If you've ever managed a security audit, you know the drill: dig through screenshots, track down logs, export reports, organize documentation, repeat. Now multiply that effort across several security frameworks, and you’ve got a full-time job just collecting evidence.

Most companies still treat evidence collection as a manual, framework-by-framework process. The reality is that many security frameworks have significant control overlap, and with the right strategy and tools, you can drastically reduce the time, effort, and frustration involved.

Let’s walk through practical ways to simplify evidence collection for multi-framework compliance and build a system that scales with you.

The challenges of manual evidence collection 

One of the biggest challenges with evidence collection is that every security framework defines requirements in its own way, even when the underlying control is essentially the same. For example, access management may be a shared expectation across frameworks, but the exact language, scope, or supporting documentation can differ. 

On top of that, individual auditors may request evidence in specific formats. One might want a signed report, another a CSV export, another a screenshot. These variations in both requirement details and formatting expectations can create logistical headaches. 

Adding to this complexity is the fact that frameworks often require evidence to be collected on different timelines. Some controls must be reviewed quarterly, others annually, and some continuously. Without a system to track collection cadences, teams often fall back on ad-hoc tools like spreadsheets or shared calendars. Over time, this increases the risk of outdated evidence, missed deadlines, and audit surprises, especially as the number of frameworks grows.

Version control is another common pain point. When evidence is scattered across folders, email threads, or personal devices, it becomes difficult to track whether a piece of evidence is current, complete, or even valid. This lack of centralized oversight puts audits at risk and makes it harder to maintain a clear record of compliance over time.

This burden only grows for organizations working across global markets or highly regulated sectors like SaaS, fintech, healthcare, and government contracting. These companies are often required to demonstrate compliance with at least six security or regulatory frameworks, such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, NIST CSF 2.0, and GDPR. Without a way to consolidate overlapping controls, the effort required to prove compliance compounds exponentially.

Control mapping: Do once, use many

One of the biggest sources of wasted effort in compliance is collecting the same evidence multiple times for slightly different requirements. Most frameworks share core control themes like access management, personnel training, and incident response, but they use different terminology and structures. Without a way to align framework requirements, teams end up duplicating work that could be done once.

Control mapping solves this by identifying where one internal control satisfies requirements across multiple frameworks. For instance, periodic access reviews may be required for SOC 2 (CC6.1), ISO 27001 (A.9.2.5), HIPAA (164.308(a)(4)), NIST 800-53 (AC-2(7)), NIST 800-171 (3.1.6), and PCI DSS (7.2.5). Rather than documenting and uploading separate evidence for each, you can link a single piece of evidence to all six framework requirements.

Of course, control mapping isn’t always straightforward. One framework might reference "logical access controls," while another describes "access restriction based on business requirements." A formal control mapping strategy helps clarify these differences and ensures your team understands how each internal process aligns with compliance requirements.

To implement this effectively, you need a control library. This is a central list of your internal controls, each linked to the relevant requirements across the frameworks that apply to your organization. Instead of managing each framework in isolation, your team can work from a single system. Evidence like an access review or risk assessment can be uploaded once and automatically applied to all mapped controls.

Many compliance automation platforms include built-in control mapping libraries that make this process much easier. Some, like Secureframe, even provide pre-mapped frameworks out of the box, allowing you to focus on collecting evidence rather than decoding how standards overlap. 

These tools eliminate much of the manual effort involved in building and maintaining your own crosswalks. Organizations that use a unified control library can reuse evidence for up to 80–90% of overlapping controls across frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and PCI DSS. That level of efficiency can save weeks of work for each audit and keep your compliance program lean, consistent, and audit-ready year-round.

Automate evidence collection wherever possible

Manually collecting evidence may work when you’re managing a single framework, but it quickly becomes unmanageable as your compliance obligations grow. Automation eliminates much of that friction by continuously monitoring your compliance posture and pulling control evidence from the tools and platforms your team already uses.

Tools like Secureframe integrate with most audit relevant systems including AWS, Azure, GCP, Okta, Google Workspace, Jira, and vulnerability management tools to automatically gather security configurations, access logs, ticket history, and more evidence. Rather than taking screenshots or chasing down PDFs, your compliance platform can access controls and evidence that’s linked directly to framework requirements in real time.

The benefit here isn’t just speed, it’s also consistency. Automating evidence collection ensures that documentation is always current, formatted correctly, and tied to the right controls. This helps eliminate versioning issues, prevents gaps in your audit trail, and builds trust with auditors, who can see that your evidence is generated directly from source systems.

It also supports continuous control monitoring, which is becoming a core expectation in modern compliance programs and frameworks. Instead of waiting for an audit to check whether your security controls are in compliance, automation allows you to monitor key indicators on an ongoing basis and take corrective action early if something’s off.

The core value of automation isn’t just faster evidence collection, its proactive compliance. By continuously syncing data from your cloud environment, ticketing system, and IAM platform, you’re in a better state of audit readiness. Your team avoids the high-pressure sprints leading up to audits, and you’re better positioned to take on new compliance frameworks or customer requirements without scrambling to retrofit documentation.