Skip to content
Nextera DigitalLearn

Nextera Guard

Internal Control over Financial Reporting, from control library to continuous monitoring.

Nextera Guard turns ICoFR from a spreadsheet exercise into a living system: a central control library, structured assessments, evidence capture, remediation tracking and continuous monitoring.

Who this is for

Section titled “Who this is for”
  • Internal control (ICoFR) teams who own the control framework
  • Risk and compliance functions who consume and challenge it
  • Finance leadership who have to sign that the controls worked

What Nextera Guard covers

Section titled “What Nextera Guard covers”

ICoFR fails in predictable ways, and almost none of them are conceptual. The control library lives in a spreadsheet that three people have their own copy of. Evidence is an email attachment nobody can find at year end. A deficiency is raised in March and rediscovered in November. Testing happens in the last two weeks of the cycle because nobody was tracking coverage.

Guard addresses each of those as a system problem:

  • A control library that is the control library. Every financial-reporting control in one place, mapped to the risks and processes it covers — so “how many controls do we have over revenue?” has one answer.
  • Assessment with structure. Evaluating both design effectiveness and operating effectiveness against the risks each control addresses.
  • Evidence attached to the control and the period. Not to an inbox.
  • Testing planned across the cycle. With results feeding the assessment rather than sitting beside it.
  • Remediation with owners and dates. Deficiencies logged and tracked to close.
  • Continuous monitoring. Watching key controls throughout the period rather than only at period end, so an issue surfaces while there is still time to fix it.

For the framework this rests on — the COSO components, design versus operating effectiveness, the deficiency severity ladder, the three lines model — read Internal control concepts.

What Nextera reports customers achieve

Section titled “What Nextera reports customers achieve”

Outcomes Nextera publishes for Guard, as customer results rather than guarantees:

  • 1 central control library
  • Live control monitoring
  • Full audit trail

Guard or Trace?

Section titled “Guard or Trace?”

They are adjacent and frequently confused. Guard is management running its own controls (first and second line). Trace is internal audit independently examining whether they work (third line). Both can look at the same control; only one of them owns it. See the three lines.

Where it runs

Section titled “Where it runs”

Nextera Guard is a hosted web application, normally at guard.nextera.id. See Getting access.

Where to go next

Section titled “Where to go next”