ACL Introduces Executive Storyboards, Enhances GRC Project Execution, Simplifies SOX, and Strengthens Operational Risk Analytics

VANCOUVER, March 24, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ACL today announced the company's Winter 2016 product release featuring multiple updates to its award-winning GRC and data analytics platforms. The release includes new Storyboards that create reporting clarity for stakeholders through data-driven storytelling, enhanced in-product collaboration abilities, expanded questionnaire-based assessment capabilities, tools to simplify SOX, enhanced SAP data access and analysis, and new GRC knowledge content.

"For our software to be effective, it must help teams deliver results and insight where the underlying value message is articulated clearly for people at every level of the organization," said Dan Zitting, chief product officer at ACL. "Our Product Design and R&D teams have done really exciting work again this quarter, adding value all across the platform. The most notable addition is Storyboards, a feature that helps GRC professionals tell their story to upper management in a way that is valuable, data-driven, and directly actionable."

Storyboards: Because Graphs Are Not Enough
Graphs and visualizations work for presenting data, but often fall short in delivering clarity and the core value message underlying that data. ACL's new Storyboards bring the message and data to life by combining the power of interactive data visualization, narration, and annotation to give users a feature for easily building narrated data stories that deliver the right insight every time—without needing to even be in the room.

Empowering Project Collaboration and Assessments
Efforts to communicate and track actions and assessments between departments and with upper management remain ineffective in many organizations. ACL™ GRC tracks and manages communications, activities, and analysis so nothing gets lost in the shuffle. New features include activity logging that better tracks the "who, what and when" of any changes to controls, simple CC functionality to keep managers in the loop on priority actions and requests, and new questionnaire logic and data types to make assessments easier. These enhancements ensure risk, compliance, and control activities are not missed or misused and projects stay on track.

Content to Simplify SOX & Operational Risk Management in SAP
Customers demonstrated a need for an "out of the box" way to analyze SAP data to provide ongoing operational risk assurance, so ACL has responded with the release of the ACL Analysis App for Purchase-to-Pay. Customers were struggling to develop the optimal SOX dashboards, so ACL created new SOX templates in ACL GRC. The consistent response to customers' needs continues to allow ACL to provide its customers with a significant ROI on its products and services, as announced in the Forrester Total Economic Impact^TM of ACL GRC and ACL Analytics Exchange study released in December 2015.

New Data Analytics and Inspirations

Since its introduction in the fall of 2015, ACL Inspirations has grown to include more than 200 ideas on how to identify, test, and monitor risk, shared in an online portal. Due to its popularity and value, Inspirations has been made accessible for all professionals. Visitors can browse testing ideas, including new subject areas:

• Healthcare Fraud – spanning the protection of personal health information (PHI) to ensuring the validity of procedural codes being used (HCPCS)
• Improper Unemployment Insurance Claims – to help government workforce agencies find fraudulent claims
• Vendor Management – to uncover control exposures in P2P process, including the very popular "Employee-Vendor Match" test
• Anti-Money Laundering – to identify suspicious behavior in banking, gaming, and related industries where heavy fines are being leveled related to money laundering, "know your customer," and counter-terrorism financing

Cathleen Milne, director of internal audit at Charleston County School District in South Carolina, noted that the latest updates encourage interdepartmental collaboration. She explained that, after seeing how easily she and her team are able to manipulate and present data using the ACL platform, directors of other departments in the district, such as Payroll, have come to her office to reconcile unwieldy data for their own needs.

"We're becoming more of a resource for other business divisions," said Milne, adding that when analytics can turn one-off questions into repeatable monitoring tools, "the whole organization is seeing more value in what we do."

ACL is also investing in support of more than 45 local User Groups around the world, where ACL users can connect within their own communities. Learn more at www.acl.com/about-us/user-groups.

To learn more about ACL's integrated suite of solutions and professional services, visit www.acl.com.

Supporting Resources:

• For the latest news and best practices in audit, governance, risk management, compliance, and anti-fraud, visit: www.acl.com/blog
• Follow ACL on Twitter: @ACLServices
• Join ACL on LinkedIn: www.acl.com/LinkedIn
• Like ACL on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ACLServices

About ACL
ACL delivers software solutions that are transforming audit, compliance, and risk management to give organizations unprecedented control over their business. www.acl.com

© 2016 ACL Services Ltd. ACL and the ACL logo are registered trademarks of ACL Services Ltd. All other company and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.

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