Audit Log
BalanceMCP's audit log is the journal itself — every posted entry permanently records who posted it, exactly when, and whether the source was a person, a bank import, or an AI assistant.
In short
Not a separate feature to enable — it's what the journal already does. There's no dedicated audit-log tool distinct from the ledger; general_ledger is where a specific account's history, with its sources and timestamps, is actually seen.
Also called: entry history
An audit log, in the general sense, is a record of who did what and when. BalanceMCP doesn't offer this as a separate feature or a distinct tool — it's a property every journal entry already carries. Every entry permanently records the user account it was posted under, the exact moment it was posted, and a source tag: manual, import, or ai.
This means there's no dedicated "audit log" report to run distinct from the ledger itself. The general ledger, pulled for a specific account and date range, is where this history is actually visible — every posting in order, each one carrying its own source, date, and the entry's memo explaining what it was for.
Because the journal is append-only, this audit log can't be quietly rewritten after the fact — nothing posted can be edited or deleted, only reversed with a new, equally visible entry. That's what makes it a genuine audit log rather than a description of intent: the record it produces can't later be altered to look different than it actually was.
An entry sourced from an AI assistant carries exactly the same audit information as one a person typed in directly — the same timestamp, the same user account, the same append-only guarantee. There's no reduced traceability for AI-driven activity; if anything, knowing an entry's source is "ai" rather than "manual" is itself useful information the audit log preserves.
What people get wrong
- Expecting a separate audit-log tool or report distinct from the journal — there isn't one; general_ledger is where this history is actually seen.
- Assuming an AI-sourced entry carries less traceability than a manually posted one — both carry identical source, timestamp, and user fields.
- Assuming the audit log could be edited or cleaned up after the fact — the append-only journal makes that structurally impossible, not just discouraged.
Common questions
- Is there a dedicated audit-log tool I can call?
- No — the audit information lives in every journal entry itself. general_ledger is where you'd actually look to see a specific account's history, sources, and timestamps.
- Is an AI-posted entry less traceable than a manually posted one?
- No — both carry identical source, timestamp, and posting-user information. The source field itself distinguishes manual from AI-driven activity.
Machine-readable: /api/knowledge/concept:audit-log