SOC 2 Readiness in 30 Days: A Practical Roadmap

Thirty days. Four weeks. That's all the runway you need to go from "we should probably get SOC 2" to "we're ready for the auditor."

Bold claim? Maybe. But here's the thing — SOC 2 readiness isn't about building a security program from scratch. If you're a SaaS company with a reasonable security posture, you already have most of the pieces. You have access controls. You have change management. You probably have monitoring. What you don't have is the structure, documentation, and evidence that proves it all to an auditor.

That's what this 30-day plan is about. Not reinventing your security program. Just organizing it, documenting it, and pressure-testing it so there are no surprises when audit day arrives.

This roadmap assumes you've already decided SOC 2 is the right framework. If you're still weighing options, read our compliance framework comparison first.

📋 Before You Start: Prerequisites

Before the clock starts, make sure these foundations are in place.

Executive sponsorship. You need a named exec sponsor — CTO, CISO, or VP of Engineering. They don't run the project day-to-day, but they remove blockers and signal to the org that this matters. Without executive air cover, compliance stalls the moment it competes with product work.

A dedicated point person. One person owns this end-to-end. Compliance lead, security engineer, senior ops — title doesn't matter. One person waking up every morning thinking about this project. Shared ownership is no ownership.

Budget clarity. Know your numbers:

• Auditor fees: $20K–$80K depending on scope and firm
• Tooling: GRC platform, evidence collection, policy management
• People time: 15–25% of your compliance lead's time plus 5–10% from engineering, HR, and IT leads

Existing security controls. At minimum you should have identity and access management (SSO, MFA), endpoint protection, encryption in transit and at rest, some form of logging, and an incident response process. If you're missing more than two of these, spend a few weeks getting the basics in place before starting.

🎯 Week 1: Define Scope and Success

Week one is about decisions. You're drawing the boundary around what gets audited and what "done" looks like.

Pick Your Trust Services Criteria

SOC 2 covers five Trust Services Criteria: Security, Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and Privacy. Security is required. The rest are optional.

Start with Security only. Every additional criterion adds controls, evidence, and audit time. You can always expand in your next cycle. For a first-time SOC 2, tight scope is how you hit 30 days.

Define Systems in Scope

List every system that stores, processes, or transmits customer data: production infrastructure, CI/CD pipeline, identity provider, monitoring tools, communication tools with customer data, and HR/IT systems managing employee access.

Common pitfall: Scoping too broadly. Your corporate WiFi doesn't need to be in scope. Focus on systems that directly touch customer data.

Write a Scope Memo

Create a one-page doc capturing Trust Services Criteria selected, systems in and out of scope, reporting period, key personnel, and target audit date. Circulate to your exec sponsor and engineering leads. Get sign-off. This prevents the "wait, I thought we were also covering..." conversations in week four.

Week 1 Deliverables

• Trust Services Criteria selected and documented
• Systems inventory with in-scope/out-of-scope designation
• Reporting period and audit type (Type I vs Type II) defined
• Scope memo signed off by executive sponsor
• Auditor selected or shortlisted

🔍 Week 2: Assign Owners and Map Controls

Week two turns abstract requirements into concrete tasks with names attached. Most teams stumble here — they know what SOC 2 requires in theory but can't answer "who does this, and how often?"

Map Controls to the TSC

Take the SOC 2 framework requirements and map each control point to a specific, actionable control. For example:

• CC6.1 (Logical access) → "All production access requires SSO with MFA via Okta. Quarterly access reviews by engineering managers."
• CC7.2 (System monitoring) → "Datadog monitors production infrastructure. Alerts route to PagerDuty with a 15-minute P1 SLA."
• CC8.1 (Change management) → "All code changes require a reviewed PR. No manual deploys to production."

Specificity matters. "We have access controls" isn't a control. "All users authenticate through Okta with MFA required, provisioned via role-based groups reviewed quarterly" — that's a control.

Assign One Owner Per Control

Every control gets one primary owner and a backup. Not a team. A person with a name and an understanding this is their responsibility.

Common pitfall: Assigning controls to people who don't understand them. If the owner can't explain the control in plain language, they're the wrong owner — or the description needs rewriting.

Conduct a Gap Analysis

For each control, ask: Is it implemented? Is there evidence? Is it documented? Mark controls as green, yellow, or red. Reds become your week-three priorities.

Week 2 Deliverables

• Control-to-TSC mapping completed
• Owner and backup assigned for every control
• Gap analysis with red/yellow/green status
• Policy gaps identified
• Remediation plan for red items

📁 Week 3: Collect Core Evidence

The grind week. Collecting artifacts, writing policies, filling gaps. The goal by Friday: a complete evidence library.

Build Your Evidence Checklist

For every control, document what artifact proves it's operating, what format the auditor expects, who provides it, and what period it covers. Common SOC 2 evidence includes user access review exports, MFA enrollment reports, vulnerability scans, penetration test reports, change management logs, incident records, onboarding/offboarding checklists, training records, vendor assessments, and BC/DR test results.

Write Missing Policies

Most first-time teams are missing a few. The core set: Information Security, Access Control, Change Management, Incident Response, Data Classification, Acceptable Use, Vendor Management, and Business Continuity. Policies should describe what you actually do, not some aspirational state. Two accurate pages beat twenty copied-from-a-template pages nobody follows.

