How to Avoid a Never-Ending Audit

by Joseph Kirkpatrick / September 6th, 2019

There are many decisions that organizations need to consider when choosing an audit firm, like cost, expertise, location, timeline, and audit process. You need to be confident in who's performing your audit, especially in a clear, accurate audit process. If not, you’re risking a case of the never-ending audit. The Audit That Never Ends A never-ending audit is one where you’re revisiting the same tasks time and time again with…

How to Streamline the Audit Process

by Joseph Kirkpatrick / August 30th, 2019

The audit process can seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. When you hire an auditing firm to streamline the audit process, you avoid many of the unknowns that usually plague organizations on their compliance journeys. At KirkpatrickPrice, we use the Online Audit Manager (OAM) to streamline the audit process and give you the assurance you deserve when completing an audit. Whether it's your very first audit or several…

Onsite Visits vs. Remote Audits

by Joseph Kirkpatrick / August 23rd, 2019

When you start an audit, you’re looking for a quality experience in a timely manner. One of the biggest aspects of an audit is the onsite visit - but what if an auditing firm that you're considering working with offers to skip the onsite visit in order to deliver your report faster? What if they say your internal controls don't require an onsite visit? What if you have an entirely…

Why Onsite Visits are the Smart Choice for Cloud Environments 

by Joseph Kirkpatrick / August 9th, 2019

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, defines cloud computing as “a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” Cloud computing is both a transformative and disruptive technology that provides an opportunity to rethink the way organizations fix problems that have been around for a…

What is an Independent Opinion in Auditing?

by Joseph Kirkpatrick / August 2nd, 2019

In order for an audit to comply with regulations, it must be conducted by an auditor with an independent opinion. What is an independent opinion? It’s an auditor’s unbiased, objective stance towards an organization which leads to an accurate, credible report on an organization’s security and compliance. Any type of information security audit needs to have an independent auditor, but especially in the case of a CPA performing SOC 1…