With twelve team members, a working SaaS product, and an expanding customer base, your startup is off to a good start. Everyone cares about security, though no one has “compliance manager” as a job title. A prospective enterprise customer next requests a SOC 2 report.
Where do you start?
Grabbing dozens of policies right away is not the first step for founders researching how to get SOC 2 certification. A handful of choices determines what your company needs to document, put in place, and prove, and that is where to start.
Decide What Your First Audit Should Cover
Your controls are evaluated against the AICPA Trust Services Criteria in a SOC 2 audit. Security, Availability, Confidentiality, Processing Integrity, and Privacy are the categories they cover. Security is the one required category. The remaining areas are included when they’re relevant to the organization’s services and commitments. As long as that scope meets customer expectations, a startup offering a straightforward business application may begin with Security alone.
Before collecting evidence, identify the applications, infrastructure, employees, and service providers involved. Keeping the scope unnecessarily broad adds additional work, and it doesn’t necessarily increase the report’s usefulness.
Choose the Report That Matches Your Deadline
Anybody asking how to get SOC 2 certified quickly finds two reporting options. As of a specified date, Type 1 evaluates the design of controls. Over a defined period, Type 2 evaluates both their design and operating effectiveness. If an enterprise customer needs evidence fast, Type 1 may be a useful first step, assuming the customer accepts it.
For businesses investigating how to get SOC 2 type 2 certification, the process includes an observation period, commonly three to twelve months, followed by an independent examination. Type 2 does not require completing Type 1 first. Find out what your customer requires before paying for either examination.
Fix the Day-to-Day Security Gaps Before Anything Else
SOC 2 preparation becomes more manageable when security controls are connected to ordinary business activities. A sensible place to start is requiring multi-factor authentication for important accounts, creating a documented employee offboarding process, and reviewing access permissions regularly.
Development teams should keep evidence of production changes and approvals. Leadership should keep records of risk assessments and relevant supplier reviews. Policies must match what employees actually do. There is limited value in a beautifully written procedure that nobody follows.
Collect Evidence as You Go
In practice, SOC 2 for saas companies means demonstrating that relevant controls exist and, for Type 2, operate consistently. An auditor may ask for records showing when a former employee’s access was removed or whether a production deployment received appropriate approval.
Reconstructing these records months later is harder than gathering them as activities occur. Small teams can manage this work with CertAssist’s built-in controls, editable policy templates, evidence checklists, and document storage.
There’s no need for direct integrations with company systems. Teams upload evidence themselves and can give auditors read-only access.
Why SOC 2 Requires an Independent Auditor
SOC 2 is in fact an attestation, not a certification. The SOC 2 report is issued by a licensed CPA firm that performs the examination. Compliance software can help prepare and organize evidence, yet it can’t replace the independent auditor.
For the software, CertAssist offers a US$225 monthly promotional subscription that covers SOC 2, ISO 27001, and its other supported frameworks. The independent audit is a separate cost. Before budgeting, get an auditor’s quote based on your business size, selected criteria, and intended reporting period.
What Happens After the First SOC 2 Report
Security work shouldn’t stop when the SOC 2 examination is finished. Things keep changing: employees join and leave, applications change, and new suppliers arrive. Your controls need to remain relevant.
Make sure each responsibility has a clear owner, evidence is retained throughout the year, and documented procedures are reviewed periodically against reality. For a growing startup, that discipline makes future examinations easier and helps meet the security expectations of customers who depend on your software.