The Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002 imposed new corporate governance and financial disclosure obligations on US public companies, the likes of which had not been seen in over 70 years. The aim of which was to strengthen corporate accounting controls and reform standards of public financial auditing and reporting in the wake of such financial disasters as Enron, WorldCom, and others.

Other reforms and accords such as Clerp 9 2004, governing Australian corporate law, and Basel II, Banking and Finance internationally, also govern and provide standards to help promote more effective risk mitigation and timely financial and risk disclosure.

Sarbanes-Oxley section 302 mandates that officers signing financial reports must be responsible for establishing and maintaining internal control structures and procedures for financial reporting.

Real contract management systems such as Open Windows Contracts provide effective transparency and visibility into financial commitments that organizations are often unable to achieve using financial and accounting systems. Public companies require control procedures to be established and continuously improved, over financial commitment handling and operational activity. Contract management systems with business process automation can ensure a corporate-wide consistency of risk identification and mitigation procedures that is easily and regularly auditable by signing officers responsible for Financial Reports.

Real contract management systems allow for greater controls to be put in place around:
- highly sensitive sourcing and contract development processes,
- contract award, negotiation and agreement creation,
- relationship compliance and governance,
- commitment management, and
- risk identification & reporting.

The formalization and standardization of such tasks helps organizations comply with their obligations under agreements and Acts such as Sarbanes-Oxley, dramatically lowering the cost of compliance, and the risk of litigation and officer penalties because of oversight or fraud.

Sarbanes-Oxley Section 409 relates to 'Real Time Issuer Disclosures' and required “urgent” public disclosure information on material changes in their financial condition or operations. Material information concerning the company and its consolidated subsidiaries must be made known to responsible officers by others within each entity. This means that disclosure controls and procedures must be put in place.

One of the key advantages of implementing a systems approach to contract management using software such as Open Windows Contracts, will be your ability to determine and make available information of a commercially critical nature before it impacts your business, and to allow disclosure in accordance with the Act.

Material changes in financial and operational conditions are required to be urgently disclosed to the public. These events can be identified earlier with systems in place for tracking and managing contracts, which are the instruments that provide the framework for all of your business transactions, and the part of your business most often neglected.