Use of Audit Trail in Zoho Books

Use of Audit Trail in Zoho Books

It was on March 24th, 2021 when the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, India released a notification that instructed companies to use accounting software that could show an audit trail of all transactions carried out. Essentially, this rule was applied so that the companies could maintain their books properly.

With the release of this notification, the accounting software that companies used was supposed to have the following things:

  1. An ability to record the audit trail of each transaction that was taking place.
  2. A feature to create and edit a log of all changes that happened in the books along with the date and use details.
  3. An ability to ensure that the audit trail feature was always enabled.
Going by this rule, Zoho Books released a fantastic new feature called the audit trail for all the users of India. This is a feature that is included in the Activity Reports module of the amazing Zoho Books software.

Details of New Software Requirements:

With this new rule of Companies (Accounts) Amendment Rules released by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, companies are prevented from correcting transactions and fixing errors. This is to prevent them from hiding any changes. The new requirement of showing an audit trail is a result of insights from previous investigations.

In the past, many companies fudged their books by consistently changing the transaction details. The main idea behind releasing the new feature of audit trails was to prevent this problem. The Companies (Accounts) Amendment Rules mandate that the companies record audit trails of all transactions. It also specifies that the accounting software creates an edit log of all changes that are made in the books. This rule was to prevent any accounting software from making changes in entries.

Even if the businesses have been using software with a weak audit trail facility, it was possible to make the transition. The effort involved comes down to how much data and complexity the current system can possibly handle. The process of shifting to an audit trail system can be done in different phases. Zoho Books is a business accounting software that comes with a built-in audit trail functionality that allows an auditor to confidently attest to the veracity of records.

All About Audit Trail Feature:

The audit trail feature of Zoho Books enables an organization to effectively monitor all activities that happen in the transactions. This way, it is possible to prevent any kind of transaction and fraud. You can maintain a log of all changes that are made to contact, purchase transactions, sales, settings, and even a journal.

So basically, Zoho Books comes with an Audit Trail that is a feature to find out how, when and who has modified a specific transaction. Anybody can access this feature in the activity logs. For doing this, the following steps can be taken:
  1. First, go to the modules called “Reports” from the left sidebar
  2. Click on the “Activity Logs” placed under the Activity section
  3. Now, click on the > Arrow mark placed on the right side of the activity that you wish to check.
In addition, you can also check what has changed by comparing two versions of a specific transaction. You can do this by taking the below-mentioned steps.
  1. Click “Compare” in the top right corner.
  2. Choose any two versions of the transactions that you would like to compare.
  3. Finally, click on “Compare”.
All the fields that were added, modified, or even deleted are going to be highlighted in the colors green, yellow and red.

The Efficiency of Audit Trail Feature:

Zoho Books maintains a log of all possible changes that are made to any record in the application. Some common changes can be sales or purchase of transactions, invoices or bills, journals, contact, or even a setting. Other than the kind of change that is being talked about, Zoho Books is also capable of saving the timestamp and details of all users who have taken an action.

To sum this up, the feature of Audit Trail in Zoho Books offers details on “when”, “where”, “who”, and “what.”

  1. You can know the date and time on which an action was taken.
  2. You can also know the module under which an action was performed. This can include invoices, bank feeds, bills, or expenses. Actions performed under any module can be seen.
  3. You can also get a description of the action performed like creating an invoice, updating the contents of a bill, editing items on an invoice.
  4. Finally, you can also know the user who performed the action. In case a record is changed many times, the audit trail shows each version that has been created, not just the recent one. The user can also compare many versions and track data that has been added, removed, and modified.
Conclusion:
​
It was only with a positive and progressive intention that the Indian government made this rule of enforcing an audit trail for the transactions that get recorded in the accounting software. Therefore, Zoho Books made sure that the necessary steps were taken to further ensure the implementation of an “Audit Trail” feature that could curb transactional frauds.

Zoho Books is a software that enables organizations to stay compliant with the rules introduced by the government so that any unrecorded transactions can be prevented. It must be noted that although using Audit Trail is important, it is entirely on the companies to choose the right software that can offer this capability.
Hence, if you run a company that uses accounting software, make sure that you use software that is empowered with a feature of audit trail such as Zoho Books.


I hope that you learned something new
Follow me for more such posts!

Cheers!
Abhi
(Seasoned Zoho Authorized and Certified Partner)

Feel free to contact me if you have any queries
Email: abhishek(@)encaptechno(dot)com
Call: +1-416-405-8185

    Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


      • Recent Topics

      • Sending merged mail templates for signatures fail since today

        We have ZOHO one, we use merge templates in CRM to edit in ZOHO Writer, and from there send it for signature through zoho sign. This all worked up until today, suddenly we read in the log that the merge is succesfull but the sending for signature failed.

