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From stalled to SOC 2 Type II
in five months

After a year on a compliance platform with little to show for it, Lynkwell needed a different path to SOC 2 Type II — one that combined real audit expertise with the operational muscle to actually produce evidence. LogicalNet brought in Ascend Audit Advisors, ran the technical workstream, and got Lynkwell certified in time to unlock enterprise and government deals.

SOC 2 Type II Audit Readiness Policy Development Co-Managed Security
Lynkwell, a NAYAX company
IndustryEV Charging Infrastructure & Software
HeadquartersSchenectady, NY
ParentNayax
Services DeliveredSOC 2 Type II readiness, evidence collection, policy support, audit partner sourcing
Audit PartnerAscend Audit Advisors
LogicalNet LeadTush Nikollaj
5 mo
From kickoff to SOC 2 Type II
1 yr
Previously stalled on platform-only approach
100%
First-attempt audit pass
RFP-Ready
Standardized policies replace ad-hoc responses
The Organization

Powering the electric vehicle economy

Lynkwell is an Upstate New York–born EV charging infrastructure and software company headquartered in Schenectady. The Lynkwell platform delivers turnkey EV charging for site hosts, fleets, utilities, and governments — covering hardware deployment, networked station management, payment processing, driver experience, and energy analytics. In 2024, Lynkwell joined Nayax, a global cashless payment and management platform, giving the company a worldwide reach across more than 80 countries while keeping its engineering and operations base in the Capital Region.

As Lynkwell scaled into enterprise, utility, and government accounts, its customer base began demanding the same independent security assurance that any modern cloud platform is expected to provide.

The Business Driver

SOC 2 became table stakes for enterprise and government deals

Three forces converged to make SOC 2 Type II a strategic priority:

1
Enterprise account requirementsLarge enterprise customers increasingly required SOC 2 Type II reports as a condition of doing business. Without one, Lynkwell was either being filtered out of opportunities or forced into lengthy custom-questionnaire cycles for every deal.
2
Government contract eligibilityMultiple government contracts — municipal, state, and utility — explicitly requested SOC 2 attestation as a pre-qualifying control. Eligibility, not just competitive advantage, was on the line.
3
Brand trust signalA clean Type II report sends a clear message to prospects, partners, and channel allies: this is a company that takes security and governance seriously. For a fast-growing technology company, that signal carries weight beyond the audit itself.
The Initial Challenge

A year of effort with little to show for it

Lynkwell’s internal engineering team had strong information security instincts, but no one had taken a company through a SOC 2 process before. Faced with a long list of controls and policy requirements, the team did what most growing companies do: they bought a compliance platform.

The platform they chose — one of the well-known names in the category — delivered policy templates, control tracking, and dashboards. What it didn’t deliver was guidance. Lynkwell’s team was left to interpret the framework themselves, decide which controls actually applied to their environment, and stitch together evidence on their own.

The Core Issue

After roughly a year on a platform-only approach, the program was stalled. The team couldn’t commit to a credible certification timeline and progress was hard to even measure — the dashboard showed activity, but not a path to a finished audit.

For a company with active enterprise opportunities and government RFPs waiting on the certification, status quo wasn’t viable. Lynkwell needed a fundamentally different approach.

The Turning Point

Trading software-first for consultant-first

The Lynkwell team and LogicalNet sat down to diagnose why the program had stalled. The conclusion was clear: SOC 2 doesn’t reward checklists, it rewards judgement. A platform can hold artifacts, but it can’t tell you which controls matter most for your environment, how to scope your audit pragmatically, or what an auditor will accept as evidence on a specific control.

LogicalNet introduced Lynkwell to Ascend Audit Advisors, a consultancy LogicalNet had partnered with on prior compliance engagements. The first call with Dan from Ascend reset expectations on what good guidance looked like — an experienced practitioner who could explain the process end-to-end, calibrate effort to risk, and tell Lynkwell exactly what to do next.

Two things sealed the decision to move forward: the depth of expertise Lynkwell heard in that first conversation, and the pricing — roughly comparable to what they were already paying for platform-only tooling, despite the team expecting a six-figure engagement.

