Audience: Vanta customers preparing for their first or next audit. Topics covered include: SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR readiness, and other audit or compliance workflows managed with Vanta.
Audits help customers, partners, auditors, and regulators verify that your security program is documented, operating, and supported by evidence.
Use this article to understand common audit concepts before you work with your auditor or prepare your Vanta account for an audit.
This article explains the reasoning behind common audit-readiness tasks in Vanta, like reviewing scope, collecting evidence, monitoring controls, and working with your auditor.
What is an audit?
An audit is a formal, independent review of your organization’s controls, processes, documentation, and evidence. The goal is to verify that your organization does what it says it does.
For security and compliance teams, audits usually focus on whether controls are designed appropriately, operating as expected, and supported by evidence.
Evidence can include policies, screenshots, system configurations, logs, tickets, access reviews, risk assessments, vendor reviews, training records, and other
artifacts.
Why audits exist
Audits exist because customers, partners, and regulators often need independent proof that your organization follows its security and compliance commitments. An auditor reviews your controls and evidence to confirm whether your program is documented and operating as expected.
Not all audits are the same
The word audit is used across different frameworks and obligations. These examples come up often:
Audit or obligation | What it means | What to know |
SOC 2 | An attestation performed by a licensed CPA firm. | SOC 2 is not a certification. Type I evaluates control design at a point in time. Type II evaluates both design and operating effectiveness over an observation period, often 3-12 months. |
ISO 27001 | A certifiable international standard for an Information Security Management System (ISMS). | Certification usually includes Stage 1 and Stage 2 audits, annual surveillance audits, and recertification every three years. |
GDPR | A regulation, not a voluntary framework or certification. | Compliance is ongoing. Reviews may happen through internal assessments, customer due diligence, regulatory inquiries, or third-party assurance work. |
What auditors actually do
Auditors are independent reviewers. Their job is not to build your program for you, but to evaluate whether your controls and evidence support the audit requirements.
Review the audit scope: Review the systems, users, environments, locations, processes, frameworks, and criteria included in the audit.
Request and review evidence: Ask for documentation, screenshots, logs, samples, configurations, and other proof. They review the evidence you provided to let you know if it meets what they need or not.
Test controls: Using the evidence provided, they verify that your controls operate as described.
Document results: Summarize scope, procedures, exceptions or deficiencies, and the final report or opinion.
How to prepare before an audit
A strong audit posture does not mean scrambling once a year. It means your security program is continuously maintained, and the audit becomes a validation step instead of a rescue mission.
Controls are continuously monitored, not only checked at audit time.
Evidence is collected automatically where possible.
Policies are current, approved, and accepted by the right employees.
Systems, users, vendors, risks, vulnerabilities, and documents are in scope only when they should be.
Auditor expectations are aligned before the audit window opens.
Your team knows what can and cannot change during the observation window.
Controls are reviewed and tailored to your environment. Vanta provides a baseline, but your team should add, edit, delete, or further define controls before the audit.
How Vanta supports audit readiness
Vanta helps make audit readiness a continuous state by connecting your systems, monitoring controls, organizing evidence, and giving your auditor a structured place to review what they need.
Automated evidence collection: Vanta connects to your infrastructure and business systems to collect evidence continuously where integrations are available.
Continuous control monitoring: Tests flag failing or incomplete controls before they become audit exceptions
Framework and control mapping: Controls can map across frameworks so teams can reduce duplicate work.
Information Request List (IRL) management: If enabled in your Vanta account, your team or auditor can manage specific auditor requests, owners, due dates, and evidence in one workspace.
Auditor access controls: You control when your auditor is added and what they can see in the audit view.
AI evidence checks: Where available, Vanta AI can help review evidence against auditor criteria before handoff.
Before you move forward
After you understand how audits work, the next step is to work with your auditor early. Your auditor should help review scope, timing, evidence expectations, request-list format, and how the audit will be managed in Vanta.
Some audit workflows depend on your Vanta plan, enabled features, and whether your auditor uses Vanta directly, an IRL, Fieldguide, or another audit platform. Audit 102 explains how to align on those details before the audit starts.
What to do next
Read Audit 102: Working With Your Auditor to align on scope, timing, evidence expectations, IRL usage, and auditor access
Read Audit 103: The Audit Readiness Checklist to prepare your Vanta workspace before the observation window opens
Connect your integrations (especially anything in scope for the audit), review failing tests, and confirm which systems and users are in scope.