Finding your way through Any SOC 2 Journey: What you need to Be aware of.
You have been around in business for years. Now for the very first time, you are being asked for your SOC 2 report with a current or potential customer. You are probably wondering what range of cost and effort is needed, and when it is worth it. Don’t worry, you are not alone.
It’s becoming increasingly common for organizations to request their vendors to undergo a Service Organization Control (SOC) 2 examination to make sure their sensitive information will be appropriately protected by your business best SOC 2 auditors. Many now require a written report as part of their due diligence process before using the services of a company.
What’s a SOC 2 Exam?
Developed by The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), a SOC 2 exam helps provide organizations ways to show the design and effectiveness of these internal controls. It is based on the AICPA’s trust services criteria of security required, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality and privacy. It pertains to almost all businesses collecting, storing, processing or sharing customer data.
To complicate matters, you will find two forms of SOC 2 exams:
Type 1: Evaluates an organization’s controls to determine if they’re suitably designed and fairly stated at just one point in time.
Type 2: Evaluates exactly the same controls as a Type 1, but additionally examines how well those controls performed over a time frame, typically 6-12 months.
The Value It Brings
Besides the fact your customers may be requiring you to offer a SOC 2 report to be able to continue using the services of them, there are more benefits to presenting an exam completed.
Having a SOC 2 report available and all set offers you the edge over competitors who can’t show compliance. It demonstrates your commitment to data security and can help ensure confidential information is protected. Your team will also be in a position to answer control-related questions from customers more efficiently. It’s a fruitful solution to assess and ensure compliance with a wide range of regulations and standards. Beyond that, it can benefit provide valuable insights into your organization’s risk and security posture.
Ideas to Prepare
Achieving compliance serves as a robust external measure of competency and credibility, enabling organizations to feel confident about making use of your services, but the process may be slightly stressful if you are not prepared. Listed here are five tips to make sure your readiness for a SOC 2 exam.
Get a readiness assessment. A readiness assessment can help you determine your preparedness for a SOC 2 exam. You are able to either choose to do a readiness assessment all on your own, or you could engage an auditing firm to do your review. This kind of assessment provides insight into your organization’s maturity level in its SOC 2 readiness journey and alerts you to any issues in advance. You are able to utilize auditors to simply help develop controls that can be audited and described properly.
Write your system description. When you yourself have not already, you will have to get your system descriptions in order. First, determine which trust service criteria needs to be included in your SOC 2 exam based in your business. An overview of your systems’controls to meet up the SOC 2 control objectives will have to be compiled for the auditor. With respect to the complexity of your company, this could be a quick task or even a daunting one. Be sure you give yourself the full time to perform this thoroughly.
Almost all companies will typically engage their SOC auditor as a consultant to do a readiness assessment, that may include assistance in preparing the machine description. A key item to see is this document is dedicated to controls, not specific processes and does not require to give away your entire operational secrets.
Gather your documentation. Anticipate to produce documentation to your auditors when asked. You will have policies, procedures, organizational outlines and a listing of third-party vendors, among many other items, on-hand and readily available. In a SOC 2 exam, each control needs to be auditable. When it is not documented, it can’t be contained in the exam.
Fix your issues. Take some time to handle the control flaws and failures identified in the readiness assessment. It is also a good time to check if your scope is appropriate.
Line-up the best auditor. SOC 2 audits can just only be performed by certified public accounting (CPA) firms. But remember, not absolutely all accountants are CPAs, which is why you can’t hire a regular accountant to conduct your SOC 2 audit. It should be one that specializes in information security, like those at Doeren Mayhew, and should be independent from your own organization. The earlier you choose the best partner, the smoother the general process will go.
In a world where organizations are leveraging technology a lot more than ever to supply their products and services, security integrity is of the utmost importance to your customers. Although it may seem daunting, a SOC 2 exam can provide significant benefits to your business’s operations and bottom line.
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