Your Step-by-Step SOC 2® Audit Checklist for Passing the Audit

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Your Step-by-Step SOC 2® Audit Checklist for Passing the Audit

Table of Contents

What is a SOC 2® audit?
Why get a SOC 2 audit?
SOC 2 audit checklist
What is the SOC 2 audit process?
What happens if you fail a SOC 2 audit?
Ensure SOC 2 audit readiness with Secureframe

Your Step-by-Step SOC 2® Audit Checklist for Passing the Audit

December 23, 2025

Author

Emily Bonnie

Senior Content Marketing Manager

Reviewer

Rob Gutierrez

Senior Cybersecurity and Compliance Manager, CISA, CCSK, CMMC RP

According to a recent System and Organization Controls (SOC) survey conducted by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the increasing awareness of the importance of IT security at third parties has led to an almost 50% increase in the demand for SOC 2® engagements.

As more customers and business partners value SOC 2 engagements as part of their third-party risk management efforts, your service organization can expect a request for a SOC 2 report.

Offering flexibility without sacrificing security rigor, SOC 2 is one of the most common security frameworks in North America. However, complying with SOC 2 requires a comprehensive audit of your organization’s systems, processes, and controls. Preparing for such an undertaking is no easy feat.

To help, we’ve created a checklist of pre-audit steps you can take to maximize your chance of passing that audit and gaining the ability to say you’re SOC 2 compliant. You can download it below or keep reading to get a detailed overview of each step.

What is a SOC 2® audit?

A SOC 2 audit is the process you undergo to see if your organization’s control set meets SOC 2 compliance requirements. SOC 2 compliance requirements consist of five trust service criteria (TSC) developed by the AICPA: security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy.

Previously referred to as Trust Services Principles, these criteria offer a framework for evaluating a service organization’s controls relevant to information and systems for SOC 2 compliance.

Why get a SOC 2 audit?

Passing a SOC 2 audit means you’re compliant with whichever trust services criteria you specified. This can help reassure customers that you have the necessary controls in place to protect their data, which may unblock deals, accelerate your sales cycle, and help you move upmarket.

A SOC 2 report can therefore be a powerful marketing tool, showing prospects, customers, business partners, and other key stakeholders that you’re serious about data security.

Making this commitment to data security and getting a SOC 2 report requires a significant investment of time, money, and organizational resources.

Now that we understand why SOC 2 is important, let’s take a closer look at the steps an organization must take on its SOC 2 compliance journey below.

Your 8-step checklist to prepare for and pass your SOC 2 audit

SOC 2 isn’t just an audit you show up for. It’s a process that takes real preparation and usually more time than most teams expect going in.

There’s an audit at the end, but most of the real work happens long before that day arrives. You’re not just gathering documents. You’re tightening processes, getting people aligned, and making sure what you say you do actually matches what’s happening behind the scenes.

To make that easier, we’ve broken the SOC 2 compliance journey into a clear, practical eight-step checklist that shows you how to go from “we should probably get a SOC 2” to “we’re ready for the audit.”

1. Select your report type

To start, you’ll have to select the type of SOC 2 report you want. There are two types:

Type 1: Evaluates the design effectiveness of controls at a single point in time.
Type 2: Evaluates the design and operational effectiveness of controls over a period of time (usually between 3 to 12 months).

In other words, SOC 2 Type I assesses how well you designed controls whereas a Type 2 audit more accurately measures controls in action.

Since Type 1 only analyzes design effectiveness as of one date, it’ll be less time and resource-intensive. While Type 2 is more intensive, it carries more weight for how well your controls are designed and their operational effectiveness — both of which are more marketable. Given this increased rigor, customers typically prefer to see Type 2 reports.

Which one you select depends on what your customers are asking for, but as a general rule of thumb pick Type 2 if you care more about how well your controls function in the real world. If you’re more concerned with simply having well-designed controls and would like to save resources, pick Type 1.

