How do I use the Audit Log in QuickBooks Online?
The Audit Log is the permanent record of every change made in your QuickBooks Online company. Older Intuit material calls the same feature the Audit Trail, so the two names are interchangeable. Every addition, deletion, and modification is logged with the user who made it, the date it happened, and the values on either side of the change.
That record serves two purposes. Day to day it keeps your company’s history honest, and when a total stops making sense it is the fastest way to find out what happened.
A permanent record of every change
The log lists every accounting event in the company: transactions created, modified, deleted, voided, or viewed. The scope runs wider than transactions alone; sign-ins and changes to settings are recorded as well. Each entry carries four details.
- User: the person who performed the action.
- Date: when the event occurred.
- Event: the action taken, such as Created, Modified, or Deleted.
- Changes: what was altered in the transaction.
Nothing is removed later. Intuit maintains the log as a security feature and offers no way to clear, delete, or condense it, so the history stays complete for the life of the company. Deleting a transaction does not erase its trace; the deletion itself is recorded as an event. Because the record cannot be edited, it is also the reference to turn to when two people remember a transaction differently.
Is the Audit Trail a different report?
The name comes from QuickBooks Desktop, which has its own Audit Trail report among its accountant reports. QuickBooks Online calls the equivalent feature the Audit Log, and older Intuit help material still uses the Desktop name. If you have moved from Desktop to Online, the Audit Log is the counterpart: it records who changed what, and when.
Where do I open the Audit Log?
There are two ways in. The first goes through settings:
- Select the Settings gear icon in the upper right.
- Select Audit Log in the Tools column.
The report version is the second route. Open the Reports menu and search for Audit Log; on some accounts it is grouped with the Accountant reports. Both views show the same history, and a search from either menu will find it if the layout has moved.
Filtering the log to find one event
Because the log holds the entire history of your company, filters are what make it usable. Three of them narrow the list:
- User: choose one person from the Users list to see only their actions.
- Date: pick a preset range such as Last 7 days or This Month, or set a custom range.
- Event: limit the results to specific actions, such as Deleted or Modified.
Select any entry to open its History panel. The panel shows the fields that changed, with the previous value beside the new one. A transaction edited several times keeps a separate entry for each edit, so you can follow a value through the whole sequence.
Tracing a discrepancy with the log
When a balance sheet will not balance or one of your account totals looks wrong, the log usually explains it. Filter to the affected account and the period around the day the numbers stopped agreeing, then look for deleted, modified, or voided transactions. The date filter matters more than the user filter here; work backwards from the first bad total.
Duplicates respond to the same approach. If a deposit or a bill appears twice, open one of the copies and read its history. An entry marked System generated points to a bank feed rule or an import rather than a person, which tells you where the fix belongs.
Why is the reconciliation beginning balance wrong?
A wrong or zero beginning balance in the reconciliation window usually has one cause: a cleared transaction was changed, deleted, or voided after the last reconciliation. The log will show that edit.
Filter the log to the account you are reconciling and look back over the period since you last reconciled. When you find the cleared transaction that was altered, correct it or enter it again on the normal transaction screens. The log identifies the change; the fix happens in the register, not in the log. Once the transaction is restored, reconcile again and the beginning balance should return to the expected figure.