Audit Preparation Checklist in Jira: Step-by-Step Guide to a Smooth SOC 2 Audit

If you’re already SOC 2 certified, you know the hardest part is not getting the report once. The major challenge is to stay audit-ready every fiscal year.

You’re constantly juggling:

• Ongoing internal controls
  
• Evidence collection across teams
  
• Regulator and customer questions about your security posture

A structured audit preparation checklist in Jira turns this into a repeatable workflow. You get one place to track evidence, owners, deadlines, and audit findings in real time, and you can reuse it every fiscal year.

In this article, we’ll walk through a SOC 2 Security (CC) audit checklist template you can run inside Jira. We’ll also share tips from our security team and show how to implement the template with Smart Checklist and Smart Templates for Jira.

What is a SOC 2 Audit Checklist Template?

A SOC 2 audit checklist template is a reusable, step-by-step structure that helps you prepare for your annual (or semi-annual) SOC 2 Type II audit.

Unlike a generic “security checklist”, It’s built for recurring audits:

• Maps directly to the SOC 2 Security Trust Services Criteria
  
• Organizes internal controls, risk assessment, and evidence by control family
  
• Supports both internal audit and external auditors during fieldwork
  
• Works well with automation, dashboards, and real-time status tracking

Think of it as your “master issue tree” for audit readiness. Instead of recreating the process for each fiscal year or each external audit, you clone the template, personalize variables, and start execution. 

The goal is simple: when your external audit firm starts fieldwork, your audit team can pull up a Jira issue and see: which controls are in scope for this fiscal year, who owns each control, where the latest supporting documents live (policies, logs, screenshots, exports) and which corrective actions from prior year findings are closed or still open

This gives your internal auditors, security, and engineering teams a shared, real-time view of audit readiness instead of hidden spreadsheets and email threads.

How SOC 2 Security Criteria Shape the Checklist

The SOC 2 Security Trust Services Criteria are organized into common criteria (CC1–CC9). Your audit report is built on evidence that these controls are designed and operating effectively over the period.

For recurring audits, most companies stick with Security as the baseline, then optionally expand to Availability, Confidentiality, etc. The template below focuses on Security and follows the same structure your external auditors use:

• CC1 – Control Environment
  
• CC2 – Communication & Information
  
• CC3 – Risk Assessment
  
• CC4 – Monitoring Activities
  
• CC5 – Control Activities
  
• CC6 – Logical Access
  
• CC7 – Change Management
  
• CC8 – System Operations & Incident Response
  
• CC9 – Vendor & Third-Party Management
  

Instead of listing every point of focus, we bundle them into a comprehensive checklist that your audit team can manage in Jira.

SOC 2 Audit Checklist Template – Structure in Jira

We recommend one main Epic per year and one Jira issue per control family. Inside each issue, use Smart Checklist to manage the detailed tasks and evidence for that area.

Epic: SOC 2 Type II – Security – FY{{year}}

Example variables you can reuse each year:

• {{year}} and/or {{month}} – audit period can be each 3, 6 month or once a year
  
• {{audit_firm}} – CPA firm / external auditors
  
• {{audit_owner}} – primary internal audit lead
  
• {{period_start}}, {{period_end}} – audit period dates

Below is how we suggest structuring the checklists.

1. CC1 – Control Environment & Governance

This part of the audit process focuses on tone at the top, governance, and accountability. Auditors will look for:

• Board / audit committee involvement
  
• Documented accounting policies and security policies
  
• Clear roles and responsibilities
  

Example checklist items:

2. CC2 – Communication & Information

Here auditors check how you communicate policies, procedures, and changes to relevant stakeholders.

Example checklist items:

3. CC3 – Risk Assessment

SOC 2 expects a documented, repeatable risk assessment process that feeds into your compliance program.

Example checklist items:

If you’re running large changes like Cloud migrations, map them to your SOC 2 risks and controls. Our Data Center migration to Jira Cloud step-by-step guide shows how to keep compliance and security in mind during big initiatives.

4. CC4 – Monitoring Activities

Monitoring is about ongoing checks that your internal controls work as intended.

Example checklist items:

5. CC5 – Control Activities

Control activities are the specific policies, procedures, and workflows that enforce your standards.

Example checklist items:

This is where post-incident reviews often show up. If you’re not already doing it, set up a reusable incident postmortem process in Jira and Confluence.

6. CC6 – Logical Access Controls

Logical access is a core part of SOC 2 and often a big chunk of fieldwork.

