Internal control management
The Leadership Team of F-Secure, Financial Management and Risk Management are responsible for internal control and risk management. Regular audits will be performed in the business units as well as in the subsidiaries. The purpose is to ensure compliance with consistent administration, accounting practices and information security in the company.
Internal control covers all the guidelines, policies, processes and organizational structure that help ensure that the business conduct is in compliance with all applicable regulations, and that all financial reporting is correct. The guidelines and instructions are made to ensure that accounting and financial information is a true and accurate
reflection of the activities and financial situation of the company. Actual performance against sales and cost targets and comparison period is constantly followed up by operative reporting systems on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
The company constantly monitors its cost efficiency and profitability as well as incoming and outgoing payment transactions. If any inconsistencies appear, the issues are handled without delay. The company’s controlling function works in close cooperation with CFO and business units, providing relevant data for business planning purposes and sales estimates. Estimates and revenue recognition are constantly monitored with follow-up methods. The Company’s controlling team is responsible for consistency and reliability of internal control methods. The controlling team meets business management and key personnel in order to assess the reliability of estimates on continuous basis.
During 2011, the controlling team focused especially on the financial management of Professional Services function that has been growing strongly during the year. Another focus area was financial support for the storage business, because in the storage business, the management of large project deliveries, large proportion of hosting services and investments play a significant role. Furthermore, other important focus areas were financial monitoring of market expansion to Latin America as well as capitalization and write-off occurrence of R&D projects.
Internal audit
The principles of internal audit are embedded in written guidelines and policies concerning accounting, risk management and controlling, and operations at all units in F-Secure are coordinated by the company’s Finance department. The company guidelines cover accounting, reporting, documentation, authorization as well as other relevant issues. F-Secure has no separate internal audit function, and therefore this has been taken into account when defining the scope of external audit. The financial management team meets with the auditors several times a year.