SAS 70 audits are looked upon as an expensive and time consuming activity
that many organizations unfortunately have to go through. Let's look at the
glass half full approach and talk about the many benefits of SAS 70 Type I
& Type II audits.

First and foremost, SAS 70 audits examine your control environment for
ensuring an adequate system of checks, balances and internal controls are in
place.  What's important to note about this is that the audit is an
excellent self-assessment of your organization's control environment. Moreover,
any shortcomings or deficiencies in your system of internal controls are
generally identified before the audit with a SAS 70 readiness questionnaire
assessment. This helps identify gaps and gives you recommendations for strengthening
your control environment before the audit commences. It’s a win win approach in
that you identify weaknesses before the audit and you hopefully get a clean
audit opinion that you can use to help market your organization and to show
your customers of your commitment to your internal control environment.

Yes, SAS 70 audits can be expensive and time consuming, but take time to
learn and study about the upside of these audits at the SAS 70 resource guide,
where you can obtain SAS 70 sample reports along with downloading a host of
current white papers on SAS 70 audits.