Why I Built a PCI DSS Compliance Dashboard After 10 Years in the Trenches
It's 2 AM, three days before your QSA audit. You're searching through Slack messages from 8 months ago trying to find evidence that you documented a firewall rule change. You know you did it. You have the change ticket. But where's the actual configuration backup? Was it in Google Drive? The shared folder? Someone's email attachment?
This is PCI DSS compliance for most companies. Not because teams are incompetent - because the standard demands tracking hundreds of interconnected requirements across technical systems, policies, and evidence... and nobody gives you a system to do it.
After 10+ years managing compliance for different companies and building PCI infrastructure for my own business, I finally got tired of watching smart teams drown in organizational overhead. So I built the tool I wish I'd had all along.
The Real Problem Nobody Talks About
Most companies fall into one of two camps:
Camp 1: The Spreadsheet Warriors
Requirements tracked in Excel (with subtle version conflicts)
Evidence scattered across drives, emails, wikis, chat histories
System inventory in another spreadsheet (out of date by 3 months)
Policy documents in shared folders with filenames like "Security_Policy_v3_FINAL_v2.docx"
Pre-audit panic becomes a quarterly tradition
That one person who "knows where everything is" just went on vacation
Camp 2: The Enterprise GRC Victims
Bought a $60k/year tool designed for SOX compliance at Fortune 500 companies
Customization requires consultants at $250/hour
Half the team refuses to use it because it takes 15 clicks to upload evidence
Still maintaining shadow spreadsheets anyway because the tool doesn't match your workflow
Tool tracks compliance status, but has no idea what systems you actually run
License costs more than your security budget
Both camps share the same outcome: compliance feels like archaeology, not management. You spend more time hunting for evidence than actually securing systems.
Why This Keeps Happening
PCI DSS isn't just documentation - it's the intersection of:
12 requirements with 300+ sub-requirements
Your actual technical infrastructure (servers, firewalls, databases, applications)
Policies and procedures that reference that infrastructure
Evidence collection and retention tied to specific requirements
Access control tracking for systems and data
Vulnerability management and change control processes
Multiple certification timelines if you manage different entities
Existing tools either:
Focus purely on documentation - Consultants give you Word templates and Excel trackers, then leave you to figure out the operational reality
Try to be everything to everyone - Enterprise GRC platforms that handle SOX, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and PCI... which means they're mediocre at all of them
Ignore your technical infrastructure entirely - They track compliance status but have no concept of your actual CDE, system components, or network architecture
After building PCI infrastructure for my own business and managing compliance for companies from 50 to 5,000 employees, I got tired of this false choice. You shouldn't need enterprise complexity for a focused compliance problem.
What I Built Instead
A compliance dashboard that actually understands PCI DSS requirements AND your technical environment.
Core philosophy: Compliance isn't a document problem. It's a tracking problem.
Yes, of course it is powered by AI, however, not in a shape of a general chat popup, but in a more subtle way, it works for you when it is helpful, and it stays out of your way.
Requirement Tracking That Makes Sense
All 12 PCI DSS v4.0 requirements and 300+ sub-requirements come pre-loaded. No setting up your own requirement structure. No wondering if you've covered everything.
Track status for each requirement:
Compliant
Non-compliant
Partially compliant
Not applicable
Link evidence directly to specific requirements. Mark assessment dates, assign reviewers, document remediation plans. The dashboard shows compliance gaps at a glance - no hunting through spreadsheets to figure out what needs attention.
When a requirement changes status, you see it immediately. When a remediation deadline is approaching, it's visible. When auditors ask about a specific requirement, you pull up everything in seconds.
System Component Inventory
This is where most compliance tools completely miss the point. PCI DSS is about protecting cardholder data, which means you need to know exactly what systems touch that data.
Catalog every component:
Servers, databases, firewalls, applications, network devices
What's in the Cardholder Data Environment (CDE)
What's in scope for PCI but not in the CDE
What's explicitly out of scope
Track technical details that matter:
IP addresses and network segments
Operating systems and versions
Software inventory per component
Patch status and support lifecycles
Component functions and purposes
When auditors ask "what systems process cardholder data?" you don't scramble. You filter by CDE status and show them the list. When Requirement 2.2 asks about configuration standards, you know exactly which systems need them.
Evidence Repository
Stop searching for evidence. Store it once, link it to multiple requirements.
Upload any document type:
Penetration test reports
Vulnerability scan results
Configuration backups
Policy documents
Training records
Access review logs
Change management tickets
Track metadata that matters:
Which requirements this evidence supports
Collection date and review status
Who reviewed it and when
Approval/rejection with notes
Next review or collection date
When you need to demonstrate compliance for Requirement 11.3 (vulnerability scanning), you don't dig through folders. You pull up the requirement, see all linked evidence, and generate the report.
Policy Management
Version control for security policies without Git complexity.
