Maintaining accurate records and tracking changes is crucial for any organization to ensure compliance, data integrity and accountability. NetSuite’s Audit Trail provides a comprehensive way to monitor all modifications made to important records, helping businesses meet regulatory requirements and easily identify who made changes and when. This note outlines the key features, how to access and use the Audit Trail and best practices for effective compliance and monitoring.
What Is Audit Trail?
NetSuite’s Audit Trail tracks who changed what and when on important records and fields. It helps organizations ensure data integrity, support compliance (like SOX or GDPR), and maintain accountability.
Key Features
- Tracks changes on both standard and custom fields
- Shows old and new values, change date/time, and user info
- Accessible via record-level history tabs or saved searches
- Allows filtering by fields, users, or dates
- Retention depends on your NetSuite data policies
How to Access Audit Trail
- On Individual Records: Check the System Information or History tab to see change logs.
- Saved Searches: Create saved searches on System Notes to monitor changes across many records, filter by user, field, or date.
Use Cases
- Financial audits to detect invoice or payment changes
- Monitoring user activity and unauthorized edits
- Supporting regulatory compliance and external audits
- Improving data quality by tracking critical field changes
- Managing changes during process updates or integrations
Best Practices
- Focus auditing on critical fields relevant to your business
- Restrict audit trail access to authorized users only
- Schedule regular review reports or alerts using saved searches and workflows
- Train users on data accuracy and audit importance
In short, the Audit Trail serves as a vital safeguard by recording detailed change histories that empower organizations to detect errors, unauthorized actions and data inconsistencies. When combined with regular monitoring and access controls, it becomes a proactive tool for risk management, ensuring your NetSuite environment remains secure and compliant over time.