Example checklist items:

Your audit preparation checklist should tie to both HR workflows and IT workflows so user management is clear and auditable.

7. CC7 – Change Management

Here auditors care about how you manage changes to code, infrastructure, and configuration.

Example checklist items:

8. CC8 – System Operations & Incident Response

This section focuses on daily operations, monitoring, trial balance of system stability, and how you respond to incidents.

Example checklist items:

9. CC9 – Vendor & Third-Party Management

External services are part of your control environment. SOC 2 expects you to manage vendor risk.

Example checklist items:

How to Run This SOC 2 Audit Checklist in Jira with Smart Tools

Here’s one way to operationalize this checklist inside your Jira Cloud instance.

1. Generate the audit structure with Smart Templates

Use Smart Templates for Jira to create:

• Epic: SOC 2 Type II – Security – FY{{year}}
  
• 9 child issues: one per CC area
  
• Pre-filled description fields with scope, links, and expectations
  
• Smart Variables like {{year}}, {{audit_firm}}, {{audit_owner}}, {{period_start}}, {{period_end}}
  

This way your audit team doesn’t rebuild the structure every year. They just update the variables.

2. Add Smart Checklist to control issues

Inside each issue (CC1–CC9), use Smart Checklist to:

• Break the work into granular, testable items
  
• Attach or link evidence (Confluence docs, exports, screenshots)
  
• Mark critical items as mandatory and use workflow validators so the issue can’t move to “Ready for Audit” until they’re complete
  

This is especially useful for areas like logical access and change management where auditors will sample specific items.

3. Use automation and dashboards for real-time status

With Jira automation, you can:

• Auto-assign issues to control owners when the Epic is created
  
• Set due dates based on {{period_end}} minus a buffer for fieldwork
  
• Send reminders if checklists aren’t progressing
  

With dashboards, you can track:

• Progress by CC area
  
• Open corrective actions from prior-year audit findings
  
• Time to close findings and deviations
  

This turns your SOC 2 work from “rushed fieldwork” into a continuous, measurable part of your security and financial health story.

Tips from Our Security Team for Recurring SOC 2 Audits

From our own SOC 2 journey and talking with other teams, a few patterns stand out.

1. Treat SOC 2 as an ongoing workflow, not a year-end project

If everything happens during the last month of the audit period, you’ll struggle to produce high-quality evidence and a smooth audit. Spread your work across the year:

• Quarterly access reviews
  
• Regular policy and risk reviews
  
• Continuous documentation of key events (incidents, major changes, vendor updates)
  

2. Centralize evidence in one place

Use Jira as the backbone of your compliance program, with:

• One Epic per audit period
  
• Issues mapped to CC1–CC9
  
• Smart Checklists to track detailed tasks and evidence
  
• Links to Confluence pages, storage locations, and system exports
  

You avoid chasing bank statements, logs, and screenshots across email, local drives, and chat.

3. Make ownership and status visible

Every control area should have:

• A clear owner (not “security team”)
  
• A current status: Not started / In progress / Ready for auditor
  
• Due dates aligned with your audit firm’s timeline
  

This helps you spot bottlenecks early and gives stakeholders a realistic view of audit readiness.

4. Reuse and refine the checklist every year

Your first year’s template might be rough. That’s fine. After each successful audit, do a short retrospective:

• Where did auditors push hardest?
  
• Which controls had weak evidence?
  
• Where did you over-collect or under-collect documents?
  

Update the template so each year’s audit preparation checklist gets better and more streamlined.

For a deeper look at structuring long-running compliance projects in Jira, check out our Template for Compliance Audit in Jira.

Make your audit easier with Smart Checklist

• Automate repetitive tasks
• Check progress at a glance
• Help your teams complete tasks
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Why Use an Audit Checklist Template in Jira

A good audit checklist template helps you:

• Streamline the audit process
  You avoid hunting for spreadsheets, email threads, or outdated folders. Everything lives in a single project with clear status and owners.
  
• Connect internal controls to real workflows
  Instead of treating controls as abstract bullets in a PDF, you tie them to actual Jira workflows, automation rules, and system changes. This helps both auditors and internal teams see how financial reporting and security controls work in practice.
  
• Improve audit readiness year over year
  The template becomes a living artifact. After each successful audit, you refine tasks, checklists, and metrics based on audit findings and management feedback.
  
