APEX Analytix Forms Alliance with Visual Risk IQ

Sharing some news about our firm that crossed the wire this week...

source: Triad Daily Business News

Consulting firm to represent APEX Analytix software and services as part of its advisory capabilities in continuous auditing and monitoring.

GREENSBORO – APEX Analytix, a leading provider of services and software for performance improvement, error prevention and fraud detection in accounts payable, today announced a new alliance agreement with Visual Risk IQ, a consulting and systems integration firm specializing in risk advisory services for large global businesses.

Under the terms of the agreement, Visual Risk IQ now will represent APEX Analytix recovery audit and fraud detection services, as well as the company’s industry-leading FirstStrike™ software for continuous monitoring of accounts payable for errors and fraud.

“APEX Analytix offers best-in-class people and technology, backed by a solid 20-year track record,” said Joe Oringel, managing director, Visual Risk IQ. “As a result, we now can offer our clients an innovative combination of software and services that can help them meet even their most aggressive governance, risk and compliance objectives.”

The APEX Analytix FirstStrike™ software family helps companies protect their bottom line. FirstStrikeTM Fraud Detect provides the continuous monitoring companies need to fight fraud in accounts payable disbursements. FirstStrike™ Accounts Payable and FirstStrike™ Purchasing automate the detection and prevention of errors in accounts payable and procurement. APEX Analytix also provides a broad range of recovery audit and vendor risk analysis services through its team of certified auditors and fraud examiners.

Visual Risk IQ specializes in helping companies plan and implement continuous, auditing and monitoring solutions that help them achieve their specific business objectives through increased frequency and depth of risk and control analysis. The company works with a variety of Fortune 1000 firms across a broad range of industry sectors.

“Visual Risk IQ is a great fit for us,” said Chris Siemasko, vice president of product management for APEX Analytix. “They are widely recognized as thought leaders in risk analysis, and they share our belief in the value of continuous monitoring to improve internal controls. We see them leading the evolution in this emerging market through advisory services, educational seminars and a proprietary maturity model that helps clients turn their strategic vision of the future into a reality.”

About APEX Analytix

APEX Analytix is an innovative audit recovery firm serving more than a third of the Fortune 100. The company has transformed the audit recovery industry with FirstStrike™, a highly functional family of standards-based software that detects and prevents both errors and fraud and improves performance across the procure-to-pay process. To date FirstStrike™ has saved businesses more than $1.5 billion in overpayments and is the most widely used software of its type. For more information call 800.284.4522 or visit www.apexanalytix.com.

About Visual Risk IQ

Visual Risk IQ helps people responsible for governance, risk and compliance achieve their compliance and business performance objectives through practical application of process changes and innovative technologies. The company provides value for clients using a combination of experienced-based learning and co-sourcing projects, satisfying current requirements in the context of a future vision. For more information on Visual Risk IQ, visit www.visualriskiq.com.

source: Triad Daily Business News

More Continuous Auditing Software - Or is it?

As many who have met us know, Kim Jones and I keep various Google Alerts set for key phrases that relate to continuous auditing (CA) and continuous monitoring (CM). As is the case in most weeks, this week's alert had many more citations for CM than CA. But the CA alert did have a number of new and noteworthy items for us.

One of this week's most interesting CA alerts was from Atlanta-based software firm called Gideon Technologies and their SecureFusion suite. The suite should be of interest for configuration controls auditing and monitoring in the IT General Controls stack, but not for monitoring of financial transactions, as we focus on at Visual Risk IQ. Nevertheless, the alert reinforces how the analysts in the GRC space struggle when describing the capabilities and points of distinction among software firms known for CA, CM, and/or GRC. SecureFusion capabilities include IT asset detection, configuration management, and vulnerability assessment, and therefore have little if anything in common with CA and CM transaction monitoring tools like Oversight, Apex, or ACL.

Kim and I know Ken from our PwC days, and we recently saw him speak a March meeting in Atlanta, where they introduced Gideon's SecureFusion solution to a number of information security professionals. He was quick to agree that there are a number of technology solutions that share the similar names and even named features, but that they do not in fact compete in any meaningful way. Over time, hopefully the market(s) will also begin to distinguish this as well.

Back on Line - Continuous Auditing and Fraud Blog

Hi - welcome. You found us.

After a six-month hiatus due to some technical challenges related an Apple iLife '06 to iLife '08 upgrade, our Continuous Auditing blog returns. Now hosted by Google's Blogger, my Visual Risk IQ partner Kim Jones and I will endeavor to keep you posted on interesting (to us) stories in the news related to internal auditing and fraud. We intend to focus on stories which demonstrate the business value of more frequent and more in-depth internal control or risk assessment.

We welcome any comments or suggestions.

Joe Oringel
Visual Risk IQ
Charlotte, North Carolina, USA

www.visualriskiq.com