Store all security and operational procedures
Link each policy to the requirements it addresses
Track review cycles automatically
Set review frequency (quarterly, annually, etc.)
Get notifications before reviews are due
Maintain version history
Your Information Security Policy addresses multiple requirements across PCI DSS. Link it once, and it appears in the evidence for every relevant requirement. Update it, and the new version is immediately associated.
Multiple Certifications
If you're managing compliance for a holding company with multiple subsidiaries, or running different certification instances for different PCI versions, you need separation.
Track multiple certifications independently:
Different entities with separate scopes
Different PCI DSS versions running simultaneously
Historical certification data preserved
No data mixing between certifications
Each certification gets its own requirement tracking, evidence repository, and system inventory. Clean separation without needing multiple tool instances.
The Audit Experience Changes
Pre-audit used to mean 2 weeks of frantic evidence gathering. Now it looks like this:
Day 1 of audit prep:
Generate compliance status report (5 minutes)
Review non-compliant requirements and check remediation status
Verify evidence is current for all compliant requirements
Export system inventory with CDE scope clearly marked
During the audit:
Auditor asks about Requirement 8.3 (authentication)
Pull up the requirement, show current status
Display all linked evidence (access control policies, MFA implementation docs, authentication logs)
Show which system components this applies to
Reference related policies automatically
Post-audit:
Document findings directly in the system
Create remediation plans linked to specific requirements
Set deadlines and assign owners
Track remediation progress until next audit
Identify changes within the infrastructure, update what’s necessary and notify.
You're demonstrating continuous compliance management, not last-minute scrambling.
Who This Is For
This isn't for enterprises with dedicated compliance teams and unlimited budgets. It's for:
Level 2-4 Merchants (20K-6M transactions/year)
You need PCI compliance but can't justify $100k+ enterprise GRC platforms
You're managing compliance with internal teams plus annual consultant assessments
You understand your infrastructure but need better organization
Spreadsheets worked when you were smaller, but don't scale
Service Providers Building Payment Systems
You're technical enough to build and maintain PCI infrastructure
You need to prove compliance to customers and card brands
Documentation overhead is eating time you'd rather spend on product development
You want to show customers you take compliance seriously
Security Teams in Growth Companies
You inherited compliance from "the founder who figured it out"
You're professionalizing security but don't need enterprise complexity
Your system inventory lives in someone's head or an outdated spreadsheet
You need visibility into compliance status without building custom tools
What This Isn't:
Not a consultant replacement - You still need QSAs for certification and consultants for expertise
Not a full GRC platform - This is focused on PCI DSS, not trying to handle SOX/HIPAA/ISO/everything
Not hiding complexity - Assumes you understand your environment and just need organization
If you're processing millions of transactions and have a 20-person compliance department, you probably need something bigger. If you're processing dozens of transactions and have no technical infrastructure, you probably need a consultant first.
How This Works With Consultants
I'm not trying to replace your QSA or consultant. They bring expertise and certification authority you need.
I'm replacing the operational chaos between audits.
Think of it this way:
Consultants: Tell you what to do for compliance (gap assessments, remediation guidance, policy templates)
QSAs: Validate that you did it (annual certification, official reports)
This tool: Helps you manage doing it for the other 364 days (tracking, evidence, organization)
Most consultants will actually appreciate this. Their job becomes easier when you're organized. Less time explaining basic requirement tracking, more time solving actual compliance problems. Less time hunting for evidence during assessments, more time on strategic security improvements.
The dirty secret of PCI compliance? It's 80% organizational overhead, 20% actual security decisions. This tool handles the 80% so you and your consultants can focus on the 20% that actually matters - making your systems more secure.
Why I Built This
I've managed PCI compliance at different scales:
Small companies where I was the entire security team
Mid-size companies with dedicated security staff but limited budgets
Larger organizations with complex multi-entity structures
I've also built actual PCI infrastructure from scratch, not just managed documentation. I know what it's like to architect network segmentation, implement access controls, and then turn around and document it all for auditors.
Every time, I hit the same problems:
Tracking requirements in spreadsheets that immediately become outdated
Evidence scattered across systems with no connection to requirements
System inventories that don't match reality
Pre-audit panic because nobody knows if we have all the evidence
Consultants asking the same questions every year because nothing is organized
I kept thinking: "There has to be a better way to track this."
Enterprise tools were overkill and expensive. Spreadsheets were inadequate. Consultants provided documents but no system. So I built the tool I wish I'd had for the past decade.
What's Next
I'm launching in the next 3 months. Currently working with early access partners to refine workflows and ensure this solves real problems, not theoretical ones.
If you're currently managing PCI compliance with spreadsheets and shared drives, I'd love your feedback:
What takes the most time in your compliance process?
Where does evidence get lost?
What makes audits painful?
What do you wish you could track but can't with current tools?
This comes from 10+ years of my own pain points, but I want to make sure it solves yours too.