“

We had spent a year writing policies into a platform and still couldn’t tell you when we’d finish. Our first hour with Ascend — brought in by LogicalNet — we finally had a real action plan. The difference wasn’t the framework, it was having people who’d actually done this before sitting next to us.

NB
Nick Bordeau
Chief Technology Officer
Lynkwell, a Nayax company
The Approach

Three teams, one workstream

With LogicalNet quarterbacking the engagement and Ascend Audit Advisors leading the compliance methodology, the program shifted from open-ended platform work to a tightly sequenced action plan:

1
Prioritization over completenessDes at Ascend walked Lynkwell through which policies and controls were most important to get right first — including foundational policies that any well-run organization should have in place independent of SOC 2. That triage replaced “work through every control in the platform” with a sequenced action plan.
2
Policies written with operational reality in mindLynkwell’s internal team owned policy drafting, but Ascend reviewed each one against framework expectations while LogicalNet’s Mike provided the operational lens — what actually happens day-to-day in the IT, identity, endpoint, and infrastructure systems Lynkwell relies on. Policies described real practice, not aspiration.
3
Evidence collection across the technology stackFor every control that touched IT operations — access reviews, MFA enforcement, endpoint patching, logging and monitoring, change management, backup verification — LogicalNet pulled evidence directly from the systems we operate on Lynkwell’s behalf. That offloaded the heaviest part of audit prep from Lynkwell’s engineering team.
4
Audit calibration in real timeWhen Lynkwell’s team was uncertain how to interpret a control or what would satisfy an auditor, LogicalNet and Ascend coordinated to make the call — before evidence was produced rather than after it was rejected. That avoided the rework cycles that derailed the first attempt.
“

Lynkwell already had the security instincts — what they were missing was a partner who could translate that into the artifacts an auditor needs. Pairing Ascend’s framework expertise with our operational telemetry let Nick’s team focus on the decisions only they could make, while we handled the evidence work. That’s the blueprint we run for every SOC 2 client now.

TN
Tush Nikollaj
Account Executive
LogicalNet
The Results

Certified, audit-ready, and unblocked on revenue

Lynkwell set an aggressive five-month deadline — from program kickoff with the new team to a completed Type II audit. They hit it.

SOC 2 Type II Certified Five months from kickoff to a clean Type II report — following twelve months of platform-only effort that hadn’t produced a credible timeline.
RFP-Ready Documentation Standardized, audited policies replaced ad-hoc questionnaire responses, accelerating enterprise and government bid cycles.
Engineering Clarity The audit forced a clean-up of muddy ownership and process gaps across IT, DevOps, and engineering — benefits the team feels every day, not just at audit time.
Customer & Partner Trust The Type II report is now a routine artifact in enterprise sales conversations, government procurement, and partner due diligence.
Lessons Learned

What Lynkwell would tell other companies

A
Start before you think you need itEven at hyper-growth stage, having policies and controls in place is a force multiplier. They onboard new employees faster, prevent organizational drift, and make every future audit cheaper.
B
If you’ve never done it, take the consultant approachA platform without expertise is months of wasted effort. The consultative path closes faster, costs roughly the same, and leaves your senior IT, security, and DevOps leaders with skills they keep forever.
C
This isn’t about the certificateA good engagement forces tangible operational tradeoffs — clearer access controls, cleaner change management, better incident playbooks — that quietly improve life for every employee. The report is the receipt, not the prize.
Endorsement

Why Lynkwell recommends the approach

Nick Bordeau, CTO, Lynkwell

“I highly recommend working with LogicalNet and Ascend Audit Advisors to make SOC 2 happen. Ascend walks you through the process step-by-step with someone who has a real understanding of what’s required. LogicalNet is the backbone of your audit — they provide the evidence from all the systems they manage on your behalf, which makes the whole process dramatically easier. Without that, you’re on your own trying to figure out a million things. Do yourself a favor and trust the process.”

SOC 2 Type II First-Attempt Pass 5-Month Delivery Enterprise Sales Enablement Government RFP Ready
Work With Us

Need SOC 2 done right
the first time?

Lynkwell’s story isn’t unique — growing technology companies routinely lose a year to platform-only approaches before realizing they need real audit expertise alongside operational muscle. Let’s skip the detour.

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