Audit trail

(computer science) A system that provides a means for tracing items of data from processing step to step, particularly from a machine-produced report or other machine output back to the original source data.

A record of transactions in an information system that provides verification of the activity of the system. The simplest audit trail is the transaction itself. If a person's salary is increased, the change transaction includes the date, amount of raise and name of authorizing manager.

A more elaborate audit trail can be created when the system is being verified for accuracy; for example, samples of processing results can be recorded at various stages. Item counts and hash totals are used to verify that all input has been processed through the system.

Routine Queries Are Typically Exempt

An audit trail can include any activity whatsoever, but transactions that do not effect a change are often not recorded. For example, ad hoc searches and database lookups may not be identified in an audit trail. However, if queries and searches are monitored and recorded, they can be invaluable for tracking a malicious hacker or employee. See information security.

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A step-by-step record by which accounting data can be traced to their source. The SEC and NYSE will use this method for the explicit reconstruction of trades when there are questions as to the validity or accuracy of an accounting figure.

Investopedia Says:
This is the technique used to track improper market activity. By documenting and analyzing all houses and brokers involved in specific trades, those who follow the audit trail can (hopefully) identify the culprit.

Related Links:
Learn this easy-to-understand technique of analyzing a company's financial statements and reports. Introduction To Fundamental Analysis
To spot the signs of earnings manipulation, you need to know the different ways companies can inflate their figures. Cooking The Books 101
This article defines some typical off-balance-sheet items and discusses when they are justified and when they are misleading. Off-Balance-Sheet Entities: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
The better you understand why insider trading can be criminal, the better you'll understand how the market works. Defining Illegal Insider Trading
From godfathers to perps, familiarize yourself with the "criminal elements" creeping around Wall Street. Handcuffs And Smoking Guns: The Criminal Elements Of Wall Street

In general: verifiable evidence of a series of transactions that affect a file record.

Magazines: requirement of the audit bureau of circulations showing, for each paid subscription record, all transactions made against that file record and the backup documents supporting each transaction.

Recorded flow of a transaction from initiation (e.g., source document) to finalization (e.g., financial statement), or vice versa. The auditor, assuring that data are processed correctly, appraises the material that forms the audit trail. An audit trail may be either visible or invisible (e.g., magnetic storage). Components of an audit trail include: (1) source records, (2) list of transactions processed, and (3) transaction identifiers so that reference can be made to the source of a transaction. An audit trail allows the tracing of transactions to control totals and from the control totals to supporting transactions. An audit trail is good when the tracing process is easy to accomplish.

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Audit trail or audit log is a chronological sequence of audit records, each of which contains evidence directly pertaining to and resulting from the execution of a business process or system function.

Audit records typically result from activities such as transactions or communications by individual people, systems, accounts or other entities.

Webopedia defines an audit trail as "a record showing who has accessed a computer system and what operations he or she has performed during a given period of time." ([1])

In telecommunication, the term means a record of both completed and attempted accesses and service, or data forming a logical path linking a sequence of events, used to trace the transactions that have affected the contents of a record.

In information or communications security, information audit means a chronological record of system activities to enable the reconstruction and examination of the sequence of events and/or changes in an event.

In nursing research, it refers to the act of maintaining a running log or journal of decisions relating to a research project, thus making clear the steps taken and changes made to the original protocol.

In accounting, it refers to documentation of detailed transactions supporting summary ledger entries. This documentation may be on paper or electronic records.

The process that creates audit trail should always run in a privileged mode, so it could access and supervise all actions from all users, and normal user could not stop/change it. Furthermore, for the same reason, trail file or database table with a trail should not be accessible to normal users.

In what relates to audit trail, it is also very much important to take into consideration the liability issues of your audit trails, as many times in case of dispute, these audit trails can work as an evidence for some incident.

For Microsoft Dynamics GP users, Audit Trails provides track, trace and reporting capabilities for any changes associated with any data in Microsoft Dynamics GP, and for any data in third-party software or customized software resident within Dynamics GP.

The software can operate with the closed-looped controls, or as a 'closed system,' as required by many companies when using an Audit Trail system.

See also

• Channel use
• Common Log Format
• Data logging
• Log management and intelligence
• Paper trail
• Security log
• Sudosh
• Syslog
• Web counter
• Web log analysis software

Sources

• Federal Standard 1037C
• National Information Systems Security Glossary
• [2]

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