> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://educontroldoc.pixelspectivetech.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# The audit log

> What EduControl records about who changed what, and what it does not record.

Financial and academic changes are written to an audit log as they happen. It is what lets you answer "who did this, and when" months later.

## What each entry records

| Field           | Meaning                                                      |
| --------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Actor**       | The name of the member of staff responsible                  |
| **Action**      | What they did                                                |
| **Entity type** | The kind of record affected — a payment, an invoice, a pupil |
| **Entity name** | Which record, named the way a person would recognise it      |
| **Time**        | When it happened                                             |

<Note>
  The log records **that** a change happened and who made it. It does not store a field-by-field before-and-after diff, and it does not record IP addresses. It answers "who touched this invoice and when", not "which digit did they change".
</Note>

## What gets logged

Actions across finance and academics, including:

* Payments recorded, voided and refunded
* Credit notes issued
* Billing runs executed and reversed
* Report cards published and withdrawn
* Pupil records created and edited
* Staff accounts and roles changed
* School settings and branding changed

The [cash ledger](/docs/payments/reconciliation) is a separate and stricter record of money specifically — every payment received, voided or refunded, with its amount and reference. Use the ledger to balance the day; use the audit log to answer questions about who did what.

## Why staff are deactivated, not deleted

An audit entry names the person who acted. Deleting a staff account would leave the history pointing at nobody, so staff who leave are deactivated instead and their name stays attached to what they did.

See [Staff and roles](/docs/before-the-term/staff-and-roles).

## Using it

The log is most useful filtered — to a pupil, to a kind of record, or to a period you are asking about. The common cases are a disputed payment ("who recorded this, and when?") and a changed mark ("who altered this after it was entered?").

## Who can see it

The `view_audit` permission. It is normally given to the head teacher, the proprietor and administrators, and withheld from the people whose daily work it records.