_Audits don’t have to be chaos_

How many hours will your leaders lose this quarter verifying user access? As reviews loom, the audit cycle repeats: exporting spreadsheets, chasing approvals, and hoping auditors don’t discover a high-risk oversight. 

This whole process isn’t just inefficient and time-consuming. It also opens your organization up for additional risk.

With Certify from Pathways, your team can shift from reactive scrambling to a proactive model that keeps your organization audit-ready year-round. Certify transforms ServiceNow audit management from an exhausting process full of manual spreadsheet entries and hunting down individuals into an automated, reliable process that auditors trust. In fact, we see auditors be surprised by how quickly teams can produce complete, defensible evidence when Certify is in place. Many end up approving the reports with little to no follow-up.

## **The problem with the spreadsheet shuffle**

For many companies, user access reviews are still based on spreadsheets and manual updates. It has a tendency to look like this: 

- **Massive productivity drain** : Leaders and IT teams waste hundreds of hours on low-value administrative work.
- **High risk of error** : Managers rubber-stamp approvals, leaving security gaps and excessive room for human error.
- **No audit trail** : Scattered spreadsheets provide no historical record or transparency, frustrating auditors and extending reviews.

This leads to more than just extra work. It’s actively costing your team money, impacting finance, compliance, leadership, and risk management. 

## **Solving the issue with Certify**

Now picture a different reality. Two weeks before an audit, everything is already updated and certified. Managers completed their reviews in minutes. Executives see a real-time dashboard confirming compliance. And when the auditors arrive, you can generate a complete report immediately, so no one is left waiting around for the updates.

That is the impact of compliance automation software. With Certify, you build continuous compliance into your workflows, turning the entire process into a simplified, automated system that can take your IAM audit process from months to just a few hours.

### **Automate everything**

- Launch scheduled reviews with automated reminders and escalations.
- Eliminate manual follow-up. Certify tracks update progress from start to finish.
- Standardize reporting across every department.

### **Get the full view**

- A centralized dashboard replaces confusing spreadsheets.
- Executives and auditors see a single source of truth with easy access to historical data.
- Reports are auditor-approved and generated on the spot.

### **Complete reporting**

- Managers review only their direct reports’ permissions.
- Bulk approvals and revocations take minutes.
- Outdated access is revoked quickly, closing security gaps as soon as possible.

 

## **Identity access management with Certify**

Auditors want clarity and consistency in the reports. Certify delivers all that and more by aligning directly with ServiceNow audit management best practices:

- **Centralized visibility** : Every certification record and approval in one place.
- **Repeatable process** : Standardized campaigns across the enterprise.
- **Full transparency** : Easily see the status of every review.

Clients using Certify have cut preparation time and saved significant overhead. 

One IT director put it simply: _“Certify is easy to use, fast, and our one-stop shop for access. It has helped us create internal efficiency, reduce cost, drive business process agility, and improve customer service.”_

## **FAQs**

**How does this improve security?**
Automating identity access reviews ensures they’re done correctly, on time. Revoking outdated permissions ASAP reduces security risks and keeps your organization compliant.

**Who benefits beyond IT?**
The C-suite gains confidence in the company’s compliance. Department heads save time with intuitive reviews. The entire executive team knows their compliance automation software is actively reducing operational and financial risk.

**Why not just use ServiceNow out of the box?**
The ServiceNow platform is powerful, but it’s not built for enterprise-wide access reviews. Certify fills that gap with campaign automation, historical reporting, and an intuitive manager-facing interface.

## **Stop scrambling. Start preparing.**

Manual reviews, wasted hours, and audit anxiety don’t have to define your compliance process. Certify, Pathways’ proprietary app, turns audits into a point of confidence and eliminates the chaos.

With Pathways’ [ServiceNow Certify](https://pathwayscg.com/certify/) application, you move beyond scrambling for evidence to demonstrating control, transparency, and maturity. That’s the difference between surviving audits and using them as a proof point of strength.

[Contact Pathways today](https://pathwayscg.com/contact-new/) and get ahead of your next audit.

The post [Get Ahead of your Next Audit with Certify](https://pathwayscg.com/get-ahead-of-your-next-audit-with-certify/) first appeared on [Pathways Consulting Group](https://pathwayscg.com).