2. Determine your SOC 2 audit scope and objectives

The next part of preparing for your SOC 2 compliance audit is defining the scope and objectives.

SOC 2 audits look at infrastructure, data, people, risk management policies, and software, to name a few items. You must determine who and what within each of these categories will be subject to the audit.

Next, define what the objectives are for the in-scope systems or services. In other words, what have you told your customers these systems or services will do, and how do you commit to doing it? You can typically find this information in contracts, service level agreements, or published collateral (like your company website).

Taking time to right-size your scope up front can dramatically reduce cost, complexity, and stress later on.

3. Select your trust services criteria

SOC 2 audits evaluate your controls within the audit scope mentioned earlier against the trust services criteria set out by the AICPA.

Recall that five trust services criteria make up the SOC 2 compliance requirements:

Security: Protecting sensitive information and systems against unauthorized access, disclosure of information, or other mishandling/damage.
Availability: Information and systems can meet your organization’s service objectives — such as those laid out in service-level agreements — and are available for operation.
Processing integrity: Your systems perform their functions completely, accurately, validly, timely, and in a way that meets your organizational objectives.
Confidentiality: You collect, use, retain, disclose, and dispose of non-personal data and information properly.
Privacy: You collect, use, retain, disclose, and dispose of peoples’ personal information properly.

Fortunately, you don’t have to undergo an audit for all five at once. The only mandatory principle is security, and the others are recommended depending on your business. For instance, if you carry a lot of personal or sensitive customer data it would make sense for your organization to include privacy or confidentiality.

If you’re short on resources for the audit, pick criteria alongside security that offer the highest potential ROI or those you’re close to achieving without much additional work.

You can go for all five at once if you’re able; just keep in mind that the audit scope and cost will increase with each trust principle you add.

At this stage, it can help to talk with key customers or prospects to understand which criteria matter most to them so you’re not over- or under-scoping your first report.

Downloadable SOC 2 Compliance Checklist

Download this step-by-step SOC 2 compliance checklist to see exactly what you’ll need to do on your path to an audit and easily track your progress.

4. Conduct a risk assessment

Next, you’ll need to identify potential risks to your information assets, infrastructure, software, people, procedures, and data that may affect your organization’s ability to achieve its objectives. As part of the assessment process, you’ll want to determine the likelihood that a risk could occur as well as its potential business impact. You can then rank them based on the overall risk to your organization.

This ranking will help you respond appropriately to each risk. This may involve developing or updating a business continuity plan, purchasing technology, or putting access controls or other security measures in place to mitigate the risk to an acceptable level.

A well-documented, realistic risk assessment shows auditors that you understand where your biggest exposures are and that your controls are designed to address those areas first.

5. Perform a gap analysis and remediation

Once you’ve scoped your audit, selected your Trust Services Criteria, and completed your risk assessment, the next step is to compare where you are today against where you need to be. That’s your gap analysis.

This involves looking at which SOC 2 requirements apply to you based on scope and criteria and comparing them to the policies, processes, and technical controls you already have in place. Where are there missing, incomplete, or ineffective controls? From there, you’ll build and execute a remediation plan.

Conducting a proper gap analysis and remediating vulnerabilities can take a few months and may involve:

Implementing or tightening controls
Interviewing employees to understand how processes really work
Training employees on new or updated controls
Creating and updating control documentation
Modifying workflows or tooling so they support your policies in practice

Like with many other steps in this journey, you may be able to outsource your gap analysis to a firm specializing in this process, though this can add cost.

Many organizations now use a compliance automation platform instead. These tools continuously check your systems and controls against SOC 2 criteria, immediately flag misconfigurations or missing evidence, and provide tailored remediation guidance so you can close gaps faster and with more confidence.

6. Run a readiness assessment as a final check

After you’ve done the bulk of your remediation work, a readiness assessment acts as a dress rehearsal for the real audit. Instead of discovering issues during the formal engagement, you surface them while you still have time to fix them.

