Gap assessments, policies, written information security plans, evidence collection, and insurer questionnaires — readiness support that describes how your firm actually operates.
Compliance readiness means getting your technology, policies, and documentation into the state a framework requires — HIPAA for health-adjacent data, SOC 2 for service organizations, CMMC for defense-industry work, and the FTC Safeguards Rule for tax and financial practices. nicwerks® runs the gap assessment, implements the controls, writes the policies with your team, and collects the evidence.
To be precise about what we are not: we are a readiness and implementation partner, not a certification body or law firm. Auditors certify; attorneys give legal opinions. We make sure that when they arrive, everything they ask for exists, is current, and is true.
A plain-English review of how client data actually moves through your firm, mapped against the framework you need — with a prioritized fix list.
FTC Safeguards WISPs drafted side-by-side with your operations team — plans that describe reality, not a template nobody has read.
Privacy, security, acceptable-use, and disaster recovery policies — written, reviewed in working sessions, and kept where your team works.
Encryption, MFA, least-privilege access, EDR, logging — the technical controls frameworks require, actually deployed and maintained.
Cyber-insurance applications answered accurately with evidence attached — before renewal deadlines make it urgent.
Evidence collection, documentation review, and working alongside your auditors and counsel so examinations hold no surprises.
Tax professionals are required to maintain a written information security plan — and most WISPs are templates nobody has read. nicwerks took Encurio through the real thing: a compliance review of how client data actually moves through the practice, a WISP drafted side-by-side with operations, alignment with the firm's insurance requirements, and the pieces most firms skip — a disaster recovery plan and privacy and security policies — refined over working review sessions.
A tax or financial practice that needs a real WISP; a firm whose clients or insurers are asking security questions; a practice preparing for SOC 2 or CMMC; or anyone whose current “compliance” is a binder nobody has opened since it was printed.
You need the certification audit itself (we prepare you for auditors, we don't replace them), formal legal opinions (that's your counsel), or a checkbox PDF by Friday with no intention of implementing anything — we don't write fiction.
Readiness is doing the work — controls, policies, evidence. Certification is an independent auditor attesting to it. We do the first and prepare you for the second; a readiness partner who also graded the exam wouldn't be worth much.
If you prepare taxes or handle consumer financial data, yes — the FTC Safeguards Rule requires a written information security plan, a designated security coordinator, and specific controls. IRS guidance points preparers to the same requirement.
A WISP engagement typically runs several working sessions over one to two months — assessment, drafting, review, rollout. SOC 2 and CMMC readiness are longer arcs, depending on your starting point; the gap assessment gives you the honest timeline.
Carriers ask about specific controls — MFA, EDR, backups, training, plans. Readiness work produces exactly the documentation those questionnaires want, answered accurately with evidence behind every yes.
Book a free compliance gap review — we’ll tell you exactly where you stand, in plain English.
