Strunk

Is it time for your company’s next SOC 2 examination?

September 30, 2020/in Policy Manager, Risk Manager, Sales, SOC2 /by Kristi Daly

If your company is like Strunk, then a SOC 2 exam is an annual topic of conversation and the certification from your CPA firm is something you proudly provide your clients. At Strunk we have built a full-featured solution to help not only manage the policies your organization follows but to tie those policies back to the AICPA’s criteria and to your company’s own internal control procedures.

A SOC 2 audit can be time consuming, frustrating and burdensome. Strunk’s Policy Manager and Controls Manager modules can put much needed structure around this process. We keep on top of changes to the AICPA criteria so that you don’t have to. If changes need to be made to your existing policies as a result of any of these updates, you can easily address those within our software, and all modifications and approvals will be captured in our logs. The application will remind specific users within your organization when control activities need to be tested and the solution even supports breaking up this activity throughout the year so that your team is not focused on such a large task all at once.

The implementation with Strunk is extremely straightforward. Your company will submit your current policies for upload and creation within our system. If you are missing policies in any area we will provide you with a template document for you to customize but you will not need to start from scratch! We will work with your team to map these documents to the AICPA criteria in our solution.

Most companies are using Excel to track control activities. We ask that you simply provide this list of test procedures and we will set them up within the solution as well. Our Policy Map will provide a linked relationship from criteria to policies to controls. Once all of your company specific information has been uploaded and created we will host a training webinar for your team. It’s that simple.

Let Strunk help simplify and organize this process for you so that you can focus on what you do best – serving your clients.

Ensure Contract Completeness with Strunk’s Contract Review

July 29, 2020/in Risk Manager, Sales, Vendor Manager /by Joel Lawrence

Having a well written contract with your vendor is a critical aspect in your vendor manager life cycle. The contract is important as it sets forth the terms and conditions of the relationship with the vendor. Vendor contracts are legal agreements that clearly set forth the provisions and conditions of the work or services that the vendor provides. Because the contract is the foundation for the relationship with the vendor, a complete contract review should be done before the agreement is signed.

Strunk has created a Contract Review feature in our Vendor Manager solution to help ensure your contract does not have any gaps and that each provision is understood with clear expectations. Contract Review will assist in clearly identifying what each party’s role is and who is responsible for each area. This will prevent any issue between the financial institution and the vendor. Regulations require that contracts contain key provisions such as confidentiality, service level agreements, and mutual rights and responsibilities. A thorough review of your vendor contract should be done both prior to signing a new contract and while reviewing existing contracts for renewals. Strunk’s Vendor Contract Review will help clients address significant risk controls and regulatory compliance within each of their vendors activities.

Power your team through continuing education with Strunk’s Skills Manager

June 24, 2020/in Financial Services, Markets, Risk Manager, Sales /by Kristi Daly

If you are a Risk Assessor or Policy Manager user today, you may not be aware that Skills Manager is packaged with your solution. In order for your organization policies to be effective, your employees need to know the material. Skills Manager also lets you determine if your employees remember key aspects of those policies by periodically testing employee knowledge.

Through its Courses feature Skills Manager provides simple online training experiences to help your employees brush up on key policy details. For this online training you are able to create a library of training slides, either from text or exported from PowerPoint. You then will combine slides to develop courses and assign courses to your employees. It’s that simple! Users will then take courses via our online portal, with the ability to stop and pick up where they left off as needed prior to the due date.

Once Courses are complete you can then use the Exams module to test employee knowledge. Like Courses, you will create a library of exam questions that you can then assign to exams and then exams to users. Subsequently you will set parameters for frequency with which users must take exams and set parameters for a passing score or merit score. Your employees can show their knowledge of the material within each Course.

Strunk CEO Dan Roderick says “We launched Skills Manager V2 earlier this month and it’s easier to use than ever! It’s a great way to test employee policy knowledge and document results – particularly on those policies where periodic employee acknowledgement is required.”

Skills Manager also contains a user searchable document library for storing relevant reference materials that can be used as needed throughout the year.

Strunk Reports Record Sales

November 13, 2019/in Overdraft Privilege, Risk Manager, Sales /by Kristi Daly

Strunk is proud to report that October was the highest volume software sales month in our history. In addition, October 2019 YTD sales of Risk Manager, our Governance, Risk Management and Compliance management solution, are already up almost 50% relative to full-year 2018. New clients in October range in asset size from just under $100 million to over $1.2 billion.

This success was fueled by Strunk’s strategy to offer a broad range of services, allowing clients to purchase all of our GRC modules, including Risk Assessor, Policy Manager, Controls Manager, Skills Manager, Issues Manager, Vendor Manager plus our hosted ODP Manager software for one affordable price. Clients also signed up for Overdraft Privilege program reviews and implementation of new Overdraft programs.

Strunk CEO Dan Roderick commented, “In just one month we were able to add a record number of new clients across every line of our business and a broad range of software solutions. From my perspective, this is what it’s all about – providing full-featured, easy-to-use tools that also offer clients great value. Our sales team has really knocked it out of the park!”

With Strunk’s Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance (GRC) solution suite clients can greatly enhance internal control and risk management processes and save time. The suite includes:

Vendor Manager is a specialized tool for managing vendor risk that standardizes risk assessment methodology and organizes all vendor related documentation.
Risk Assessor helps prepare comprehensive risk assessments consistent with regulatory or other requirements, in days, not weeks.
Policy Manager organizes all existing policies into a single database, mapped to the relevant standards and control procedures.
Controls Manager schedules tests of policy compliance and tracks test results.
Issues Manager is a centralized database for tracking all compliance issues and incidents across your entire organization.
Skills Manager provides online testing and training to ensure employees are knowledgeable about the organization’s policies.

In addition to our GRC solutions, financial institutions should periodically review their overdraft program to ensure they are not using policies and procedures that are non-compliant with current laws and regulations. Strunk’s comprehensive Overdraft Privilege Program review includes recommendations to increase fee income and ensure compliance. Additionally, clients receive access to our state-of-the-art program management software, ODP Manager.