      • Feature Request - Make Lead List Larger and Adjustable

        Hi LandingPage team, I recently started using LandingPage and I am happy to share my feedback to help improve the app. I've noticed on the Leads page, there is no option to make the columns wider. It would be great if the comlumns expanded to fit the

      • Zoho Projects - Pin Recent Projects

        Hi Projects Team, It would be great if I could "pin" projects on the Recent Projects list in Zoho Projects. We have some internal projects which we regularly have to add time and some regular client projects. It would be great if I could pin those projects

      • ZDK Error

        I get this error when trying to trigger a CRM Function from Client Script: Uncaught (in promise) ZDKError: {"code":"NOT_ACTIVE","details":{"api_name":"activate_client_from_prospect"},"message":"api is inactive for the given custom function","status":"error"}

      • "Disbursing product components in phases, monitoring them, and displaying only the final product."

        i have a product composed of multiple components, and these components will be delivered to the customer in batches. However, the final invoice should only show the finished product. How can I issue (or release) the components and track their delive

      • Followed Subtasks doesn't show up in the Subtasks Section

        I have a task assigned to me now in the same task, there's a subtask and I am added as the follower on that task Even though I am a follower I still don't see that in the subtasks section The view permission for the profile is Related It's supposed to

      • Tip #39- Strengthen account security with Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) – ‘Insider Insights’

        Securing your organization's data begins with verifying that only the correct individuals have access to it. One of the simplest yet most effective ways to accomplish this is to enable Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) within Zoho Assist. MFA introduces

      • Automate timeout chat tracking with Workflows in SalesIQ

        With our feature-packed Nova release, Workflows has become one of the most powerful tools in Zoho SalesIQ. They let you automate follow-up actions when key events occur, such as when a chat ends, a visitor leaves a bad/good rating, or a lead is updated.

      • Mass edit / Mass update products

        Hi, Is there any way to mass update or bulk edit product fields in Zoho Inventory?

      • Automatic Verification of IMAP Integration Status

        Our sales staff have their O365 email integrated with CRM, over time this integration requires re-authentication via the UI. I can manually check the integration status by accessing Settings -> Channels -> Email -> Email Sharing -> "Configuration Type"

      • Tip of the Week #68– Share and access files faster with Zoho WorkDrive extension.

        Have you ever wasted time searching for the right file to attach to your emails—or worried whether the right people could access it? Without proper sharing settings, files might end up inaccessible to teammates or, worse, visible to people who shouldn’t

      • CV-Library: The Newest Source Booster in Zoho Recruit!

        We’ve expanded your sourcing toolkit — CV-Library, one of the UK’s largest and most trusted online job boards, is now available as a Source Booster in Zoho Recruit. This gives recruiters instant access to millions of UK-based candidate profiles, all without

      • Zoho AI Translate Task as Rest API

        I cant find any docs on how to use Zoho AI Translate Task from a rest api call https://www.zoho.com/deluge/help/ai-tasks/translate.html I am working on a custom Widget and I dont think I can execute zoho deluge ai translate task from a custom widget.

      • Is there the possibility to book less than 250 customer portal users?

        If you use the Creator, which is included in Zoho ONe, you can create a customer portal and give access to a maximum of 3 external people / customers, right? On the Creator website I saw that you can add 250 users for 100€/month. However, we don't need

      • Display Parts custom fields in the Work Order

        Hello, I see that is it possible to add custom fields in the Parts module. Would it be possible to also add those custom fields in the Work Order Module under Parts? This would be very useful for customer who want to showcase more information about parts.

      • Unable to edit Saved Estimates

        We are facing issue with editing the price or discount for a saved estimate for nearly 1 week.

      • Translation Blueprint & Picklists with Custom Values

        Hello everyone, I downloaded the translation file and I'm not finding the blueprint transitions. Does this means that the transitions cannot be translated? Also, the picklist values to be translated in the document are not the same that are actually used the in module. For exemple, for my lead module, the picklist values for Lead Status are : Not-contacted, contacted, junk and lost lead. In the translation document (English to French), this is what I see: PicklistValues.Leads.Lead_Status.Contact

      • How to create a custom sales signal?

        I want to create a custom sales signal for a custom module. is it possible to create one? If anyone know please let me know

      • Multi-line address lines

        How can I enter and migrate the following 123 state street Suite 2 Into a contact address. For Salesforce imports, a CR between the information works. The ZOHO migration tool just ignores it. Plus, I can't seem to even enter it on the standard entry screen.

