C24 - SEGREGATION OF

DUTIES
What’s the Risk and What Do We Do
About It?

Weston Nelson
Moss Adams LLP

o 11th largest accounting and

business consulting firm in
the U.S.
o 21 locations; 1,800 personnel
o Industry-focused service
groups
o IT consulting specialists

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Our Objectives

o Clarify the role of Segregation of Duties (SOD)

o How to implement effective SOD
o Clarify the evaluation process of current
user access
o Identify alternatives to SOD
o Other SOD Considerations

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Agenda

o What is segregation of duties?

o Discuss fraud and risks of fraud
o Examples of SOD violations
o Demonstrate a method for evaluating SOD
o Considerations for maintaining proper SOD
o Questions / Answer

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What is Segregation of Duties?

o How do you define it?

o What is the goal of
segregation of duties?
o Are all SOD conflicts
equal in importance?

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What is Segregation of Duties? (cont.)

o COSO: “Dividing or allocating tasks among

various individuals making it possible to
reduce the risks of error and fraud.”
o Contains four components:

Custody

Authorization

Record keeping

Reconciliation

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What is Segregation of Duties? (cont.)

o Ideally, a single individual would have

responsibility for only a single component.
o Benefits include:

Safeguarding of assets

Accurate financial reporting

Reduced risk of non-compliance

Reduced cost of compliance for automated SOD
(e.g., SOX and external audit)

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What is Segregation of Duties? (cont.)

o SOD conflicts are not equally important to

every company:

Safeguarding of assets vs. financial reporting risks

Relative importance of information confidentiality

Nature of company assets

Reduced risk when the “chain” of access is broken

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Where Does Fraud Begin?

Authorization

Custody Reconciliation

Record
Keeping

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Where Does Fraud Begin? (cont.)

I TRUST MY
EMPLOYEES
Authorization

Custody Reconciliation

Record
Keeping

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Where Does Fraud Begin? (cont.)

Pressure Incentive
Authorization

Custody Reconciliation

Record
Opportuni Keeping
ty Rationalization

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Why do I care – examples in the news…

o NEC
–Invalid revenue ($18M) and kickbacks ($4.2M)
o Société Générale
–Unauthorized Trades ($7B)
o Madoff
–Ponzi scheme ($50B)

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Management is Surprised…

o All 51 users in a Lawson implementation could

enter and approve journal entries
o 21 users could enter/approve cash receipts,
enter/approve journal entries and perform
bank reconciliations

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Management is Surprised… (cont.)

o 105 users in a revenue related system could

modify user security
o 223 users in a revenue system could modify
the cash drawer beginning balance
o 316 users had access to virtually all sensitive
transactions in a hospital revenue application

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Management is Surprised… (cont.)

o 3,100 KRONOS users could authorize their

own payroll

1,100 were hourly employees who could approve
their own overtime

All 3,100 could change their own vacation accruals
and approve payment in-lieu of vacation

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So Who owns SOD?
o Who owns segregation of duties

IT ?

The business ?

o Need for collaboration (both own it)

The business must own and define

IT must facilitate and enforce

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Evaluating Your SOD

o Define and create a policy or standard.

Include a statement that defines responsibility for
enforcing the policy and maintaining proper SOD

Ultimately includes a list of incompatible duties
o Identify the core tasks performed at your
company.

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Evaluating Your SOD (cont.)

o Identify incompatibilities.

Risk-based for your business

Consider “sensitive” duties such as posting of
journal entries, performing reconciliations and
Master Data files

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Example SOD Matrix

Inventory Adjustment Entry

Purchase Order Entry/Edit
Purchase Order Approval
Sales Order Entry/Edit

Requisition Entry/Edit
Sales Order Approval

Requisition Approval
Customer Master

Vendor Master
Ship Confirm

Receiving
Sensitive Activities
Customer Master 1 0
Sales Order Entry/Edit 0 1 0 0
Sales Order Approval 0 1
Ship Confirm 0 1 0 0
Vendor Master 0 1 0
Requisition Entry/Edit 1 0 0
Requisition Approval 0 1
Purchase Order Entry/Edit 0 1 0 0
Purchase Order Approval 0 1
Receiving 0 0 1 0
Inventory Adjustment Entry 0 0 1

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Evaluating Your SOD (cont.)

o Understand roles for key responsibilities –

access rights or capabilities.

