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There are different auditing mechanisms used by Wise Owl, they all create a digital paper trail, but some are focused on particular modules or scenarios For example, the entire trust accounting system is designed from the ground up to leave an auditable, transparent digital paper trail. Other system functions and events are logged in a more generic audit log which can also be used as a digital paper trail.
TODO: reports
TODO: compliance with legal standards
Law firms can be audited at any time. Some of the rules to remember include:
- The firm's trust records must be available for audit at any time
- This means trust records must not be taken off site ; not by anyone
- Not by a bookkeeper, principal of the firm, nor an auditor!
- You must reconcile your trust account within 14 days of the end of the month.
- This means don’t put it off! All computer generated reports are dated, allowing auditors to easily verify if this deadline has been met.
- Never draw a cheque without having first receipted the money into your accounting system.
- If you make a mistake, make it very clear what happened and what you did to fix it. Ensure there are memos filed with the End Of Month Reports indicating the mistake, and the appropriate actions taken to amend it. Mistakes happen, but trying to hide them makes it worse.
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- Trust receipts, office copy, filed in strict numerical order
- Trust deposit slips
- Trust end of month reports, with one tab for each month
- A separate tab for the trust account bank statements
Trust Accounting
TODO
Generic Audit Log
The generic audit log is a system wide repository of events. Its purpose is to log, in a structured manner, important events in the system such as changes to matters, user logins and system updates. Records are unable to be edited once created. Audit records are only accessible to administrators of Wise Owl and help desk staff.
Audit records contain, at minimum:
- When the event occurred.
- What kind of event it was.
- Who (which user) initiated the event.
- The IP Address of the user who initiated the event.
- A brief summary of the event.
Additional information can be recorded, depending on the context of the event:
- Did the event succeed or fail e. Eg: g. a login may fail due to an incorrect password.
- Additional details of the event. These vary considerably depending on event type and context.
- A snapshot before and after the event e. Eg: g. when a matter or system setting is changed, the data before and after is recorded.
- A variety of associated record IDs. These represent other records in Wise Owl which are relevant to the event being audited . Eg: e.g. When a matter changes, the matter ID will be recorded against the audit record when a matter changes. Oror, for a password reset, both the user who resets the password and the user whose password is being reset are recorded.
Information from the audit log is searchable via the Tools module.
TODO: reports / export functions
Events Recorded
The following table lists each event audited by Wise Owl Legal:
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