What is the Role of the hr department in the implementation of the Segregation of duties

Segregation of Duties in IT systems (SOD)

The increasing reliance of business processes on the IT systems supporting their execution highlights the risks arising from the lack of proper segregation of duties (SoD) resulting from granting employees with excessive system authorizations, inadequate to their official duties. Planning for an appropriate division of responsibilities and reflecting it in the access privileges granted to users of IT systems becomes necessary for the proper, efficient and secure execution of the business processes.

KPMG Risk Consulting team comprised of experts in the field of internal audit and information technology can help you ensuring proper SoD in the integrated IT systems, as well as improve the process of managing system authorizations helping to incorporate the consideration for adequate SoD.

Our support may include among others:

  • Performing the analysis of the current system authorizations focused on the assessment of their current state and identification of excessive roles and potential conflicts
  • Help in defining the concept of segregation of duties in your organization
  • Assistance in the process of solving the identified conflicts
  • Assistance in rebuilding the system roles / profiles in order to solve the identified conflicts
  • Assistance in establishing / improving the process for managing system authorizations giving consideration to the aspects of segregation of duties.

In the SoD related projects we utilize our dedicated proprietary utility KSoD Monitor, that enables a fast and effective analysis of user rights in the ERP systems. KSoD Monitor has been built in such a way that can be easily tailored to particular customer needs, the nature of the industry in which it operates and its particular ERP system. KPMG defined a set of model conflicts for all major SAP modules which are required input for the tool.

Potential benefits for the client

The implementation of an effective system for managing user rights that ensures appropriate segregation of duties allows you to achieve the following benefits:

  • Build awareness among the management and process owners of the risks associated with having an ineffective system user authorizations
  • Reduce the risk of fraud and error due to excessive user privileges
  • Improve the internal control system through better use of the opportunities offered by utilized IT systems
  • Improve business processes through better use of available system tools and eliminating unnecessary manual controls
  • Improve utilization of available resources (eg, a license to use the ERP system)
  • Addressing the issues of lack of adequate segregation of duties raised by the auditors, contractors, regulators and other stakeholders.

Segregation of Duties is an essential internal control in any organisation designed to prevent fraud and error. It’s an elementary component of any internal control system. This internal control ensures that more than one person is required to complete the various tasks required to complete a business process.

In other words, no one person should be responsible for any single task. For example, one person can place an order but another must record the transaction of this order. We can say that Segregation of Duties controls implement an appropriate level of checks and balances upon the activities of individuals.

In an ideal situation, more than one person should manage a function. An employee with multiple functional roles within an organisation can abuse the power they are given hence the need for Segregation of Duties controls. No organisation should underestimate the importance of SoD.

It’s an important control in order to achieve an effective risk management strategy. Implementing segregation of duties helps to deter errors and irregularities.

What are some examples of Segregation of Duties?

  • Persons approving manual journal should not post the same journal.
  • Same person should not do bank reconciliation and vendor payments
  • Same person should not make payments to vendors and do reconciliation of bank statements
  • Same person should not do bank reconciliation and approve vendor payments
  • Same person should not deposit cash and do bank reconciliation of bank statements
  • Same person should not purchase an order and approve an order
  • Same person should not maintain credit limits and release credit holds
  • Same person should not enter a journal and approve journal entries
  • Same person should not enter receivables and approve receivables
  • Same person should not do buyer setup and approve requisition
  • Same person should not do buyer setup and approve purchase order
  • Same person should not approve time cards and have custody of paychecks
  • Same person should not do buyer setup and enter vendor invoice
  • Same person should not do buyer setup and approve vendor invoice
  • Same person should not do buyer setup and vendor payment
  • Same person should not create requisition and approve requisition
  • Same person should not create requisition and approve vendor invoice
  • Same person should not do vendor payment – batch initiation and approve vendor payments
  • Same person should not receive funds and approve write-off of receivables
  • Same person who opens the mail should not take cheques to the bank
  • Same person who orders goods from a supplier should not log the goods into the accounting system
  • Same person who receives cheques should not be the same person who records the cheques
  • Same person who can set up a vendor should not be able to process a payment to the vendor
  • The same person who creates an invoice should not enter sales transactions into General Ledger
  • Same person should not be able create a vendor and pay invoices
  • Hiring employees and paying salaries
  • Same person shouldn't record cash received from customers and create credit memos
  • Same person should not open mail and handle cash receipts
  • Same person should not prepare bank deposits and verify cash receipts
  • Same persons shouldn't manage mergers and acquisitions and trading stock

Preventive Segregation of Duties controls allow you to check for SOD violations before new access is assigned to a user. Read about our Segregation of Duties preventive solutions.

What is the Role of the hr department in the implementation of the Segregation of duties

Why do we need Segregation of Duties controls?

Effective segregation of duties (SoD) controls can reduce the risk of internal fraud through early detection of internal process failures in key business systems.

Segregation of duties risk analysis is difficult to achieve without supported software. SafePaaS offers a series of different solutions based on your needs and requirements. Our solutions for Segregation of Duties include: SoD Scanner - a one-time run , Policy Manager, - a fully integrated solution with remediation capabilities, SoD Insight - a quick health check to see where your issues lie. 

What should Segregation of Duties solutions offer?

SoD tools allow you to detect, analyse and manage risks associated with Segregation of Duties conflicts using complex role-based authorisation models.

Segregation of Duties should offer the following capabilities:

  • SoD Risk Analysis
  • Access Certification
  • Role Management
  • Transaction Monitoring
  • Emergency Access Management
  • Compliant User Provisioning

Looking for a segregation of duties solution? You can schedule a demo right here or read on to learn more about the importance of SoD, what to look for in a solution and some common examples.  We have processed a staggering 444,607,107 segregation of duties violations on our platform, making it the single most utilized cloud platform for detecting and controlling access risk in enterprise applications. That's a lot of violations!

Complimentary segregation of duties health check

If you're new to automating SoD, we will help you see the benefits of having an automated solution in place by doing a complimentary segregation of duties health check for you. 

The SafePaaS SoD Insight is designed to quickly and reliably help customers identify segregation of duties risk in their environments.

This automated health check makes it easy to isolate and analyse these risks so that clients can build a remediation plan to address areas of concern.

SafePaaS leverages the SafePaaS Enterprise Risk Management platform to provide a deep personalized analysis which is tailored to the needs of the client.

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Who is responsible for segregation of duties?

Responsible administrators must consider the principle of segregation of duties when designing and defining job duties. They must implement processes and control procedures that, to the extent feasible, segregate duties among employees and that include effective oversight of activities and transactions.

How do you implement segregation of duties?

The first approach states that there can be four ways to segregate duties: sequential, individual, spatial, and factorial. Sequential separation: when you divide an activity into a series of steps performed by different individuals. A suitable example is the authorization of a new employee.

What two job functions are important to be segregated to ensure proper internal controls?

Generally, the primary incompatible duties that need to be segregated are: Authorization or approval. Custody of assets.

What are the four major functions of segregation of duties?

There are four general categories of duties or responsibilities which are examined when segregation of duties are discussed: authorization, custody, record keeping and reconciliation. In an ideal system, different employees would perform each of these four major functions.