While you can perform a self-assessment if you know how, bringing in an auditor or other third party is often the better choice since they have the expertise and an outside perspective. If you work with Secureframe, our team can help you understand how ready you are for a successful SOC 2 assessment and what still needs attention.

During a readiness assessment, the assessor walks through your in-scope systems, processes, and controls, much like they would during the formal audit, and tests whether:

Controls are designed appropriately
Controls are implemented and operating as described
Documentation, evidence, and ownership are clear

In the end, they issue a management letter or summary of findings detailing any weaknesses or deficiencies found that pertain to each trust services requirement, along with recommendations for fixing them.

The readiness assessment helps you validate that your preparation work is paying off and gives you a realistic preview of what the auditor will focus on.

Of course, the assessor can’t help you fix the weaknesses or implement suggestions directly. This would threaten their independence, since they cannot objectively audit their own work.

That part is up to you, but by the time you complete this step, you should have far fewer surprises left to uncover.

7. Implement a process for continuous compliance monitoring

After closing any identified gaps, implement a process for monitoring your controls so you can ensure they stay effective and don't drift out of compliance between your readiness assessment and the formal audit.

A compliance automation tool can streamline this process as well. Using automation to monitor controls in real time can provide your organization with a much more dynamic view of the effectiveness of your controls and your overall cybersecurity posture than manual processes alone. Continuous monitoring also makes future SOC reports easier. Instead of starting from scratch each year, you’re simply maintaining and improving a living program.

Once you feel you’ve addressed everything relevant to your scope and trust services criteria, you’re ready to request a formal SOC 2 audit.

8. Find a SOC 2 auditor

Since the AICPA created the SOC security guidelines, any CPA firm can perform your audit for you.

However, you’ll want to pick a CPA firm that specializes in information systems.

If you currently work with a firm that lacks CPAs with information systems knowledge and experience, your best bet is to hire a different firm for the audit. Your current firm may be able to provide some advice on preparations, but engaging with a firm that specializes in information security work will increase your chances of passing the audit.

It’s worth noting that because there’s no formal certification, hiring a CPA firm with more SOC 2 experience can bring more prestige to the end result, maximizing your reputation among customers.

That said, you will have to pay more for a more renowned firm.

Many organizations choose to work with the same firm for both readiness and the formal audit, while others prefer to separate those roles. Either approach can work as long as independence is preserved and you feel confident in the firm’s SOC 2 expertise.

Now you’re ready to undergo the audit. Let’s take a look at what the process is like below.

What is the SOC 2 audit process?

Understanding what to expect during the audit process can also help it go more smoothly. While each auditor may have a slightly different process depending on the technology they use, the size of the organization being audited, and other factors, here’s the general process:

1. The security questionnaire

Many auditing firms start by administering a questionnaire to you and your team.

This contains many questions regarding company policies, procedures, IT infrastructure, and controls.

Getting your team into good security habits as early as possible before the audit helps out here. They’ll be able to answer questions with confidence.

What happens if you fail a SOC 2 audit (and how to recover)

Failing a SOC 2 audit can feel like a worst-case scenario, especially if you’re relying on that report to close deals or retain customers. But in reality, a failed audit is rarely a disaster. It’s usually a signal that some areas of your security program weren’t ready yet, not that your company is fundamentally unsafe.

Most companies don’t fail because of catastrophic breaches or reckless behavior. They fail because of things like missing documentation, controls that exist on paper but not in practice, or gaps that were never identified before the auditor pointed them out. The upside is that these are all solvable problems.

When a SOC 2 audit doesn’t go as planned, you typically won’t receive a dramatic “fail” notice. Instead, you’ll receive an auditor’s opinion that explains what worked, what didn’t, and how serious the issues are.

If you receive a qualified or adverse opinion, the first step is simply to slow down and read through the findings carefully. Auditors will outline which controls failed, why they failed, and what evidence was missing or inconsistent. In many cases, the findings aren’t technical failures at all, but documentation problems, ownership gaps, or processes that weren’t being followed consistently.

