For most organizations, the annual compliance audit is like a root canal. But your compliance audits can be straightforward—and even be pleasant—if you’ve got a good relationship with your assessor and have your act together. The easier it is for your compliance assessor to do their work, the more your audit will be no big deal.
But if you go into your audit unprepared, or missing proof that you did your work, you can expect your annual compliance audit to be an uncomfortable event. It’ll be even more uncomfortable when you report out to your executives—and especially when you have to justify results to your customers.
Dreading Your Audits?
Your people have periodic tasks that are required for compliance. If you’re not doing them, you’re not compliant, and some auditors may fail you if you show serious neglect. Most of the time, an assessor will put you on a performance improvement program that requires you to do some extra work to get back on track.
Either way, it doesn’t look good for your company when your compliance status is at risk. To maintain proper visibility, the auditor needs to document your failings in their report. That has real business repercussions. You want to assure your clients that you’re doing everything right, and it doesn’t look great when the audit says you only sort of did things right. That won’t give anyone confidence in your organization.
Handpicked related content: 5 Things to Make This Year’s Audit Painless
That kind of situation raises questions. Now your clients’ security teams want to dig in and see what’s going on, and why. Those client audits slow down sales cycles, and they could result in lost business.
The most critical issue is the health of your organization. Compliance tasks are there for a reason. They all play a part in a multi-layered approach to security of the organization. If you’re not actively doing periodic tasks to maintain compliance, then you’re opening your organization to security risks. You are no longer ensuring the protection of your company’s assets and information—or your clients’ assets and information. Instead, you’re making that data susceptible to attack.
Your Compliance “System” Isn’t Helping
It can be challenging to maintain compliance on a day-in-day-out basis. Business life gets in the way, and it’s easy for ongoing compliance tasks to slip through the cracks. For most companies, there’s no automated system in place to ensure those tasks get completed. Instead, organizations rely on decades-old solutions like spreadsheets, file servers and process documents.
Those outdated solutions are keeping you in the Stone Age. Automated compliance software is the solution of the Digital Age, and it can protect you from audit trouble.
Automate Your Compliance with Ease
Compliance automation software lets you confidently walk into your next audit knowing that everything you needed to do is done—and done right. You don’t need to worry about what activities you might have forgotten to do this year. Instead, you’ll enter the audit calm and confident.
TCT Portal compliance software automates your ongoing compliance management so you’re never behind and nothing falls through the cracks.
The automation software starts sending task reminders to your team a couple weeks before the end of each quarter. This maintains a reliable, steady cadence on the security and compliance engagement. TCT Portal ensures that:
- You’re keeping up and always on schedule.
- Each item has guidance that make it crystal clear what kind of evidence your assessor is looking for.
- Native communication tools make it easy to collaborate with assessors before the audit. The communications are stored in TCT Portal for reference in future compliance cycles.
- Synergies are mapped between compliance standards to simplify your workload with auditors.
- Real-time status lets you and your assessor know at a glance exactly where you’re at and what needs to be done before the next audit.
- If you have multiple assessment firms, each one of them can have access to TCT Portal. There’s no need to duplicate your efforts between assessors or juggle multiple copies of your records.
- No ancient spreadsheet software can give you that kind of automation, simplicity or assurance. With TCT Portal, you can walk into every compliance audit with confidence. Being on top of it keeps your auditor happy, too.
Painless Audits Can Be Yours
Your annual compliance audits don’t need to be a traumatic event. They can be just another day in the life of your organization. When you’ve got compliance automation software keeping you on track and covering your assets, you won’t have any sleepless nights come audit time.
Get out of the Stone Age—see TCT Portal for yourself!
