System and Organization Control (SOC) Audit

System and Organization Control (SOC) Audits: Ensure Your Clients and Customers Trust Your Service Organization

As third-party service entities become critical outsourced partners for managing data and transactions, their clients have increasingly come to demand they maintain secure internal controls to keep financial and non-financial data private and confidential.

To meet this expectation, service entities can benefit by enlisting the expertise of an independent accounting firm such as CBM to conduct System and Organization Control (SOC) audits that deliver assurance they are trusted service partners. SaaS entities, cloud computing groups, outsourced payroll companies, benefit plan administrators, and healthcare organizations are a few types of organizations that can benefit among many others.

An independent CPA firm, guided by AICPA standards for SOC audits, conducts the audit and provides a report to the service group and, occasionally, other stakeholders such as regulators or financial statement auditors. This helps the entity demonstrate they have met professional compliance requirements to effectively manage data and transactions thereby increasing levels of trust and confidence, and delivering significant peace of mind to clients.

Because service groups need to satisfy the expectations of a number of different stakeholders based on the type of data and transactions for which they will be called upon as stewards, they have the choice to invest in several distinct SOC audit options, which CBM is qualified to provide.

SOC Audit Reporting Options

• SOC 1 Audit Report: Report on Controls at a Service Organization Relevant to User Entities’ Internal Control over Financial Reporting
• SOC 2 Audit Report: Report on Controls at a Service Organization Relevant to Security, Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality or Privacy

Outsourced service organizations can improve the perception of reliability among clients by conducting a SOC audit. This ultimately reflects a powerful investment in business relationships.