Audit trail feature has to be made a part of accounting software from 1st April, 2023
- It has being made mandatory from 1st April, 2023 for every company to add on the feature of audit trail in their accounting software in which it maintains its books of account.
- The feature of Audit trail should have an edit log which shall record each and every transaction along with modifications made at any point of time.
- The Companies (Audit and Auditor) Rules, 2014 (Audit Rules) have been correspondingly amended wherein auditors are now required to report, as part of the auditors report (in the section Report on Other Legal and Regulatory Requirements, as to whether,
(a) the accounting software used by the company being audited has the feature of recording audit trail (edit logs),
(b) the audit trail feature was operational throughout the financial year and had not been tampered with and
(c) such audit trails have been retained for the period as statutorily prescribed.
- The companies would need to ensure that the audit trail captures changes to each and every transaction; changes that need to be captured may include when changes were made, who made those changes, what data was changed.
