The nightmares of SarbOx compliance

"Here’s one great example: If you use an Excel spreadsheet to prepare some numbers for financial statements, auditors want you to prove that you have internal controls in place to guarantee that the Excel spreadsheet adds up. You have to give the spreadsheet numbers to someone and have them manually add them up.

It’s hard to explain the frustration, because it’s relentless. Every week they come out with new requirements and new regulations, and your day-to-day work becomes more absurd and mired in minutiae. SarbOx isn’t the only reason I left Outback—there were a lot of things that happened, and I was at a point in my career where it made sense. But my life at Outback had become just dealing day to day with regulatory matters. I’m a business developer by mentality; I’ve always been a business person with a financial background. And suddenly I became a cop and a compliance guy. That’s not my nature. I want to build things, make things better, and I no longer had time to do that."

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