What are the benefits of a SAS 70 audit to user organizations?
The SAS 70 audit gives the user organization—the company outsourcing its data services—assurance that its service providers have implemented processes and internal controls to safeguard its data. This is important not only for the user organization’s peace of mind, but also because the user organization must be able to show that the processes and controls of its service providers are compliant with Sarbanes-Oxley. For a user organization, obtaining a SAS 70 audit by an independent auditor is much more efficient than having external auditors (or staff members) perform audits on each individual service provider. In addition, a SAS 70 audit can save you money on your financial statement audit. If you’re audited, the information in a SAS 70 audit can be used to reduce the amount of work your auditors must do to examine your internal controls.
