You’ve heard about SOC 2 reporting, and your company wants to obtain a SOC 2. You want a clear and shareable way to communicate to potential customers your commitment to strong security practices.

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A SOC 2 report is a standardized and widely recognized way to assure your customers, prospects, and business partners that your services are secure, reliable, and trustworthy. Created by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), the SOC 2 audit and reporting process involves the assessment and documentation of your company’s verified security practices. To complete a SOC 2 audit, your company’s security measures must be reviewed and verified by a certified auditor. (For more background on SOC 2, check out Vanta's SOC 2 Guide.)

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Only licensed CPA firms can perform a SOC 2 examination. Previously, to conduct a SOC 2 audit, your single option was to find a CPA firm and embark upon a multilayered audit review process with significant manual data collection requirements — which would, in turn, require substantial time from your team. SOC 2 reporting has typically involved many hours with an auditor on-site in advance of your audit; auditors would conduct in-depth interviews with staff, and work with your team to manually collect evidence regarding your security processes. Following this pre-audit work, companies would spend time implementing any recommended fixes to their security systems to prepare for the audit itself — which would include further interviews and additional evidence collection. This was followed by an auditor’s time to document the lengthy process, and, finally, to write the report.‍