More and more multifamily and single family rental (SFR) operators and property managers are leveraging proptech software solutions to automate marketing, leasing, accounting and operations in order to speed time to revenue and improve efficiencies. If you are a Multifamily and SFR enterprise digitizing and moving these functions online, cybersecurity threats to your data and your tenant's data become a new concern. Because of this, it's important to ensure that every software vendor you work with is secure and has adequate controls in place to protect your sensitive information. One proven way to do this is by requiring that your software vendors have SOC 2 certification.

What is SOC 2 certification?

SOC 2 (Service Organization Control 2) is a certification that evaluates a company's information systems and processes to ensure they are secure, available, and maintain the privacy and integrity of data. The SOC 2 certification is a set of guidelines and auditing procedures established by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) that help companies ensure the security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy of electronic data.

Why is SOC 2 certification important?

1. Protects Sensitive Data

Data breaches can be catastrophic for MFR and SFR companies, both financially and reputation-wise. SOC 2 certification ensures that your software vendor has implemented appropriate measures to safeguard your sensitive data.

2. Assures Compliance

Many other industries, such as healthcare and finance, have strict regulations and compliance requirements and have paved the way for MFR and SFR with SOC 2. By requiring SOC 2 certification, you can ensure that your software vendor is complying with these regulations and avoiding costly penalties.

3. Demonstrates maturity and commitment to security

SOC 2 certification requires a significant investment of time and resources for a company to achieve. By requiring it, you know you are working with a company that takes security seriously and has enough scale to invest in rigorous SOC 2 certification.

4. Improves risk management

By requiring SOC 2 certification, you are improving your own risk management by ensuring that all of your vendors have implemented appropriate controls to mitigate security risks and protect your company's and tenant's sensitive data.

5. Increases transparency

With clear auditing procedures, SOC 2 certification provides a level of transparency into a company's security controls that may not be available otherwise. This can help you make more informed decisions about which vendors to work with, how each of your vendors is keeping up with security protocols and how to manage your own risk.

FacilGo recently went through the SOC 2 certification process. As we started to scale, many of our customers started requesting SOC 2 certification. Through our SOC 2 preparation, roles and responsibilities became better defined, processes were better documented and security protocols were tightened even further. The SOC 2 journey certainly resulted in more meetings, more time documenting processes and incurred extra overhead. However, the overall benefits to our customers clearly outweigh these extra costs and effort and enable us to deliver highly secure, world-class software. With SOC 2 certification we are better structured to continue to scale and help our customers automate their maintenance, turns and renovations operations.

Every MFR and SFR enterprise should require their software vendors to have SOC 2 certification - it is an important step in protecting your sensitive data, ensuring compliance, and improving risk management. By working with vendors who prioritize security and transparency, you can rest assured that your operations are safe and secure.