Can your SOC report replace vendor questionnaires?
“Can I send my customers my SOC report instead of filling out their lengthy questionnaire?”
Filling out vendor questionnaires can be time consuming. But in most cases, if you have successfully completed a SOC audit, your up-to-date report can answer most of the vendor questionnaire points — and then some.
The point of a SOC for Service Organization (SOC) report is to provide your clients or customers with a detailed, extensive summary of the internal controls you have in place. These controls are tested and validated by a third-party certified public accountant (CPA) to verify that they are in place and operating effectively.
Depending on the scope of your SOC exam, your report can provide insight and details ranging anywhere from human resources controls to your cybersecurity environment.
For example, some vendor questionnaires may ask for an information security policy, disaster recovery plan, incident response procedures and various other policy and procedure documentation examples. A SOC report should include information about the policies and procedures mentioned above.
Instead of having to answer an abundance of lengthy questions in a questionnaire, you can reference your SOC report, which includes each of those question points and includes more details regarding your control environment.
SOC reports are typically included as a requirement in many companies’ vendor due diligence tasks. You may find that providing a SOC report may be the preferred method of verifying compliance for service organizations and their customers.
Wipfli can help
At Wipfli, we have extensive experience performing SOC audits, whether it’s SOC 1, SOC 2 or SOC for Cybersecurity. Our knowledge and experience can help ensure your SOC report meets each one of your vendor questionnaire inquiries. Click here to learn more.
Sign up to receive additional SOC exam content and information in your inbox, or continue reading on:
