SOC 2 · Australia
If your enterprise deals are stuck behind "we need SOC 2 first," we deliver readiness in 8–12 weeks — inside your existing Microsoft 365 and cloud environment. No Vanta, no Drata, no annual platform licence. And no pretending Type II takes 12 weeks when it doesn't.
SOC 2 has a structural reality that's frequently misrepresented in sales pitches. Understanding it upfront saves you from a confused conversation with procurement six weeks into the engagement.
SOC 2 Type I
A point-in-time report that says your controls are designed properly. The auditor reviews your control set and confirms it would work if operated.
Report available:
~Week 14
SOC 2 Type II
A report that says your controls actually worked across a continuous observation window. This is what enterprise procurement actually wants when they say "SOC 2".
Report available:
~Month 8
Most clients pursue both: Type I at week 14 for early sales conversations, then Type II at month 8 once observation completes. We build the readiness infrastructure once — same controls, same evidence pipeline, two reports.
SOC 2 has five Trust Services Criteria. Security is mandatory; the other four are added based on what your customers require. Over-scoping is a common and expensive mistake.
Mandatory
Access controls, change management, vulnerability management, incident response, system monitoring. Every SOC 2 report includes this. About 50 individual control points across nine common criteria areas.
Common add
Uptime SLAs, capacity monitoring, disaster recovery, backup testing. Add this if your customers have uptime requirements in their contracts — typical for fintech, healthcare, and infrastructure SaaS.
Common add
Information classification, encryption, secure data sharing, retention and disposal. Add this if you handle commercially sensitive data — most B2B SaaS does. Often paired with Security as the default starting scope.
Conditional
Input validation, processing accuracy, completeness, error handling. Add this if your service performs financial calculations, transaction processing, or any computation where accuracy is the product itself.
Conditional
Personal information notice, consent, retention, data subject rights. Add this if you process significant personal data — but consider ISO 27701 alongside, which is often a better framework for the privacy-specific work.
Most common scope
About 70% of our SOC 2 clients start with this combination. Sufficient for most enterprise procurement gates without over-scoping. Easy to add additional TSCs in subsequent annual audits if customer needs evolve.
Every SOC 2 readiness engagement covers these six areas. We build the infrastructure once — it serves both Type I and Type II without duplication.
We define the system boundary, identify Trust Services Criteria in scope, and draft the system description the auditor will review. Getting this right upfront saves expensive scope discussions during the audit itself.
Every applicable common criteria and TSC point mapped to a specific control in your environment. Where controls don't exist yet, we design them. Where they exist informally, we formalise and document them.
Information security, access control, change management, incident response, vendor management, business continuity. Written specifically for your environment, approved through your governance, mapped to the controls they support.
The crucial Type II infrastructure. Automated evidence flowing from M365 audit logs, your cloud provider's logs, your CI/CD pipeline, your ticketing system — into a SharePoint evidence library mapped control-by-control. Built once, runs continuously.
Your auditor will send a list of evidence requests — the PBC list. We pre-populate it, structure responses, and coach your team for walkthroughs. Auditors notice when a client is prepared, and it shortens the audit timeline materially.
We work with your chosen CPA firm — coordinating timing, responding to sample requests, addressing observations as they arise, drafting management responses to any findings. You're not navigating the auditor relationship alone.
SOC 2 reports are issued by AICPA-licensed CPA firms, not certification bodies. This is different from ISO certifications and often confuses Australian SaaS companies. Three things to know.
We don't take referral fees and we don't have a preferred auditor relationship that compromises our independence. We help you evaluate options (Australian firms with US audit licences, US firms with Australian presence, smaller specialised SOC 2 auditors) based on your situation and budget.
Big 4 firms charge premium rates ($60k–$200k for Type II). Mid-tier firms often charge $40k–$80k. Specialised SOC 2-focused firms can be $20k–$50k for Type II. All produce the same report. The right choice depends on which name your enterprise customer wants to see on the report.
Auditors book 3–6 months in advance. Booking the auditor *before* completing readiness is a common rookie mistake — it forces you to be ready by their date rather than yours. We coordinate timing so your readiness completes before observation starts, and observation completes before audit fieldwork.
SOC 2 is the right framework for Australian organisations in one of these situations:
You have one or more enterprise prospects who've explicitly asked for SOC 2 in tenders, security questionnaires, or contract clauses. The deal is otherwise ready to close. This is the most common SOC 2 trigger we see.
SOC 2 is the dominant security framework for US enterprise procurement. Even Australian SaaS companies selling into the US face SOC 2 questionnaires before ISO 27001 ones. If US revenue is a significant slice of your pipeline, SOC 2 is non-negotiable.
VC-backed SaaS companies typically hit SOC 2 readiness pressure around series B. Customers get larger, deal sizes grow, procurement gates tighten. Implementing SOC 2 here is cheaper than waiting until series C when you're answering 50 customer security questionnaires a year.
About 75% of SOC 2 controls overlap with ISO 27001. If you're already certified, adding SOC 2 is significantly cheaper than starting from scratch. Most engagements deliver SOC 2 in 6–8 weeks for ISO 27001-certified clients.
Answered plainly. If you have a question not covered here, the fastest way to get a real answer is a 30-min call.
Type I: 8–12 weeks to readiness, ~2 weeks of audit, report at week 14. Type II: 8–12 weeks to readiness, then 3–6 months observation, then 4–6 weeks audit, report around month 8. We're upfront about this because most consultants aren't.
Fixed-price, $22k–$115k depending on company size. Includes Type I support and the evidence infrastructure for Type II. Audit firm fees ($10k–$30k for Type I, $20k–$60k for Type II) are separate and paid directly to your auditor.
Type I gets you something to show in ~14 weeks but rarely satisfies procurement on its own. Type II is what enterprise customers actually want. Most clients do both: Type I early for sales conversations, Type II at month 8 for the real deal.
Security is mandatory. Confidentiality is added by ~70% of clients. Availability, Processing Integrity, and Privacy are added based on customer-specific requirements. Over-scoping is the most common expensive mistake — we scope to what your deals actually need.
No. We build entirely inside your existing M365 and cloud environments. Over a 3-year cycle this saves $45k–$180k in avoided platform licence costs versus the GRC platform approach.
Yes — about 75% of controls overlap. Combined engagements typically deliver both for 30–40% less than sequential programmes. The output is a single control set with two reports: SOC 2 Type II for US-facing sales, ISO 27001 for AU/EU government and enterprise.
SOC 2 often pairs with ISO 27001 for global procurement coverage, or with ISO 27701 / ISO 42001 for privacy and AI governance.
A free 30-minute call will scope a realistic SOC 2 plan against your actual sales situation. What you need, when you'd have it, what it would cost. No sales pitch. If Type I is enough to unblock the deal, we'll say so.
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