(FORTUNE Small Business) – You can't be a whistleblower if no one hears you. That's why companies pay an outfit called the Network to provide hotlines; 150 operators gather information from anonymous callers, then send a report to a responsible party designated by the client. (Among the Network's victims: a managing director of Pittsburgh's PPG Industries who filed false expense reports.) Since Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in July 2002, requiring all public companies to adopt such systems, the Network, based in Norcross, Ga., has boosted its client roster by two-thirds, to more than 1,500, and has increased revenues by nearly 50%.

THE RIGHT CALL In 1998 the Network--founded in 1983 by a former FBI agent--was struggling, thanks to a byzantine system that left operators conducting incomplete interviews and writing insubstantial reports. Enter Tony Malone, a former risk manager who came onboard as CEO and directed a $1.5 million technology investment that streamlined the interview process. (Ironically, Malone had recently been convicted of a misdemeanor for reimbursing employees for management-encouraged political contributions.) The new phone system, which debuted in 2000, walks Network operators through an automated series of questions for callers--customized for each client--and flags them if information is incomplete.

DIALING FOR DOLLARS When Sarbanes-Oxley passed, the Network was ready. The company has flourished even as rival firms are failing. "Sarbanes-Oxley presented an opportunity for us," says Malone, 43. "We had the mechanisms in place to deal with it." --NELSON WANG