SOC 2 Readiness Checklist

A SOC 2 audit is one of the most significant compliance investments a growing company makes — and walking into an audit unprepared is one of the most expensive mistakes. This readiness checklist helps you systematically evaluate your preparedness across all five Trust Services Criteria before you engage an auditor, ensuring you spend audit fees on validation rather than discovery of gaps. The checklist is organized around the AICPA's Trust Services Criteria: Security (CC1-CC9, always required), Availability (A1), Processing Integrity (PI1), Confidentiality (C1), and Privacy (P1). For each criterion, the template breaks down the specific control objectives, lists the evidence an auditor will typically request, and provides a clear yes/no/partial status field to track your readiness. This is not a generic overview — it reflects the actual evidence requests and control expectations that CPA firms evaluate during SOC 2 engagements. Beyond the checklist itself, the template includes a pre-audit preparation timeline with recommended milestones, a stakeholder assignment matrix so you can distribute evidence collection across your team, and an evidence inventory worksheet to track which documents, screenshots, and configurations you have already gathered. For companies preparing for their first SOC 2 audit, this template transforms what can feel like an opaque and intimidating process into a concrete, step-by-step project plan. For companies preparing for annual re-audits, it serves as a structured reminder to refresh evidence and verify that controls have been maintained since the last audit period.