      • Only show products in offers based on lead source

        We work with several lead sources, each with their own products and different pricing. For example, one product might have two or three different prices. Sometimes, when creating a quote, the wrong product is accidentally selected. Is there a way to only

      • Narrative 7 - The importance of data sharing

        Behind the scenes of a successful ticketing system - BTS Series Narrative 7 - The importance of data sharing Definition Data sharing requires a commitment to preserving the integrity and dependability of shared data throughout its entire lifecycle. This

      • TrueSync regularly filling up my local disk

        Seems that WorkDrive's TrueSync randomly starts filling up my local hard drive space. None of the folders have been set as "Make Offline" but still it seems to randomly start making file offline. The settings of the app is so minimal and is of no real

      • How can you re-push non failed submission through the integrations again?

        Hi, I can see there is an option the 'Re-push' failed integration submissions from Zoho Forms. Is there a way to do this for all submissions? We've just re-built an integration so things go into different fields and we would like to re-push everything

      • Check out in Meetings

        Why there is no check out in Meetings of Zoho CRM, very difficult to track

      • Issue with Zoho Projet

        Zoho Project on all the cellphones of my customer is crashing. He has mixed brands (Samsung and Pixel). Everything is fine on website and mobile website. Could not reproduce the issue in workshop using Samsung/Pixel/iPhone Uninstallation of Zoho Project

      • SecurePass email English language issue -- please hire someone to correct the English language issues sprinkled throughout your interface

        I wrote previously about some incorrect English in your SecurePass offering. After about six months it was corrected. I have never revoked permission before today and just discovered another language mistake that was not corrected. When you revoke a SecurePass

      • Published Components

        @zoho team, Checking if we can add a password for the public links as we have non-licensed users

      • Zoho Creator customer portal users

        Hi, I'm in a Zoho One subscription with our company. I'm running a project now that involves creating a Zoho Creater application and using the Zoho Creator Customer Portal.  At most we need 25 customer portal users. In our Zoho One plan we only get 3

      • Please Enable Snippets for Agents Adding Comments

        Snippets and templates are currently enabled for agents when they use the reply functionality. There is currently no way to add a template or snippets when an agent comments. This is really weird. Our agents don't use the reply functionality, only the

      • Tip of the Week - Extracting Data from JSON Columns

        Let's say you are importing a CSV or Excel file into Zoho Analytics. What if the file contains a few columns in JSON format? This is where Zoho DataPrep, embedded right within Zoho Analytics, comes in handy. This week's tip explains how to extract data

      • Deluge UI Updates

        Are there any updates planned for the Deluge UI in Zoho Desk? It feels quite dated and lack-lustre after you've spent some time in the CRM Deluge UI.

      • Zia Agents - Follow Ups

        It would be nice to have Zia Agents do follow ups. A lot of times agents are trying to schedule things with users and they say "can we set your printer up tomorrow?" and the user never says anything. A way to have a personalized reminder to the user automatically

      • Hide Agents name in Ticket Responses in "My Area"

        We were able to hide the agents name in the emails, however, the customer is able to see which agent has responded to a ticket in the thread of emails by going into their Help Center thread. Is there any way we can hide that information?

      • Option to Automatically Update Extensions

        Hello Zoho Desk Team, We recently received an email notifying us about an extension update that must be done manually. We’d like to request a feature that allows extensions to be updated automatically without requiring manual intervention. This would

      • Copy / Duplicate Workflow

        I have workflows setup that are very similar to each other. We have a monitoring system watching servers, and all notifications - no matter what client it is about - will come from a  noreply@ address which is not very helpful in having it auto assigned to the right account. I have setup a workflow that will change the contact name of the ticket (currently it would say noreply@) to the correct customer which is based on the subject line, as that mentions which server the alert it is about. I need

      • Embed Report with Auto Height

        Hello Developers, When we embed report within Page, we are getting one awesome feature to adjust the report height. "Auto" and "Custom' height. This "Auto" option works well when we have no records. But I want to embed report based on some conditions

      • Zoho Payroll: Product Updates - August 2025

        This month’s updates to Zoho Payroll bring enhanced efficiency and smarter features, simplifying payroll management for users in India, UAE, KSA, and US. Read on to explore how these updates can streamline your workflow. Filter Pay Runs by Type (India,

      • Numerical Rating for Interviewer Assessments

        Introducing Numerical Rating, a powerful new addition to interviewer assessments that brings precision and flexibility to candidate evaluations. ✅ What is Numerical Rating? Numerical Rating lets interviewers assign a score for each question in the assessment,

      • Choosing a portal option and the "Unified customer portal"?

        I am trialling Zoho to replace various existing systems, one of which is a customer portal. Our portal allows clients to add and edit bookings, complete forms, manage their subscriptions and edit some CRM info. I am trying to understand how I might best

      • User Tips: Adding Multiple Products (Package) to a Quote v2.0 (with Client Script)

        This solution is an improvement on the original idea which used deluge. My solution was posted in the comments are: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/adding-multiple-products-package-to-a-quote The updated version uses client script instead

      • Next Page