Last month, Gartner released an update on Sarbanes-Oxley compliance costs and trends. The report, "How to Best Support the CFO," seems geared toward IT executives and managers. The report indicates that nearly 10 percent of IT budgets are earmarked for investments related to regulatory compliance.

The message to IT readers consists of two main points:

1. Focus IT spending on improvements to Sarbanes compliance first before moving on to GRC investments of larger scope;

2. When supporting financial process, focus on helping improve the financial close and reconciliation (which also relate to Sarbanes compliance, of course);

The report will be particularly helpful for non-accelerated and foreign filers -- as well as newly public companies whose Sarbanes compliance efforts (and integrated GRC efforts) are relatively new.

The report also reproduces Financial Executives International research on changes in the average cost of Sarbanes compliance from 2004 through 2006. This research indicates that while internal and external compliance-management costs decreased significantly during that three-year stretch, external auditing costs related to Section 404 have remained consistent (an average of about $1.2 million per year for companies with annual revenue of $5 billion to $7 billion).