This is where it’s important to look beyond the surface. For each finding, ask whether the issue was caused by a tooling problem, a process breakdown, or a documentation gap. If your policies don’t match how your team actually works, update them. If people weren’t trained or aware of procedures, fix that. If controls existed but weren’t being tracked or monitored, build that visibility into your operations.

Not every issue needs to be treated the same, either. Some findings relate directly to your ability to achieve a clean opinion. Others reflect improvement areas that don’t undermine your entire report. Prioritize the fixes that have the highest impact on your security and compliance program first. A remediation log that captures what was fixed, when it was addressed, and who was responsible is not only useful internally, it also demonstrates maturity to your auditor during follow-up discussions.

If your engagement includes a remediation window or a follow-up audit, communicate early and often with your auditing firm. If something wasn’t clear in the report, ask for clarification before making changes. You’ll move much faster when expectations are aligned.

The most important thing to remember is that a failed SOC 2 audit is not the end of the road. In many cases, it’s simply the most honest snapshot you’ve had yet of how your systems, processes, and documentation are really holding up under scrutiny. Teams that respond by improving documentation, fixing weak controls, and tightening workflows often come out stronger than those who passed quietly and never had to confront their gaps at all.

Handled the right way, a difficult audit becomes less of a setback and more of a reset. It shows you exactly where to focus, what to fix, and how to build a security program that actually scales with your business.

How Secureframe helps you prepare for a successful SOC 2 audit

Preparing for SOC 2 without the right tools usually means spreadsheets, screenshots, policy documents scattered across folders, and a lot of manual follow-up with your team. It works, but it’s slow, easy to mess up, and frustrating for everyone involved.

Secureframe is designed to remove that friction. It brings your controls, evidence, policies, people, and auditors into one place, so you can spend less time chasing documentation and more time actually improving your security program.

With Secureframe, you can:

With Secureframe, you can:
Automatically collect evidence from your tech stack by integrating directly with your cloud providers, identity systems, ticketing tools, and HR platforms, so you’re not chasing screenshots or exporting reports by hand. Evidence is always current and shared with auditors through a secure Data Room.
Continuously monitor control health so you know the moment something changes that could put compliance at risk, rather than discovering issues during the audit.
Use AI Evidence Validation to catch problems early. Secureframe reviews uploaded files and system data in real time to confirm evidence is complete, relevant, and mapped to the right control, so missing or outdated documentation doesn’t turn into last-minute audit surprises.
Generate audit-ready policies in minutes with auditor-approved templates mapped directly to SOC 2 and other frameworks. Policies stay versioned, connected to controls, and easy to update as your business grows.
Centralize asset inventory, vendor management, and risk tracking so you always know what systems you run, which vendors touch sensitive data, and how risks connect back to your controls.
Turn audit findings into action automatically. Remediation tasks are assigned to the right owners, synced to tools like Jira and ServiceNow, and tracked end-to-end so evidence updates itself as work is completed.
Get expert, end-to-end support from compliance experts and former auditors throughout the entire process.

The result? Less chaos, fewer surprises, and audits that don’t take over your entire team’s calendar.

In a UserEvidence survey, 95% of Secureframe users said they saved time and resources managing compliance, 81% completed audits at least 25% faster, and most reported better visibility into their security posture across compliance standards.

If you’d like to see what SOC 2 looks like without the spreadsheets and stress, request a demo today to walk through the platform with a product expert.

FAQs

What distinguishes a Type I SOC 2 report from a Type II SOC 2 report?

A Type I SOC 2 report evaluates the design of controls at a specific point in time, while a Type II SOC 2 report assesses the design effectiveness of these controls over a period of time, usually spanning three to six months.

What are the key steps involved in a SOC 2 audit process?

The key steps in a SOC 2 audit process typically involve the following key steps:

Planning and agreeing on a timeframe
Requesting and reviewing a security questionnaire
Evaluating control design and/or operating effectiveness
Testing controls
Gathering evidence
Drafting the report
Issuing findings or recommendations

What items should be on a SOC 2 audit preparation checklist?

