What is SOC 2 & why is it important?
SOC 2 or Service Organization Controls 2 is a framework that is governed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). With a SOC 2 audit, an independent service auditor will review an organization’s policies, procedures, and evidence to determine if their controls are designed and operating effectively. A SOC 2 report communicates a company’s commitment to data security and protection of customer information.
Improving your security posture
SOC 2 compliance exemplifies an organization’s commitment to their customer’s trust and is a major milestone towards improving their overall security posture. With increasing cybersecurity threats and data breaches, it is paramount that organizations prioritize information security and the protection of their systems and data. By undergoing a SOC 2 audit, our controls and processes were validated by a third-party who attests to the functioning of the controls relevant to our application.
Why we pursued SOC 2 now
Bonsai has grown from a freelancer toolkit into a fully-featured, global business-management platform used by more than 200 000 professionals. As larger agencies and enterprise teams onboard, detailed vendor-security reviews have become routine in sales cycles. Achieving SOC 2 Type II on July 3rd, 2025 now enables us to address those questionnaires with a single, recognized report—accelerating deals and deepening stakeholder confidence. Internally, the project aligns perfectly with our 2025 goal of “security-by-default” across engineering and operations.
Bonsai’s journey to SOC 2 compliance
Compliance Partners
Vanta - We partnered with Vanta, the leader in the Trust Management space, to help us automate the collection of our audit evidence. Vanta provides us with the strongest security foundation to protect our customer data.
Advantage Partners - Our audit firm, Advantage Partners, was extremely helpful in creating a seamless audit experience. With their guidance and support, we were able to achieve SOC 2 compliance in a swift, efficient manner.
Process
While SOC 2 can be a big undertaking, our compliance partners streamlined the process. We leveraged Vanta to integrate our key systems and guide us in implementing policies and procedures to quickly become audit ready. Vanta gave us the direction we needed to pursue our compliance journey.
Advantage Partners then confirmed our audit readiness and we kicked off our Type II audit. For the audit, Advantage evaluated the controls we have in place and opined on their state. Shortly after our audit window ended, Advantage Partners drafted and issued our report.
Timeline
One key takeaway is understanding that improving our security posture and achieving compliance is a monumental task. This can be made easier with the right compliance partners but it will take dedicated focus and time from your organization. The readiness period can take the most time but we were able to make compliance a priority to get audit ready in a matter of weeks versus months.
We also found it important to review the audit timeline with Advantage Partners, set an ideal audit date, and then work backwards to be ready in time. However, now that controls are implemented and security is a priority for our team, subsequent SOC 2 audits will be even more seamless.
Lessons we learned
Focus on improving security posture, not checking boxes
We view SOC 2 as the baseline, not the finish line. Measures such as end-to-end encryption, enforced multi-factor authentication, and least-privilege access remain active at all times.
Start the process early
Establishing policies while the codebase is still agile is far simpler than retrofitting controls later. Early investment in security prevents months of future remediation.
The right partners are key
Leveraging Vanta’s automation platform and collaborating with an audit firm committed to our success reduced preparation time from months to weeks, allowing our engineering team to maintain development velocity.
