Preparing For Your SOC 2 Audit Journey: A Blog in Partnership with Vanta

Partner with Vanta and BARR on your SOC report.

Not sure how to prepare for a SOC 2 audit? You’re not alone. Most companies are in that same boat. That’s why BARR Advisory has teamed up with Vanta to create this blog post. Our shared goal is to help you feel more prepared for the SOC 2 report process.

The most successful journeys begin with a solid plan. But figuring out how to get started can be overwhelming. After all, you can’t just head out the door empty handed. You need things like supplies, an itinerary, people to share the experience with – a roadmap to success of some kind.

Welcome to your roadmap. Here, we’ll detail five steps to help you prepare for your SOC 2 audit journey.

1) Choose Your Path: Manual or Automated?

You have a choice on how to prepare. And it’s all about what works best for your company. Preparation can be the most time, staff, and budget consuming part of the process.

Option 1: Plan and conduct the bulk of the preparation work manually. This typically consists of a readiness assessment, rigorous interviews, a deep dive into your cybersecurity processes, and a lengthy manual gathering of materials that showcase how your company meets each and every SOC 2 security control. This heavy lifting may be done before any auditor visits your facilities. These site visits include additional staff time for interviews, walkthroughs, and likely some additional evidence collection. Once a visit is complete and an auditor feels they have sufficient knowledge of how your company meets SOC 2 standards and controls, he or she will draft the report. For some companies, this is the best option given their environment. If you think that applies to you, contact us to get started.
Option 2: Partner with Vanta to automate the process, cutting out a lot of the cost and time commitment by utilizing its suite of tools. Vanta calls this its “security in a box” offering, which helps companies of all sizes prepare and carry out successful SOC 2 audits. With this option, Vanta partners with an auditing firm, like BARR. This means your Vanta reps become your auditor’s go-to contacts, saving you money, freeing up your staff so they can stay focused on big-picture goals, and streamlining the entire experience.

2) Select Which Trust Service Criteria Apply to Your Company

Assuming you choose option 2 above, you’ll then work with Vanta to decide which trust service criteria need to be included in your SOC 2 audit. Every SOC 2 audit includes the Security criterion as the required foundation from which other criteria can be added. Other optional SOC 2 trust services criteria include: Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and Privacy. No idea what fits your company best? That’s ok, your Vanta rep will guide you. We also recommend reading this article describing the trust service criteria and how each works within a SOC 2 audit.

3) Identify and Fix Problems Before Your Audit Begins

You read that right. With Vanta’s automated technology built to the SOC 2 standard, you can close security gaps before BARR Advisory (or another auditor of your choice) enters the picture. Vanta works with you to build a list of custom rules, then connects to your company’s infrastructure to monitor security within the systems and services you offer. Issues are automatically identified, allowing your team to respond quickly.

4) Select Your Auditor

The selection of an auditor is an important part of the process. Look for one that can offer you a list of references from other clients, extreme professionalism and attention to detail, and a company culture like your own. Of course, we hope you’ll choose to partner with BARR. Vanta has partnered with our team on more than 50 SOC audits so far, and views us as a trusted advisor to not only its current clients but some of the fastest growing cloud-based organizations across the globe.

5) Let Vanta Take the Lead

Vanta will take the reins, bringing everyone together, from any necessary staff at your company to Vanta reps to the auditors, and lead the conversation so everyone is on the same page. From here, you can expect to review monitored security data together, leading you to successful SOC 2 report completion.