How to Streamline the Audit Process

by Joseph Kirkpatrick / September 20, 2023

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 / June 15, 2023

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 / June 15, 2023

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 / June 15, 2023

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…

What Does Reasonable Assurance Mean?

by Joseph Kirkpatrick / April 5, 2023

What is Reasonable Assurance? The AICPA defines reasonable assurance as a high, but not absolute, level of assurance. In an audit, that means perfection is not the goal because absolute assurance is not obtainable. Instead, auditors use reasonable assurance in their testing to come to a practical conclusion about the details of your organization’s security controls. At KirkpatrickPrice, our Information Security Specialists provide expert audits that focus on accuracy, attention…