QuickBooks 2013 For Dummies

Using an Audit Trail

For some curious reason, in the post–Bernie Madoff world of accounting, people are much more interested in the QuickBooks Audit Trail feature. In fact, some readers of past editions of this book have tracked me down as though I were a wounded animal so that they could ask about audit trails in QuickBooks. Because of this renewed interest, let me share the three things you need to know about using the QuickBooks Audit Trail feature:

An audit trail is simply a list of changes. The QuickBooks Audit Trail — which is a simple report that lists the changes to the QuickBooks data file — lets you see who changed what.

To turn on the Audit Trail feature in old versions of QuickBooks, you had to choose Edit⇒Preferences, click the Accounting icon, click the Company Preferences tab, and then select the Use Audit Trail check box. However, in all recent versions of QuickBooks, you don’t have to turn on the Audit Trail feature. It’s always on, baby.

You can print the Audit Trail report by choosing Reports⇒Accountant & Taxes⇒Audit Trail.