The Schellman Blog

As the need for SOC 2 examinations continues to grow domestically as well as internationally, many organizations now either find themselves taking on more and more assessments or trying to appease a client base that requires a SOC 2 examination when the typical product or platform approach may not apply. When these situations crop up, we are seeing more adoption of what’s known as an enterprise services SOC 2 examination.

These days, blockchain providers find themselves in an interesting position—you have a revolutionary service to offer, but the market is still coming around to it. You need a way to validate your product so they will. Luckily, there is something you can do—you can take the initiative to acquire a SOC report.

When pursuing a SOC 2 examination, a popular first step for many organizations—particularly those just stepping into the world of compliance for the first time—is a SOC 2 readiness assessment. But for those first-timers who don’t know what to expect from this process, it might help to have a roadmap.

Internal Audit (IA) and Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) professionals are often charged with reading SOC reports from service providers to gain an understanding of each vendor’s controls, but many may not know how you can also use these reports to also enhance, mature, and drive their own audit and governance functions.

Though the timeline of a completed report varies greatly based on numerous factors within your organization, a SOC 1 examination generally always moves through the same three phases of planning and preparation, fieldwork, and reporting stages.

Now that artificial intelligence (AI) has more fully engrained itself into the digital world and economy, it makes sense that the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA)—as the organization that sets the most recognized auditing standards in the U.S.—would have an opinion on AI use, particularly in terms of the possibility of related SOC-compliance issues.

TAMPA, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Schellman & Company, LLC, a leading provider of attestation and compliance services and top 50 CPA firm, is pleased to announce the successful carve-out of Cohen & Company's System and Organization Controls (SOC) Practice. In this transaction, Cohen & Company’s SOC practice, including select personnel, will transition to Schellman. This strategic relationship is a testament to the outstanding values and focus on company culture, quality, and client service the two firms mutually share.

While in school, did you ever have a professor that would sneakily test on obscure materials? You could read the textbooks, but that material you assumed would be the bulk of an exam wasn’t mentioned—instead, your test questions were focused on the footnotes or some other material you weren’t aware of or clearly alerted to review beforehand.