Organize Your Evidence Library

Store evidence in a single location with consistent naming — something like [ControlID]-[ArtifactType]-[YYYY-MM-DD]. Check our guide on building an evidence library that scales for the full playbook on naming, metadata, and retention.

episki's evidence library lets you map artifacts directly to controls, track freshness, and see at a glance which controls are missing evidence — saving hours compared to folder structures and spreadsheets.

Watch Out For

• Stale evidence: Artifacts must be from within your reporting period
• Missing timestamps: Every screenshot needs a visible date. Auditors reject undated evidence.
• The evidence scramble: If you're chasing people on Slack for artifacts, ownership broke in week two

Week 3 Deliverables

• Evidence collected for all green and yellow controls
• Missing policies drafted and approved
• Evidence library organized with consistent naming
• Remediation completed for critical gaps

🧪 Week 4: Run a Pre-Audit Review

Your dress rehearsal. Pretend the auditor arrives Monday and pressure-test everything.

Sample and Verify

Pick 20–30% of controls at random and verify evidence exists, timestamps are current, ownership is up to date, control descriptions match the evidence, and policies are signed and version-controlled. If your sample reveals problems, assume the rest has similar issues.

Run a Mock Walkthrough

Grab two or three people who weren't involved in weeks 1–3 and have them play auditor. Give them a control list and ask them to find the evidence. If they can't locate it in under two minutes per control, your library needs work.

This also reveals story inconsistencies — your access control policy says quarterly reviews, but the last review is from five months ago. Auditors catch these. Find them first.

Flag and Triage Gaps

Triage remaining issues into three buckets: fix now (remediate before the audit), accept risk (document why you're accepting it), or adjust scope (remove from scope if needed). Hold a 60-minute readiness meeting with your exec sponsor and control owners to walk through overall readiness, open gaps, and audit logistics.

Week 4 Deliverables

• Sample-based evidence review completed
• Mock walkthrough conducted
• Gaps triaged (fix / accept / adjust)
• Readiness meeting held with stakeholders
• Auditor kick-off scheduled

🏁 Week 5: The Actual Audit

You've done the hard work. Week five is execution and composure.

The auditor will request a population list, review documentation, sample and test evidence, conduct interviews with control owners (30–60 minutes each), and document any exceptions.

Tips for a smooth audit:

• Be responsive. Turn around requests within 24 hours. Nothing slows an audit like waiting for evidence.
• Don't over-explain. Answer the question asked. Extra context opens new inquiry lines.
• Prepare interviewees. Brief control owners before their interview — speak to what you actually do, not theory.
• Single point of contact. All auditor requests flow through the compliance lead.
• Track requests. Log every ask, who's responsible, and status. See our compliance audit preparation guide for more audit-day tactics.

🔄 Post-Audit: Remediation and Continuous Compliance

Getting the report isn't the finish line. It's the starting line.

Handle findings. If the auditor found exceptions, either remediate and document the fix, or write a management response explaining your position. A report with one or two minor exceptions and clear responses is still a strong report.

Build the continuous compliance muscle. The worst move is going back to business as usual and scrambling again in 11 months. Build compliance into your operating rhythm:

• Monthly: Review evidence freshness, collect recurring artifacts
• Quarterly: Internal control reviews, risk register updates, vendor assessments
• Annually: Full policy review, penetration test, BC/DR test, readiness assessment

episki helps you maintain this rhythm by tracking evidence cadences, sending reminders when artifacts are due, and giving you a real-time compliance posture view. When the next audit rolls around, you're already 90% ready on day one.

Plan for Type II. If you started with Type I, your next step is a Type II covering a 6–12 month observation period. The habits you build now — regular evidence collection, consistent control execution — are exactly what makes a Type II successful.

🚧 Common Blockers and How to Clear Them

"Engineering won't prioritize this." Get your exec sponsor to frame it in business terms: "We can't close $X in enterprise pipeline without SOC 2." Minimize what you're asking — most evidence collection doesn't require code changes.

"We don't have formal policies." Write them this week. Document what you actually do. Two accurate pages beat zero pages. Refine later.

"Our evidence is scattered across ten systems." This is a library problem. Centralize now — create a folder structure or adopt a platform. Our evidence library that scales guide walks you through it.

"We can't find an auditor in time." Auditor availability is seasonal. Line up your auditor before starting the 30-day clock. Get on their calendar 4–6 weeks out.

"Our team has never done this before." That's normal. Most first-time SOC 2 teams figure it out as they go. This roadmap exists to reduce guesswork.

"We found a major gap in week 3." Triage honestly. Can you fix it in a week? Do it. Need longer? Adjust scope or delay by 2–3 weeks. A slight delay beats a report full of exceptions.

Key Takeaways

• 30 days is realistic if your security baseline is reasonable and scope is disciplined
• Week 1 is the most important week. Scope decisions ripple through everything. Keep it tight.
• Ownership is everything. One person per control, no exceptions.
• Evidence is not optional. A control without evidence is the same as no control.
• Don't skip the pre-audit review. Fresh eyes find problems you're too close to see.
• SOC 2 is a starting point, not a finish line. Build continuous habits so the next audit is easier.

A 30-day readiness window is tight, but it works. The goal isn't perfection — it's predictable evidence flow, clear ownership, and a coherent story for your auditor. Teams that follow this structure consistently come out with a clean report and a compliance program that actually runs itself.

Ready to structure your SOC 2 sprint? episki gives you pre-built SOC 2 control mappings, an evidence library with ownership tracking, and a readiness dashboard that shows exactly where you stand — day by day. Start your free trial →