Who Are AuditBoard?

If you work in audit, risk management, compliance, or governance across enterprise organisations, then the chances are you've already come across AuditBoard. But for those who haven't, this is a company that has rapidly established itself as one of the defining platforms in the Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) software market. Founded in 2014, AuditBoard has grown from a focused SOX compliance tool into a comprehensive, cloud-based connected risk platform that now serves more than half of the Fortune 500 and seven of the Fortune 10 companies.

AuditBoard is headquartered in Cerritos, California, and has built a reputation for taking complex, fragmented audit and risk processes and bringing them into a single, modern, connected platform. With over 2,000 enterprise customers globally and a workforce approaching 1,000 employees, AuditBoard is not just a software vendor, it's become a strategic partner for organisations looking to modernise their approach to audit, risk, compliance, and ESG management.

In 2024, AuditBoard reached a significant milestone when it was acquired by London-based private equity firm Hg in a deal valued at $3 billion. This acquisition underscores both the company's growth trajectory and the strategic importance of GRC technology in today's increasingly regulated business environment.

What Does AuditBoard Do?

AuditBoard provides a cloud-based platform that transforms how enterprises manage audit, risk, compliance, and ESG programmes. At its core, the platform is designed to eliminate the chaos of disconnected systems, spreadsheets, and manual processes that have traditionally plagued GRC functions.

The platform offers a suite of integrated applications that work together from a unified data core. These include RiskOversight for enterprise risk management, CrossComply for compliance management, SOXHUB for SOX compliance and internal controls, OpsAudit for operational and internal audit management, ESG for environmental, social, and governance reporting, ITRM for IT risk management, TPRM for third-party risk management, and RegComply for regulatory compliance tracking.

What sets AuditBoard apart is its "connected risk" approach. Rather than treating audit, risk, and compliance as separate functions with separate tools, AuditBoard connects all risks, controls, frameworks, and issues in one place. This means that audit teams, risk managers, compliance officers, and executives can work collaboratively with real-time visibility into the entire risk landscape.

The platform automates manual, time-consuming tasks that have traditionally consumed audit and risk teams. For instance, it streamlines internal audit management from planning through to fieldwork, walkthroughs, testing, and remediation. It automates SOX testing cycles, risk assessments, and compliance reporting. It centralises document management with version control and access permissions. And it provides real-time dashboards and customisable reporting that can be tailored for different stakeholders -from frontline auditors to audit committees and boards.

AuditBoard has also invested heavily in AI capabilities. The platform includes AuditBoard AI, which automates repetitive tasks, generates reports and descriptions, reveals insights, and connects data sources using industry-trained intelligence. Features like AI Scoping Memos automatically generate detailed audit scope documents, while AI Cross-Audit Summaries consolidate audit findings into executive-level reports. The platform's Automated Vendor Assessments feature uses AI to streamline third-party risk questionnaires by leveraging historical assessments and publicly available compliance reports.

The platform integrates with over 200 third-party applications, including tools like Jira, ServiceNow, Asana, Snowflake, Tenable, Microsoft 365, Okta, and Azure AD. This extensive integration capability means AuditBoard can fit into existing technology ecosystems without requiring organisations to rip and replace their current infrastructure.

Who Uses AuditBoard?

AuditBoard serves a broad range of enterprise organisations, but its sweet spot is clearly mid-to-large enterprises and Fortune 500 companies that have mature audit, risk, and compliance functions. The platform is particularly well-suited for organisations that operate in highly regulated industries or those facing complex, multi-framework compliance requirements.

More than 50 percent of the Fortune 500 now use AuditBoard, including seven of the Fortune 10. Notable customers include companies like PACCAR, Cisco, Amgen, Lennar, Dunkin' Donuts, Columbia, and Priceline. The platform has also been adopted by companies like PwC, Lyft, Snowflake, and Adidas.

The typical users within these organisations include Chief Audit Executives, internal audit teams, Chief Risk Officers, risk management teams, Chief Compliance Officers, compliance teams, IT risk and information security teams, ESG and sustainability teams, SOX compliance teams, and board audit committees.

Industries that have seen strong adoption of AuditBoard include financial services and banking, technology and SaaS companies, retail and consumer goods, manufacturing, healthcare, energy and utilities, higher education, and government and public sector organisations.

