You use the Accounts menu group to create account groups that are relevant to your compliance initiatives. The account group hierarchy represents accounts that include external financial statements.

Each account group has its own attributes, such as the significance of the account group at the corporate level; and, assertions regarding the account group relative to the financial statements. In the account group hierarchy, you can see which accounts are significant and for what reasons.

For Sarbanes-Oxley purposes, an account is deemed to be significant if there is a reasonable possibility that a misstatement in the account will result in a material effect on the financial statements. Other compliance initiatives related to financial reporting may use similar concepts.

Financial assertions are declarations made by management about an entity’s significant accounts that are reported on their financial statements. For Sarbanes-Oxley purposes, financial assertions cover completeness, existence or occurrence, rights or obligations, valuation or allocation, presentation and disclosure. The Process Control-delivered business content provides these values, which can be configured as needed.