A SOC 2 audit preparation checklist should include identifying scope and objectives, documenting control activities, assessing risks, ensuring evidence availability, conducting employee training, establishing communication channels with auditors, and reviewing previous audit findings for remediation.

What is the difference between SOC 1 and SOC 2?

SOC 1 focuses on controls related to financial reporting, while SOC 2 evaluates security, availability, confidentiality, processing integrity, and privacy. If you’re a SaaS or service provider handling customer data, SOC 2 is usually the right framework.

Is a SOC 2 report a certification?

No. SOC 2 is an attestation, not a certification. An auditor issues an opinion on whether your controls are designed and operating effectively. There’s no official “SOC 2 certificate.”

Do SaaS companies really need SOC 2?

Yes, especially if you sell to mid-market or enterprise customers. For most SaaS companies, SOC 2 becomes an expected proof point during security reviews and vendor onboarding.

What are Common Criteria in SOC 2?

The Common Criteria refers to the Security Trust Services Criteria, which form the baseline for every SOC 2 audit. All additional criteria are layered on top of these core requirements.

Does SOC 2 require incident response?

Yes. Auditors evaluate your incident response plan, how it’s tested, and how incidents are documented and handled. Having a written plan alone isn’t enough; you must show that it’s followed in practice.

Is SOC 2 required for HIPAA compliance?

No, but SOC 2 and HIPAA often overlap. Many healthcare vendors pursue SOC 2 to demonstrate strong security controls alongside HIPAA requirements.

Does SOC 2 test firewalls and authentication?

Yes. Auditors look closely at network security including firewalls, role-based access, and authentication practices like MFA and SSO to ensure systems are properly protected.

How is SOC 2 different from ISO 27001?

SOC 2 is an audit-focused attestation framework, while ISO 27001 is a formal certification for information security management systems. Many companies pursue both as they scale.

Can SOC 2 help prevent data breaches?

SOC 2 doesn’t guarantee you’ll never experience a breach, but it significantly reduces risk by enforcing access controls, monitoring, incident response planning, and logging practices that limit impact.

Who needs a SOC 2 report?

Any service provider that processes customer data, hosts systems, or operates SaaS platforms benefits from having one, especially when customers conduct vendor risk assessments.

Can you fail a SOC 2 audit?

Yes. A failed audit usually results in a qualified or adverse opinion. Most failures are due to missing documentation, weak processes, or controls that exist only on paper.

Emily Bonnie

Senior Content Marketing Manager

Emily Bonnie is a seasoned digital marketing strategist with over ten years of experience creating content that attracts, engages, and converts for leading SaaS companies. At Secureframe, she helps demystify complex governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) topics, turning technical frameworks and regulations into accessible, actionable guidance. Her work aims to empower organizations of all sizes to strengthen their security posture, streamline compliance, and build lasting trust with customers.

Rob Gutierrez

Senior Cybersecurity and Compliance Manager, CISA, CCSK, CMMC RP

Rob Gutierrez is an information security leader with nearly a decade of experience in GRC, IT audit, cybersecurity, FedRAMP, cloud, and supply chain assessments. As a former auditor and security consultant, Rob performed and managed CMMC, FedRAMP, FISMA, and other security and regulatory audits. At Secureframe, he’s helped hundreds of customers achieve compliance with federal and commercial frameworks, including NIST 800-171, NIST 800-53, FedRAMP, CMMC, SOC 2, and ISO 27001.

What is a SOC 2® audit?

Why get a SOC 2 audit?

SOC 2 audit checklist

What is the SOC 2 audit process?

What happens if you fail a SOC 2 audit?

Ensure SOC 2 audit readiness with Secureframe

Your Step-by-Step SOC 2® Audit Checklist for Passing the Audit

What is a SOC 2® audit?

Why get a SOC 2 audit?

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