How can organizations ensure they’re meeting all their security requirements and standards? Cybersecurity is essential across organizations and industries, so companies must demonstrate they’re meeting their obligations. That’s where compliance reporting comes in.
Compliance reports provide clear reports to maintain transparency, ensure legal and regulatory adherence, and help companies avoid penalties
With that in mind, let’s look at compliance reporting, why it matters, and what compliance reporting software and tools can make the process simple and efficient.
What is Compliance Reporting?
Compliance reporting is the process of gathering and presenting information that shows a company is adhering to its security requirements. This includes both government and industry standards, as many industries have specific security frameworks to comply with.
Compliance reports are typically prepared by a company’s IT department and detail how company and customer data is obtained, stored, managed, distributed, and protected.
Why is Compliance Reporting Important?
Cybersecurity is of the utmost importance for all businesses, especially those that manage customer data. Several industries also have specific security requirements, such as HIPAA for the medical field or FFIEC for financial institutions.
Compliance reporting helps businesses ensure regulatory compliance and avoid penalties for failing to meet security obligations. These reports provide a comprehensive overview of a business’s security policies and how it manages data, so they can show how sensitive information is kept safe.
As a result, compliance reports help prove a business is meeting industry standards, ensure operational integrity, and even help improve client trust. The reports can also help mitigate legal risks, as they can prove a company is meeting its security obligations.
Types of Compliance Reports
Not all compliance reports look the same; there are several different varieties designed to focus on specific areas of a business’s security and operations. Common types of compliance reports include:
Regulatory reports, which detail adherence to regulatory requirements, based on industry standards.
Operational reports, which focus on internal policies and operational standards, including the company’s processes, quality management, safety, and more.
IT reports, which look at information security, data privacy, and IT governance.
Financial reports, which focus on adherence to financial and capital market laws and accounting standards, including reviews of financial statements.
Data privacy reports, which cover how the company protects sensitive customer information from threats and unauthorized access.
How Do You Write a Compliance Report?
If you need to write a compliance report, you’ll want to follow a few key steps. These will help ensure your report is complete and cohesive:
1. Know Your Requirements
The first step to compliance reporting is to understand the standards and regulations your business will be held to. This can include industry and government standards, as well as company policies. Once you know what your obligations are, you can define the scope of the report and identify what areas it will cover.
2. Gather Relevant Data
The next step is to start researching and gathering data. This can include everything from collecting documents to interviewing employees to using compliance reporting software, and should fully encompass everything outlined within the report's scope.
3. Analyze for Compliance & Gaps
After gathering your information, it’s time to start analyzing it. You can see where your security and regulations stand, how they compare to your compliance requirements, and any areas where you might fall short. This is also a good opportunity to look for patterns or recurring issues so they can be addressed.
4. Document Findings
Once your data is gathered and analyzed, you can start documenting it in a report. This should include an introduction that defines the scope and methodology, the findings of the assessment, and how they compare to industry standards, and recommendations for improvements, whether to achieve compliance or bolster security even further.
Don’t forget to include visual aids such as tables and charts to make complex information clear.
After your report is written, you should review and revise it before submitting it. It helps to have a second set of eyes review it to ensure it’s clear, comprehensive, and objective.
Once the report is refined to perfection, you can submit it to all relevant stakeholders.
Which Industries Require Compliance Reporting?
Not all industries have the same IT security requirements, so most will have very different compliance reports and standards. Additionally, compliance reporting is mandatory for several industries, including:
Healthcare: Healthcare organizations, including hospitals and medical technology, require compliance reporting. These reports ensure patient information is secure and the organization is HIPAA-compliant.
Finance: Financial institutions, such as banks, financial technology, and payment processors, must demonstrate compliance with security standards like PCI DSS.
Technology: While this is a broad area, technology-focused organizations such as software providers, e-commerce platforms, telecommunications, and so forth must provide reports focusing on IT security compliance, GDPR, and so forth.
Energy: Energy organizations must demonstrate compliance with multiple cybersecurity standards, including several ISA/IEC protocols.
Manufacturing: Manufacturing organizations must follow multiple cybersecurity standards and regulations, including IEC standards and the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, so their compliance reports must show that they’re adhering to these regulations.
Education: Educational institutions must keep teacher, student, and faculty information safe and secure, so they also require compliance reports. For instance, colleges and universities must meet the NIST SP 800-171 compliance requirements to protect student information.
Compliance Reporting Challenges
Compliance tracking and reporting can be a large and complex task, especially for companies unfamiliar with the process.
Compliance reports require gathering large amounts of information, both from the company’s systems and employees, which can be a large and time-consuming task. Even then, the person compiling the data needs to fully understand their security requirements so they can confidently demonstrate compliance.
This can also be a resource-intensive project, so companies need to invest in creating a complete and comprehensive compliance report. This can often require stakeholder and employee engagement as part of the process, which presents its own set of challenges.
Additionally, security regulations and requirements frequently shift and update to keep up with new threats and challenges. Organizations need to ensure their IT security keeps up with these changes, and compliance tracking and reporting should show that they’re continuing to meet their security requirements year after year.
How Automation Helps Overcome Compliance Reporting Challenges
Automation is transforming how IT teams approach compliance—not just by speeding up reporting, but by embedding compliance into day-to-day operations.
Rather than relying on manual checklists or one-off audits, automated systems can continuously enforce policies, monitor endpoint activity, and detect security issues in real-time. This reduces human error, ensures consistency across devices, and makes compliance an ongoing, integrated process rather than a reactive task.
For example, with the right automation in place, IT teams can automatically log key activities, push out critical updates, enforce password or encryption policies, and monitor for unusual behavior—all of which play a role in regulatory compliance. This kind of built-in visibility and control makes it much easier to prepare for audits or respond to changing standards.
By shifting toward automation, organizations gain a scalable and proactive way to stay compliant, no matter how complex their environment becomes.
Simplify Compliance Reporting with Splashtop AEM
Compliance reporting requires detailed documentation, continuous monitoring, and clear visibility across your IT environment. Splashtop AEM (Autonomous Endpoint Management) streamlines this process by automating many of the most time-consuming and error-prone steps, helping you generate audit-ready reports with confidence.
With Splashtop AEM, you can:
Automatically collect endpoint activity logs to maintain accurate, audit-friendly records.
Monitor compliance-related policies in real time and get alerted when endpoints fall out of compliance.
Generate centralized reports on system status, patch history, and security configurations.
Enforce and document security policies such as encryption, password complexity, and firewall settings.
Track hardware and software assets to ensure systems align with internal and external compliance requirements.
Schedule regular compliance checks to proactively identify gaps before audits occur.
Automate patch deployment and remediation tasks to demonstrate active risk management.
By automating these critical tasks, Splashtop AEM empowers your IT team to maintain a continuous state of compliance and produce thorough, accurate reports when needed.
Start your free trial today and simplify your compliance reporting with Splashtop.
