Automating SOC 2 and ISO 27001 Evidence Collection
SOC 2 and ISO 27001 audits require evidence that specific controls were actually operating throughout the audit period, not just that a policy document says they should — access reviews happened on schedule, MFA was enforced, patches were applied within SLA, encryption was configured correctly. Gathering that evidence typically starts the week before the auditor arrives, with someone screenshotting console settings, exporting access review sign-offs, and reconstructing a patching timeline from ticket history, and inevitably a control that was supposed to run monthly only has evidence for eight of the twelve months because nobody was capturing it as it happened.
STARTING PRICE
From €799
Complex tier · Multi-system orchestration, custom logic, and higher-volume or higher-risk processing.
Get a quote →Saves roughly 15-20 hrs per audit cycle in evidence gathering and gap reconstruction.
How the automation works
We map each control in scope to the specific system or process that generates its evidence, and capture that evidence on the control's actual operating cadence — a monthly access review's evidence is captured monthly, not reconstructed in week fifty — from source systems like the identity provider, cloud config, patch management and ticketing tools. Evidence is timestamped, stored against its control reference, and flagged if a cadence is missed, so a gap is visible in month three instead of discovered by the auditor in month twelve. Nothing about control operation itself is automated by this — access reviews still get done by the people responsible for them — this handles capturing and organizing proof that they were, continuously, so audit prep becomes a review of an already-complete evidence set rather than a scramble to reconstruct a year of history.
Process flow
- 01
Control cadence reached trigger
Each in-scope control's defined evidence-capture cadence — monthly, quarterly, per-change — triggers a collection cycle rather than waiting for a manual reminder.
- 02
Pull evidence from source systems integration
Evidence specific to each control is pulled directly from its source system — access review sign-offs from the IdP, patch status from the patch management tool, config state from cloud provider APIs — rather than screenshotted by hand.
- 03
Map evidence to control reference ai
Collected evidence is tagged and stored against its specific SOC 2 or ISO 27001 control reference, so it's retrievable by control during the actual audit without manual sorting.
- 04
Flag missed or incomplete cadence ai
If a control's expected evidence for a given cycle wasn't captured — a monthly review that didn't happen, a missing config snapshot — it's flagged as a gap in that period, visible immediately rather than at audit time.
- 05
Compile audit-ready evidence package output
A complete, organized evidence package per control is compiled for the auditor, with any flagged gaps documented alongside their remediation status rather than hidden.
Inputs
- Control-to-evidence mapping for SOC 2/ISO 27001 scope
- Identity provider access and MFA logs
- Patch management and vulnerability scan records
- Cloud provider configuration state
Outputs
- Control-tagged evidence repository
- Cadence gap flags by control and period
- Audit-ready evidence package
- Continuous compliance status dashboard
Works with
Prefer a fully custom build instead of an off-the-shelf integration? We scope both options during your free consultation — most jobs like this one work fine on standard connectors, but higher-volume or non-standard systems sometimes need bespoke API work, reflected in the complex tier.
Where this goes wrong if you get it wrong
- Evidence collected only at audit time can't prove a control operated continuously throughout the period — an auditor asking for the March access review specifically will not accept a snapshot taken in November, so evidence needs to be captured on the control's real operating cadence, not reconstructed after the fact.
- A control-to-evidence mapping built once at initial certification goes stale as tooling changes — a new identity provider, a migrated ticketing system — and evidence collection pointed at a decommissioned source silently stops working while the dashboard still shows the control as covered.
- Automating evidence capture doesn't automate the control itself, and treating the two as the same thing is a real risk: this collects proof that an access review happened, it doesn't perform the access review — if the underlying control lapses, better evidence collection just documents the lapse faster.
- A cadence gap flagged mid-year needs an actual remediation path, not just a dashboard indicator — logging that March's evidence is missing without someone owning getting current or explaining the gap to the auditor just moves the fire drill from audit week to a slightly earlier month.
Frequently asked questions
Does this perform the security controls, like access reviews, for us?
No — it collects and organizes evidence that controls operated as required. The access reviews, patching, and other underlying control work still need to be carried out by the responsible teams.
What happens if a control's evidence is missing for a given month?
It's flagged as a cadence gap immediately, visible in the compliance dashboard for that period, rather than discovered when the auditor asks for evidence covering the full year.
Does this work for both SOC 2 and ISO 27001, or do we need separate setups?
Evidence is mapped to control references for both frameworks, and since many controls overlap between them, the same underlying evidence often satisfies both without duplicate collection work.
How is this different from a GRC platform like Vanta or Drata?
It typically complements those platforms by extending or customizing evidence collection to sources or control mappings not fully covered out of the box, rather than replacing an existing GRC tool you've already invested in.