A real-world example of AuditBoard in action comes from PACCAR, the global technology company and manufacturer of premium commercial vehicles. Vijayant Sitani, Chief Audit Executive at PACCAR, explained how AuditBoard has enabled his team to focus on high-priority tasks, offer insights that drive real-time decisions, and create a more comprehensive risk and controls strategy within the organisation. He noted that they're now recognised as the go-to source for risk and controls and viewed as trusted business partners—a significant shift for an internal audit function.

Another example comes from Edgewell Personal Care, whose IT GRC team has been able to reduce issue remediation time by 30 days and save 400 hours per quarter with automated control testing. By using AuditBoard's connected risk platform, they've broken down silos and aligned across IT, Audit, and Legal to tackle vulnerabilities head-on while staying compliant.

For organisations already using AuditBoard, the platform has delivered measurable efficiency gains. Independent studies show that companies achieve 30 to 40 percent faster audit cycle times compared to legacy or spreadsheet-based systems, along with a 25 percent reduction in compliance costs through automation and streamlined processes. The platform also drives a 40 percent improvement in cross-team collaboration, as audit, finance, and risk professionals can work seamlessly within a unified system.

AuditBoard Competitors

The GRC software market is crowded, and AuditBoard faces competition from a range of established enterprise platforms and newer, more specialised solutions. Understanding the competitive landscape is essential for organisations evaluating their options.

Enterprise GRC Platforms form the most direct category of competition. RSA Archer (now part of RSA Security) has long been a dominant player in the enterprise GRC market, particularly strong in financial services and highly regulated industries. It offers extensive customisation but comes with complexity and a steep learning curve. MetricStream is another enterprise-grade platform known for its ConnectedGRC approach, offering strong capabilities across risk, compliance, audit, and cyber risk. It's well-suited for large, complex organisations but can be expensive and require significant implementation effort. SAP GRC is particularly attractive for organisations already invested in the SAP ecosystem, offering integrated risk management, access controls, and compliance capabilities, though it requires bundling multiple products to achieve full GRC coverage.

Audit and Compliance-Focused Platforms represent another category of competitors. Diligent One Platform (formerly HighBond) is popular with board members and executives for governance, though it's less focused on operational audit processes than AuditBoard. Workiva specialises in financial reporting and regulatory compliance with strong automation for reporting workflows, making it ideal for organisations with heavy financial reporting needs but less comprehensive for broader GRC functions. LogicGate Risk Cloud offers a flexible, no-code platform for GRC management with AI-powered risk quantification, appealing to organisations wanting to customise workflows without heavy IT involvement.

Mid-Market and SMB Alternatives have emerged as strong competitors for smaller organisations. Hyperproof is a compliance automation platform supporting over 100 security frameworks with a user-friendly interface, making it more accessible for mid-market companies. OneTrust GRC is part of OneTrust's broader privacy and data governance platform, strong in privacy compliance (GDPR, CCPA) and expanding into broader GRC capabilities. Sprinto focuses on compliance automation for startups and fast-growing tech companies, with quick onboarding for SOC 2, ISO 27001, and HIPAA certifications, though it lacks the depth for complex enterprise audit functions.

Emerging Compliance Automation Players include Drata, which offers AI-native trust management with continuous control monitoring and automation, particularly popular with tech startups and SaaS companies. Vanta provides simplified compliance for SOC 2, ISO 27001, and other frameworks with strong automation and integrations, appealing to companies wanting faster time-to-compliance. Secureframe is another compliance automation platform focused on SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and PCI DSS, with over 200 integrations.

What Makes AuditBoard Different?

In a crowded GRC software market, several factors distinguish AuditBoard from its competitors.

Built by Practitioners, for Practitioners is a core differentiator. AuditBoard was founded by Daniel Kim and Jay Lee, both former auditors from PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young. This practitioner-focused approach means the platform is designed to solve real problems that auditors, risk managers, and compliance officers face daily - not just abstract GRC concepts. The result is a platform that emphasises usability and adoption, with an intuitive interface that requires minimal training compared to legacy enterprise GRC tools.

Connected Risk Platform is AuditBoard's central architectural advantage. Unlike point solutions that address audit, risk, or compliance in isolation, AuditBoard provides a unified data core that connects all risks, controls, frameworks, issues, and evidence in one place. This connected approach eliminates data silos and provides real-time visibility across the entire risk landscape. Risks can be linked to controls, controls to audits, audits to issues, and issues to remediation efforts - creating a comprehensive, traceable view of the organisation's risk posture.

