Audit Trails

“Those aren’t my numbers, somebody else must have changed them.” If you are somehow involved in managing or facilitating your business budgeting process, I am sure you hear those words on a regular basis. In fact, that phase is probably third most popular in the list of phrases spoken during the budgeting cycle right after “I hate doing budgets,” and a string of curse words that are not suitable for printing.

Why does this happen? Well it happens due to any of a number of reasons. It might be that the numbers are correct but the users have just forgotten what they entered into the system. This is a common occurrence and happens because budgets are not something users work with every day. They enter them now and don’t look at them for months and they simply forget what they entered.

Or maybe the numbers have changed but it was due to approvers/managers/supervisors editing the numbers and that information was never shared. Or maybe the organization has some sort of allocation process that adds a share of overhead costs to the user’s numbers. Whatever the reasons, the ultimate effect is loss of confidence in the numbers and the budget process as a whole.

This is another area where True Sky can help – the budgeting auditing process. You may not realize it, but every time any user adds, edits or deletes a value within True Sky and audit trail entry is generated. This audit trail tracks who the user was, when the change was made, what Assignment was used to make the change as well as the new value.

Register for a FREE True Sky webinar and see how your planning, budgeting and forecasting process to track audit trails!