What Is A SOC Audit and Why Is It Important?
Companies rely on various service providers to run their businesses and for continuous functionality of the operations. This can be seen when looking at cloud computing, data centers, and also software as a service. Such services that are sourced even though will bring convenience, but they have risks. Looking at the internal controls and their implementation in various service providers, you will be able to note their difference. Therefore, system and organization control is one of the ways to provide assurance to all the stakeholders in the sector. Hence, here is the definition and importance of the SOC report.
Various data control attributes are necessary for an organization to be given this report after the examination by a third party. The report reflects on the potential risks in the company and will be issued by a CPA. When you are dealing with another organization, it is important to make sure it is transparent for you to gain trust. Success and failures affect the reputation and understanding this is necessary. When a company is well-reputed, for sure it is considered to be very stable in terms of the services being provided.
The SOC reports come in many types and it is good for you to understand them as well. The types come along due to the diversity of the controls that exist between various organizations. SOC 1 is suited for the IT controls and also the business process controls. This is a report which might have a greater impact on the entity financial statement. SOC 1 is suitable for services like payroll processing, medical claims processing, and loan servicing companies. On the other hand, SOC 2 is directed towards the non-financial controls in an organization.
This is an important report when it comes to overseeing the performance of the entire organization. The tool will have to work with a couple of business programs that are there. Security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and finally the privacy sector are the five main categories of the SOC 2. The SOC 2 also has various types. This type of service is done to various organizations like the data centers, and also some network monitoring services that are there in the business environment.
It is key for you to know how you will understand the auditor opinion. In the categories, you will find the unqualified, qualified, adverse, and disclaimer opinions about the report generated by the auditor. Further examination of the report is needed for a conclusion. Among the opinions, an organization need to be yearning to get the unqualified opinion. Therefore, for the establishment of trust and transparency between an organization and the other entities, this is a good tool. If your organization wants to give risk management assurance, SOC is the best.