do all the work on your behalf to free you up and ensure a wonderful customer experience, as this is the manager’s primary job. Reckoning to a well-trained rental manager is also reasonable when you want to have a stable source of income through renting out without breaking local tax laws and housing codes, as the field experts always know how to stay law-abiding, yet, profitable. More about the services of such companies you can read on masterhost.ca.
Assess your offer from the guest’s point of view
How can you make your guests feel as welcome as possible? Have you considered all the needs your future client may have while staying within your confines?
Beginner Airbnb hosts should seriously consider investing in comfortable mattresses, sofas, and quality bedding. The first thing you appreciate in a hotel is the bed’s comfort, so make sure your guests can enjoy a comfortable stay and sleep well on your beds. Very often guests give 5 stars simply because of the great bed, which eventually translates into improved ranking in the Airbnb search results and increased occupancy rates.
Provide your guests with perfumery articles in case they forget to take them. To succeed in the Airbnb business, you should have a clear idea of the guest’s wants and wishes. Have you ever thought about why people choose the same hotel over and over again? Because they know what to expect: the feeling that no one has lived in the room before you, carefully folded towels, the smartphone chargers on the bedside table... Guests want every detail to be meticulously considered. Be attentive to the desires of your guests, and they will want to come back to you again and again.
Put it on autopilot
Hosting isn't easy, given the heap of tasks and arrangements to struggle with. But with modern-day advancements of technology, running an Airbnb company can easily turn into a breeze as you can automate most of the repetitive, time-eating procedures and free your hands for something more important and exciting.
There are lots of powerful software solutions and cloud-based apps, either free or pretty affordable, which help to boost the efficiency of short-term vacation property through comprehensive automation of key business processes. These include guest communication, booking management, task allocation, multiple-account management, auto-pricing, guest review writing, and insightful financial reporting and performance statistics.
Bar business owners or managers face an almost universal challenge: hiring the best staff. It's not about filling shifts nowadays. Your cooks and servers all play a part in the customer's experience. Choosing the best talent for those roles and your cocktails are equally important to your business’s success. Even a novice bar manager will tell you how crucial staff can be. Here are 5 useful tips to get the best employees.
5 Tips to Finding Better Talent for Your Bar Business:
Bar business owners must follow the below mentioned points to select the best talent for their organization.
1. Attitude is Important:
Your staff is your bar’s face. If a server or bartender approaches a customer with a negative attitude, the customer will leave, never to return. If you feel your staff is not performing well, ask yourself if you can trust them to run the bar for you. Staff is bound to mess up, but it’s their recovery that matters. If their attitude is affecting other employees, do something about it before they bring the whole bar business down.
If you hire a great pro with a bad attitude, your cocktails will look nice, but your clientele will flee. Work ethic, team dynamic, and personality are much harder to teach than how to pour a drink right. Part of the process is finding job candidates. The other part is training them. As competition for great employees increases, bars now need to make more effort and tell a better story about the value of working in a team.
There’s an imbalance between demand from bars and supply of quality staff. The people you hire have the greatest effect on the bar’s overall culture.
2. Know Your Market:
Knowledge of the bar industry is important, but it’s not the only factor. Comprehension of best practices, industry standards, and good suppliers should be second nature to a decent bar manager. Do you know what the market in your area is like? Who are your main competitors? Is the bar you manage just another place to go, or is there a gap you can fill? Why might someone go to your bar business instead of the one down the street? Bar managers need to understand the competitive landscape they inhabit.
3. Hire the Right Bartenders:
You cannot afford to hire fresher as bartenders and then train them to deliver. This will eat into your revenue and you will never get the desired results. The bar industry is a vibrant industry that faces a lot of attrition. If you are strategic in terms of looking for the right people, you will be successful. It is always a good idea to have at least 2 experienced bartenders and 4 fresher.
This helps maintain the standard and helps you prepare the next rung of the leadership. A good bartender for your bar business is a big reason why some bars are successful, while others shut shop within a few months. Investing in the right bartender is probably going to be one of your toughest decisions.
Train Employees to Upsell:
Upselling customers is a great way to boost profits in your bar. This is where profits are made and success stories crafted. Upselling involves influencing customer preferences so that they end up making a choice that is beneficial for your establishment. It is also about the staff reading the body language of consumers.
For example, if someone is celebrating a promotion, a staff can garner the public opinion of the group and suggest a far more expensive bottle than the one the customer had originally intended to purchase. Peer pressure, wanting to show off and winning over loved ones are reasons people fall easy victims to upselling.
A bigger bill means better tips. People usually fix their tips at roughly around 10 to 15 percent of the total bill. Upselling helps boost employee morale as they get more tips and earnings from the same. By training your staff to upsell, you will be contributing to a better working environment.
4. Build Positive Relationships with Staff:
Experienced bar managers know that success isn’t possible if you don’t manage your staff wisely. To establish an open and positive rapport, try to build positive relationships with them. A frustrated staff member affects performance, morale, and customer experience. While it’s often claimed business shouldn’t be personal, this is changing in many industries. When bar managers form relationships with their staff, they establish a personalized connection with someone who will become a reliable, long-term employee and attract people to your bar as well as keep loyal patrons coming back. Take the time to interact with your staff.
5. Believe in your Staff:
It may seem easy to be a bar manager, but it’s definitely not. If you decided on this job because you thought it was glamorous, you might want to reconsider your decision. However, if you are running a bar because you want to, stay confident and passionate and project this mentality onto your staff. Encourage them and believe in them. They will reciprocate and this will reflect on the customer experience in turn. Your clients will keep coming back. They will visit you whenever they're thinking of a place to go out because of the positive, laid-back atmosphere you’ve managed to create.
Final Thoughts:
The right employees and attitude are very important for smooth operation, but getting a reliable bar POS system is just as essential. Your bar needs a firm grasp of cash flow, inventory management, and data. Moreover, an outstanding POS system will expedite and ease the bar management process. You can’t afford to dispense with a solid POS system.
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