The compliance landscape has evolved greatly in recent years with the advent of automated compliance monitoring tools and software. These tools can be a valuable way to document and support your organization’s compliance initiatives, but did you know that a CPA advisory firm will still be required to issue your SOC 2 report?
Let’s break down the ways that compliance software may help your business and get a better understanding of the potential capabilities a new compliance tool may offer.
Compliance Software Can Help Monitor Compliance or Meet Control Objectives
Automated evidence collection is one benefit of compliance tools. They allow your organization to document your compliance efforts, and easily understand where your systems may need improvement.
This can offer you a picture of where your compliance efforts may need to be bolstered or reconsidered. While great for monitoring and understanding your compliance efforts, this is separate from a formal SOC report.
Compliance Software Can Not Provide a SOC Report
Compliance software can feel like a quick win for organizations undergoing a compliance audit for the first time, but there are some limitations that you should be aware of.
SOC 2 compliance software will not be able to:
- Determine the necessary security requirements of your business or industry.
- Analyze the complexity of your unique security environment.
- Examine vulnerabilities within your systems or controls.
- Provide customized risk analysis information.
- Identify in-scope components.
- Adjust according to your specific security controls.
- Assess your market offering or industry.
- Scale as your organization matures.
SOC reports must be completed and signed by a CPA. A compliance tool won’t be able to issue a formal SOC 2 report, but it will help you gain valuable information about the state of your system and the success of ongoing compliance efforts.
Why Do I Need a CPA Audit Firm for Compliance Reporting?
Partnering with your auditor from the beginning of the compliance process can help streamline your reporting engagement and allows your auditor to ensure all proper responsibilities have been met. Why is this important?
- Your auditor will need to review policies and procedures to ensure that they are tailored to your organizational needs.
- Your controls will need to be double-checked to ensure that risks have been properly addressed.
- Management will need to be able to take responsibility for the data collected by the tool and be able to demonstrate controls while under audit.
- The data collected by your compliance tool of choice will have to be reviewed for completeness.
Taking extra time to complete these extra steps could result in an increase in cost or unwanted delays in your reporting. Partnering with your chosen independent auditor early in the compliance process can help ease some of these reporting burdens by ensuring that all partners and expectations are aligned.
Auditwerx Partners With Your Existing Tools
We recognize that the changing compliance landscape requires new and innovative solutions to streamline compliance reporting, which is why our team is focused on working with you in accordance with your business needs. Contact Auditwerx today.
