This guide helps you decide whether user access review software is worth comparing. The other option is to do the review by hand, if that is still enough for your firm. It is not a vendor list, and it ranks no product. An access review asks the people who know the work whether each person’s access is still needed. Here, a manual review means people working from files and mail. The route has three parts: a short test on your own last review, a set of questions for each route and a rule of Signisys’ own. We state our interest in the outcome near the end.
Last reviewed 2026-11-01 by Manish Sharma.
User Access Review Software vs Manual Reviews: What Each Means Here
In this guide, we describe user access review software and a manual review in Signisys’ working words, not in a standard. Neither description is a claim about any product. The questions in the rest of the guide are our own method. The review itself rests on access control, which is the rule for who may use what.
“Manual” says who does the work and says nothing about quality. A careful review and a careless one can each run by hand or in a product. The test below therefore looks at your own review.
Test Your Last Review Before Choosing User Access Review Software
Is user access review software worth comparing before you have tested your last review?
Pull out the files from your last review and answer four questions about it. Use only what the files show. Count a reading as passed only when you can show it. These four readings are Signisys’ own method, not a standard.
Open one list that a reviewer received. Could that person tell, without asking IT, what each line gives access to?
Sort the lines into keep or remove with a reason, and also the lines returned blank or approved in one go. Write down both totals.
Choose one access that a reviewer marked for removal. Find the change record, the person who made the change and its date.
Write down who gathered the lists, who chased reviewers and the number of separate applications each reviewer opened.
Readings 2 and 3 are decisions that people make, while readings 1 and 4 concern the work of gathering and chasing. The rule further down uses that split.
Key Takeaway Test your own last review first; the comparison below helps once you know which reading failed.
User Access Review Software or Manual Reviews: Questions for Each Route
The same four readings become written questions. Answer the middle column from your own files.
Which of these questions would you put to a supplier of user access review software?
Put the right-hand column to any supplier in writing.
| Reading | Your own records | A supplier |
|---|---|---|
| List | Does the export you sent show who holds each access, and whether it shows what that access allows? | Which of your applications and directories can it read access from, and what does a reviewer see on each line? |
| Answers | Where do you store keep and remove answers, and who can change one after a reviewer gives it? | If a reviewer leaves a line blank, what happens next, and who is told? |
| Removals | Can you match each removal to a change by a named person on a date, and do you keep that record with the review? | How does it make and confirm a removal, which of your applications does that cover, and what can you export afterwards? |
| Effort | Who spent time gathering lists and chasing answers, and was that time set aside for the work, or did it come out of other tasks? | What must your team set up and maintain before the first review, and who on your side owns it? |
Send the right-hand column to each supplier as written questions, and compare the answers with your own files. If you have not checked an answer against your applications, keep it as a question, not a fact.
What NCSC and CISA/NSA Say, and What They Leave Open
We read two government sources for this guide. The UK National Cyber Security Centre’s 10 Steps to Cyber Security page on identity and access management was published and reviewed on 11 May 2021 for cyber security professionals. It asks you to review user accounts and systems for unnecessary privileges on a regular basis. It also asks you to revoke privileged access when it is no longer required. The US CISA and NSA guide Recommended Best Practices for Administrators, is advisory and states no date. It lists access review among the processes of identity governance. It also says that identity governance systems maintain an inventory of active accounts and privileges. According to the guide, this inventory lets application and data owners review and reconcile accounts and privileges periodically.
Neither source gives a fixed interval for a review. Neither of the two pages we read says an access review must be run with user access review software. Nor does either say that a review done by people is unacceptable. CISA and NSA do describe access review inside identity governance, which they present in terms of systems. A supplier’s claim to cover it is a question to ask, not a given. We read no source on audits or regulations, so this guide makes no claim about them. The interval is a decision for your firm, with a reason written down. A companion article, a scored checklist for testing your last review, covers the scoring this guide leaves out.
When a Manual Review Is Still Enough
In our view, a manual review is a fair choice when readings 1 and 4 passed and the next review is no larger. A person must also have settled any failed decision reading. That is Signisys’ judgement, not a standard. Which choices stay with a person, even with user access review software?
The lines below weigh each route as a decision for a person.
Advantages
Limitations
The answer changes when the next review adds applications or reviewers beyond the time your team has set aside. It also changes when a work reading failed. If your review sheet also tracks compliance controls, see tracking compliance controls in a sheet or a tool.
Stay by Hand or Start a Shortlist: Our Rule
This rule for user access review software is Signisys’ own working method and not a standard. The readings are our judgement, not measured thresholds.
- Decisions first. If reading 2 or reading 3 failed, settle it with a decision by a person before you compare routes. A blank answer or an unconfirmed removal is a decision for a person, in a sheet or in a tool.
- Stay by hand. Keep the manual review if readings 1 and 4 passed and the next review adds no applications or reviewers beyond the time you set aside. Write down the date to run this test again, with the reason the firm chose it.
- Start a shortlist. If reading 4 failed, put the right-hand column of the table to suppliers in writing. Do the same if the next review is larger than the time you set aside. If only reading 1 failed, first ask whether a clearer export fixes it. If it does not, treat it as a work reading. Fix a decision reading that also failed alongside the shortlist.
Here is an illustrative example, not a client. A firm finds that its last review returned a reason for every line, and that one removal traces to a dated change. The person who gathered the lists used the days set aside on one application’s export alone. Reading 4 failed, which under the rule points to a shortlist.
Key Takeaway A failed decision reading needs a person’s decision first, and a failed work reading is what points to a shortlist.
What This Guide Does Not Cover, and When to Call for Help
This guide names and ranks no user access review software, gives no review interval, scores no checklist and makes no claim about an audit or a regulation. Separate articles cover the method for running a review, why access builds up and what it risks and, for scoring, the companion checklist above. If you are choosing identity software across the firm, see choosing identity software for the whole firm. For a broader scored list, see a scored checklist for staff access. Learn more about identity and access management.
Signisys, which wrote this guide, is a services firm with technology partnerships, and the guide names no product. Weigh the rule with that in mind.
Ask for outside help in three cases. One is when removing an access could stop work and nobody can say whether it is still needed. Another is when nobody in the firm can judge the reviewers’ answers. A third case is when two applications give different lists for the same person.
Signisys offers an Access Certification Review that looks at how your access reviews run and what reviewers see. It also looks at what happens after they decide. Our Solution: Identity and Access Management (IAM). Our Service: Cybersecurity Services.
User Access Review Software FAQ
Do I need user access review software?
Can a manual review be enough?
Which user access review software is best?
What counts as a manual review?
Does an audit require software for access reviews?
Security Insights, Delivered.
Practical, vendor-neutral analysis of threats, tools, and architecture decisions.