If you ask ten finance teams what being SOX compliant means, you will get ten variations of the same theme: control, consistency, and the ability to prove it.

That last part is the one most teams underestimate.

SOX is not an official certification you can pass once and move on from. It is an operating standard that shows up every month through how you run internal control over financial reporting, how management maps and assess controls, and how auditors test that assessment.

In practice, SOX readiness becomes a very specific question:

When something changes in the books, can you show who did what, when, under which approval, with what supporting evidence, and with the right separation of duties?

This post is about where Stacks helps with that question today, without pretending software can make you SOX compliant on its own.

The control is not the hard part. Keeping it true under pressure is.

Most finance organizations do not struggle because they do not know what good controls look like. They struggle because controls quietly drift.

The preparer who owned the lease reconciliation goes on leave. Someone else picks it up, but nobody updates the task assignment in the checklist. Review still happens, but the audit trail now shows a name that does not match the actual work.

Or this: the support for a high-risk accrual lives in an email thread between accounting and FP&A. The journal posts. Month-end closes. Three months later, an auditor asks for backup, and it takes two people half a day to reconstruct what was approved and by whom.

Or the reconciliation template that everyone swore was locked down. Until someone saves it with a version that drops a key formula, and now the variance check no longer catches what it used to.

None of these are competence failures. They are system failures. The controls existed. The operating system around them did not hold.

SOX lives on two layers. The policy layer defines what should happen. The execution layer determines whether it actually happens, the same way, every period, with evidence. Stacks fit into the execution layer. It helps teams run controls consistently and retain the evidence trail that matters when testing arrives.

Where Stacks aligns with SOX expectations today

1) Maker-checker workflows that support segregation of duties

SOX does not just care that a task was completed. It cares that the right people completed it, in the right sequence, with clear accountability.

Stacks supports assigning distinct preparers and reviewers at the task level across core close work such as journals and reconciliations. Making review explicit turns an assumed control into a demonstrable one.

2) Embedded procedures, not process trapped in people's heads

A SOX control is only as reliable as the procedure behind it.

Stacks allows each task to carry its own documented instructions and expectations, so work is performed consistently even when teams change or the close is under pressure. Many close issues are not skill failures. They are variation failures. The process shifts slightly, the output drifts, and the risk appears later. Keeping the procedure with the work reduces that drift.

3) An immutable activity log that stands up to scrutiny

Auditors do not want reassurance. They want a record.

Every task in Stacks maintains a timestamped activity log that captures user actions and cannot be altered. This creates a clear, chronological trail of what happened and when. Instead of reconstructing history through screenshots and email chains, teams can rely on a single source of truth when controls are tested.

4) Role-based access and SSO to support access discipline

Access matters because who can prepare, review, or modify close artifacts directly affects control integrity.

Stacks supports role-based permissions managed at the organization level and integrates with single sign-on. This does not replace IT general controls, but it does allow the close layer itself to be governed with clear access boundaries. That difference separates assumed controls from demonstrable ones.

5) Explicit balance sheet reconciliation coverage

A common SOX risk is not a failed reconciliation. It is incomplete coverage that goes unnoticed.

Stacks treats balance sheet reconciliation coverage as a first-class concept, helping teams ensure accounts across entities are consistently addressed. The failure mode looks like this: the close completes, the status looks healthy, and then testing reveals certain accounts were never reconciled or were reconciled inconsistently across entities. Making coverage visible surfaces those gaps early.

Using Stacks in a SOX-ready close

For teams strengthening controls or preparing for higher scrutiny, a practical approach looks like this: define your key control points, focusing on high-risk journals and reconciliations. Assign preparer and reviewer ownership explicitly in the system. Document the procedure once and reuse it every period. Treat evidence as part of the deliverable, not an afterthought. Use the activity log as your primary record during testing.

The shift is simple but meaningful: from completing work to completing work in a way you can defend, month after month.

A final word on precision

You will notice what this post does not claim.

Stacks is not described as SOX compliant. There is no universal SOX certification, and compliance is ultimately a company-level outcome driven by how controls are designed and operated.

What Stacks is built to do is make the execution layer of your close more reliable: consistent workflows, clear ownership, and evidence that holds up when scrutiny arrives.

That is the difference between a close that feels controlled, and a close you can prove is controlled.