AI-Powered Automation represents a significant investment area for AuditBoard. The platform's AI capabilities go beyond basic automation to provide industry-trained intelligence that can generate scoping memos, consolidate audit summaries, automate vendor assessments, and provide intelligent staffing recommendations. Importantly, AuditBoard AI runs on Microsoft Azure with stringent security and privacy standards, addressing one of the biggest concerns organisations have about using AI for sensitive compliance data.

Enterprise-Grade with Startup Agility is another distinctive characteristic. Despite serving more than half of the Fortune 500, AuditBoard maintains a culture of innovation and customer responsiveness. The company has achieved 1,947 percent revenue growth over a three-year period and has been recognised by Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 for seven consecutive years. This combination of enterprise capability and rapid innovation is unusual in the GRC market, where many platforms are either large and slow-moving or small and limited in functionality.

Strong Customer Satisfaction sets AuditBoard apart. The platform maintains a 98 percent customer retention rate and is consistently top-rated on G2, Capterra, and Gartner Peer Insights. Users frequently praise the company's responsive customer support, smooth implementation process, and ongoing innovation. The company hosts an annual Audit & Beyond conference that attracts over 11,000 GRC professionals and maintains an active customer community of over 9,000 users who share best practices and influence the product roadmap.

Comprehensive GRC Coverage differentiates AuditBoard from more specialised competitors. The platform supports multiple compliance frameworks including SOC 2, SOX, ISO 27001, NIST, HIPAA, GDPR, and many others - all from a single platform. This multi-framework capability is essential for enterprises that must comply with multiple regulatory requirements and want to avoid the complexity of managing separate tools for different compliance programmes.

Real-Time Reporting and Analytics provide another competitive advantage. AuditBoard's dynamic reporting engine allows users to pull any data point from anywhere in the platform to create custom reports with real-time data. The platform offers flexible dashboards that can be tailored to different stakeholders, from frontline auditors to audit committees and boards. Integration with Power BI and Tableau provides additional visualisation capabilities for organisations with advanced analytics requirements.

AuditBoard - Our Viewpoint

AuditBoard has established itself as one of the leading platforms in the enterprise GRC market, and for good reason. The platform combines comprehensive functionality with genuine usability—a combination that's surprisingly rare in the GRC software space. For large enterprises with mature audit, risk, and compliance functions, AuditBoard represents a solid, well-supported solution that can modernise and streamline operations that have often been stuck in spreadsheets and disconnected tools for years.

The company's practitioner-led approach is evident throughout the platform. Unlike some enterprise software that feels like it was designed by architects who never had to use it, AuditBoard's interface and workflows reflect a deep understanding of how audit and risk teams actually work. The platform's connected risk architecture is particularly compelling - the ability to link risks to controls, controls to audits, and audits to remediation in a unified system provides visibility and traceability that's difficult to achieve with point solutions.

That said, AuditBoard isn't the right fit for every organisation. The platform is clearly positioned for mid-to-large enterprises, and the complexity reflects that positioning.

Implementation typically takes three to four months, which is reasonable for enterprise GRC software but may feel lengthy for organisations needing faster time-to-compliance. For startups and smaller mid-market companies with simpler compliance needs, lighter-weight alternatives like Drata, Vanta, or Hyperproof may be more appropriate.

For organisations evaluating AuditBoard, we'd recommend being clear about your requirements - the platform excels at comprehensive, enterprise-scale GRC management but may be more than you need if your requirements are straightforward. Don't just rely on vendor materials; request references from customers in your industry with similar use cases, and invest time in hands-on demos that reflect real workflows your team will need to execute.

Overall, AuditBoard represents a mature, well-executed GRC platform that has earned its position as a market leader. For large enterprises with complex audit, risk, and compliance requirements, it's absolutely worth serious consideration. The platform's connected risk approach, AI-powered automation, and strong track record with Fortune 500 companies make it a compelling choice for organisations ready to modernise their GRC functions.

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At Viewpoint Analysis, we help organisations navigate the complex landscape of enterprise technology and run structured vendor selection processes when teams need to move quickly and confidently. If you're evaluating GRC platforms like AuditBoard, or if you need help understanding which solution best fits your organisation's specific requirements, we'd be happy to help.

Our rapid vendor selection process and technology matchmaking services are designed to cut through the noise and help you make informed decisions without the lengthy procurement cycles. You can also read up about the ESG area on our website.