QuickBooks is an accounting software that is utilized by small or large-scale businesses for a long period. QuickBooks provides different sorts of bookkeeping services like administration of bills and stock, creating reports, paying bills, and charging clients. In this post, we will talk about the Audit trail in QuickBooks, its importance, significance, benefits, and customization.
Audit Trail is one of the necessary features in this QB accounting software. It helps in tracking user activity because it has written and detailed records of activities or transactions done during any event, with the date and time of the financial year. These features can be used to verify and track the accurate data of every financial transaction and other events.
What is Audit Trail in QuickBooks?
The feature of an audit trail in QuickBooks can be used to track and review the number of transactions. With this function, you can do various activities in QuickBooks accounts such as addition, deletion, or modification.
An audit trail feature maintains transparency and finds financial record mistakes, errors, or discrepancies. It is an important accounting tool for ensuring the integrity and transparency of an organization.
Why Audit Trail in QuickBooks is Important and how to use it?
The QuickBooks audit log is an important tool for several reasons. This may help in the following ways:
- An audit trail helps in detecting unauthorized transactions like wrong, double entries, etc.
- An audit log in QuickBooks makes the audit process easy and simple.
- The QB online audit log ensures financial accuracy.
Note: The various steps to access the Audit Trail in QuickBooks are as follows:
- Go to the Reports menu.
- Select Accountant & Taxes.
- In the menu, click on Audit Log.
The audit trail report will show all changes done in a company file, such as deleted, modified, added transactions, lists, sign-in/sign-out, templates, etc.
How to Run QuickBooks Audit Trail Report?
This function allows access and can do modifications to the QuickBooks data file with more than one user. Steps are given below to run the QuickBooks audit trail report:
- Firstly, click on the preferences option after selecting Edit Menu.
- Now, you can see dialogue box preferences on the screen.
- From the Accounting Preference section, you can change all essential information.
- After making changes, move to the icon bar then select the accounting set of preferences.
- Now, choose QuickBooks to use the Audit feature by clicking on the Company Preference tab.
- Click on the Yes tab after verifying the audit trail.
Note: QuickBooks keeps all the records of changes that you doing in the QuickBooks data file.
How to Customize QuickBooks Audit Trail Reports?
Go to the left side at the top of the screen and select the report to customize Audit Trail in QuickBooks. After that open the modify report window where you will see 4 Tabs Header/Footer, Display, Filters, and Font & Numbers.
Header/Footer: With this option, you can edit header and footer reports. This process is very easy to use and understandable, so we can move to the next features. If you face any problem in the Header/Footer part then you can contact our QuickBooks Desktop Support number for better assistance.
Display: The next part is displayed, with this function, you can get the option to modify audit trail reports like Data range. This process has some difficulty for new users. After modification, you see column options, where you can select the columns that you want to add to the reports.
Filters: After the display function, go to the filter option where we can modify the the look of the report. To change the look of the report follow the steps given below:
- Select preferences through the edit option.
- After that choose reports and graphs.
- Choosing a format is mandatory.
- In last, select default Report Settings.
Font & Numbers: This option also helps you to modify the look of the reports. If users don’t want to design the report then he or she will select the default report settings option from Edit>Preferences>Reports & Graphs>Company Preferences> Layout.
Benefits of Audit Trail or Audit Log in QuickBooks
An audit log report is useful for accountants, business owners, and bookkeepers. The benefits of an audit trail are listed below:
- Easy to find previous account names that may be merged with new accounts.
- This may also help in finding deleted transactions that may cause discrepancies at the time of bank reconciliations and opening balances.
- An audit trail can be used to track other user’s login time and trace their activities like punch-in, punch-out, or duration of time taken to complete their task.
- It is easy to find worker requirements by noticing the number of entries that are modified like addition or deletion of transactions.
- In this feature, it is easy to identify transactions that may be entered wrongly or lost due to accidental deletion.
- This tool can give information about who is accessing the books and their activities.
Does Audit Trail Record any Information?
Yes, audit trail records various information that may bring changes to an organization’s financial data. These are listed below:
- Date and time of the change.
- The user who modified.
- Type of change (e.g., addition, deletion, modified).
- Description of the change.
- Detail of transactions (e.g., bill number, payment amount, etc).
Conclusion
An audit trail is necessary to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. This provides accountability and transparency. It also manages risk to facilitate audits and investigations to ensure data integrity. After reading this blog we hope that you take out the information of Audit Trail in QuickBooks. The audit trail is a priceless accounting feature for business owners that can be used to find problems within a business’s financial records.
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