• Support multiple use cases
  The same structure works for external audit, internal audit, SOC 2 readiness, or a focused review of a specific area (e.g., revenue recognition, IT general controls). You clone the template, set a new scope, and assign a new audit owner.

Final Thoughts: Make Audits Boring (in a Good Way)

Audits will always bring pressure. Your goal is not to remove all the work, but to remove the chaos.

A well-designed audit checklist template in Jira gives you:

• A single, shared plan for internal auditors, finance, security, and external auditors
  
• A step-by-step flow from pre-audit to follow-up
  
• Clear visibility into risks, internal controls, and status at any moment
  

For teams that are already SOC 2 certified, the real win here is making the annual audit feel predictable without last-minute chasing of supporting documents and any surprises during fieldwork.

A structured SOC 2 audit checklist template in Jira helps you get there. It keeps your internal controls, evidence, and corrective actions in one place and gives stakeholders a clear view of audit readiness in real time

Smart Templates give you the structure. Smart Checklist turns each step into concrete, verifiable tasks. Together, they help you move from last-minute scramble to a smooth audit that supports your long-term financial health and regulatory compliance.

When you are ready to operationalize your audit process inside Jira, start by mapping your existing audit preparation checklist into a template. Then let Smart Checklist and Smart Templates handle the repeatable work, so your audit team can focus on judgment, not manual tracking.

FAQ: SOC 2 Audit Checklist Template

Is this checklist only for SOC 2, or can we reuse it for financial audits?
The structure is designed around SOC 2 and internal controls, but you can adapt the same Jira template for a financial audit as well. For SOC 2, you focus on security controls and evidence. For a financial reporting audit under GAAP or other accounting standards, you’d swap in tasks for financial statements, trial balance, balance sheet, accounts payable/receivable, fixed assets, depreciation, bank statements, and tax returns. The idea is the same: a single, reusable audit preparation checklist that keeps all supporting documents and owners in one place.

How detailed should our audit checklist be for a comprehensive audit?
Start from two inputs: your auditor’s PBC list and your own control catalog. A comprehensive checklist usually covers:

• Design and operation of key internal controls
  
• Evidence for financial records (invoices, contracts, ledgers) where relevant
  
• Samples for fieldwork (e.g., change tickets, access reviews, reconciliations)
  

You don’t need a separate Jira item for every control test. Instead, use a step-by-step issue with a Smart Checklist that groups related work (for example: “Pre-audit review of revenue recognition controls”, “Year-end review of liabilities and accruals”, “Tie-out of prior year audit findings and corrective actions”). That keeps the audit process manageable while still supporting a successful audit.

How does this template support internal audit vs external audit?
For internal audit teams, the template helps you plan and execute reviews across the fiscal year: risk assessment, control testing, and follow-up. For external audit, the same issues and checklists become your single source of truth during fieldwork:

• The audit firm and CPAs see clearly which controls are in scope
  
• The audit committee and other stakeholders can track progress
  
• You can quickly answer questions about specific workflows, accounting policies, or configurations

You’ll still sign an engagement letter and work through the standard external audit steps, but the template gives your audit team and external auditors a shared map instead of scattered files.

How can we use this template to streamline year-end audit readiness?
The easiest way to get a smooth audit is to avoid doing everything at year-end. Use Jira automation to spread work across the year:

• Quarterly reviews of access, liabilities, and high-risk processes
  
• Pre-audit checks on trial balance, receivable, and key reconciliations
  
• Ongoing tracking of regulatory requirements and compliance program updates
  

With Smart Checklist and dashboards, you get real-time visibility into which areas are ready for fieldwork and which still need evidence. 

What kinds of documents should we attach for SOC 2 vs financial audits?
For SOC 2, common supporting documents include:

• Policies and procedures (security, change management, incident response)
  
• System configs, access review exports, and change logs
  
• Incident tickets and postmortems
  

For a financial audit, you’ll layer on:

• Financial statements, trial balance, bank statements, and tax returns
  
• Schedules for fixed assets, depreciation, liabilities, and equity
  
• Detail for accounts payable / receivable
  

All of these can be linked to Jira issues so internal auditors and external auditors always know where to look during fieldwork.

Article by Viktoriia Golovtseva

Content Writer at TitanApps. Experienced Content Writer & Marketer, passionate about crafting strategic content that drives results and exploring the intersections of content and product marketing to create impactful campaigns. Dedicated to helping companies achieve their marketing goals through engaging storytelling and data-driven optimization.