Shipping/receiving

Purchasing

Accounts Payable

Accounts Receivable

Vendor Master

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Evaluating Your SOD (cont.)

o Translate business tasks and activities into

security and access rights within key
applications.

How is access granted (e.g., roles, menus,
objects, etc.)?

Define menus or objects granting user access.

Identify the “sensitive” objects associated
with conflicting duties.

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Evaluating Your SOD (cont.)
Object Description Area
P0012 Automatic Accounting Instructions AAI
P0022 Tax Rules Tax
P0030G G/L Bank Accounts Accounting
P03013 Customer Master Customer Master
P03B0001 Speed Receipts Entry Receiving
P03B0002 Invoice Revisions Vendor Invoices Entry/Edit
P03B102 Standard Receipt Entry Receiving

Receiving Role
P03B11 Standard Invoice Entry Vendor Invoices Entry/Edit
P03B11SI Speed Invoice Entry Vendor Invoices Entry/Edit
P03B11Z1 Batch Invoice Revisions Vendor Invoices Entry/Edit
P03B121 Work With Electronic Receipts Input Receiving
P03B123 Electronic Receipt Entry Receiving
P03B305 Credit Granting / Management Customer Master
P03B42 A/R Deduction Activity Master Maintenance Customer Master

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Evaluating Your SOD (cont.)

o Determine the existing role access rights.

Identify built-in conflicts provided by each role.

Document desired changes to roles.
o Determine the users assigned to roles.

Provide a complete list of user conflicts allowed.

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 Evaluating Your SOD (cont.)

Role Object Description

GL P0012 Automatic Accounting Instructions
GL P0030G G/L Bank Accounts
User Role AR P03013 Customer Master
User1 Receiving AR P03B305 Credit Granting/Management
User2 Receiving AR P03B42 A/R Deduction Activity Master Maintenance
User3 AP Receiving P03B0001 Speed Receipts Entry
Receiving P03B102 Standard Receipt Entry
User4 AP
Receiving P03B121 Work With Electronic Receipts Input
User5 AR Receiving P03B123 Electronic Receipt Entry
User6 AR Tax P0022 Tax Rules
User7 GL AP P03B0002 Invoice Revisions
AP P03B11 Standard Invoice Entry
AP P03B11SI Speed Invoice Entry
AP P03B11Z1 Batch Invoice Revisions

Tables such as the above will provide information

of user access to sensitive transactions

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 Evaluating Your SOD (cont.)

Conflict
Trans
User Role Trans Role User
Type
Type
Trans Trans
Role Object Object Role
Type Type

The above graphic depicts how user conflicts

can be identified using lists of:
• Users/roles
• Roles/objects/transaction types
• Conflicting pairs of transaction types

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Evaluating Your SOD (cont.)

o Added requirements:

Roles should not contain “built-in” conflicts
o Additional issues and complexity:

Users assigned to multiple roles

Users assigned access rights by User ID

Users accessing multiple systems

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SOD Alternatives

o Does this solve all issues? Not likely.

Small groups of Users

System constraints

Manual activities outside the system
o Detective controls have a role.

Audit trails

Exception reports

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Other SOD Considerations

o IT activities creating an SOD concern:

Application administrator access

Security administrator and User setup

Programmer access to production

Powerful utilities

Strength of authentication

Shared passwords

Access to edit/change audit tables

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Maintaining SOD

o Prevention

Tools for granting User access rights
 IT becomes a gatekeeper
 Conflicts raised for added approval
or mitigation

Role and User change controls

Periodic User assessments and validation

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Maintaining SOD (cont.)

o Detection

Internal audit

Periodic evaluation and monitoring

Exception reporting
o Automated methods

Automated monitoring

ERP system tools and workflow

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Key Points

o Segregation of Duties helps prevent fraud and errors.

o Detective controls can be effective.
o Companies should identify their SOD risks and
controls.
o A process is needed to correct ineffective SOD.
o Maintaining effective SOD requires processes and
tools.
o Without performing an analysis, SOD issues are
apparent after something bad occurs.

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Questions and Answers
Thank You For Attending

Weston Nelson
Senior Manager, Business Risk Management
Weston.Nelson@mossadams.com
Office: (503) 478-2144

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