Lesson 8.4 – Audit Trails and Internal Controls

Welcome to Lesson 8.4! Maintaining the integrity of your financial data is paramount for transparency, accurate reporting, and preparing for your annual audit. FastFund Raising incorporates strict internal controls and comprehensive audit trails to ensure accountability across your organization.

In this lesson, we will explore how FastFund protects your data, enforces editing rules, and how administrators can utilize the Audit Log to track system activity.

1. The Foundation of Internal Controls

In FastFund, internal controls begin the moment a user logs into the system. Access is strictly limited to authorized users, each signing in with their own unique email address and password,.

To ensure proper segregation of duties, users are assigned specific permissions—either individually or via User Groups (e.g., Accounts Receivable or Accounts Payable)—which restrict their access to only the functional areas necessary for their job,. Most importantly, all data entry, including the addition, editing, and deleting of names, accounts, budgets, and transactions, is permanently associated with a specific user.

2. Transaction Editing Controls

As we covered in Module 7, FastFund Raising allows you to edit posted transactions to correct mistakes, but it adheres to strict internal controls to maintain the integrity of your data.

The system enforces the following rules to protect your audit trail:

• Closed Periods: You cannot post, edit, or delete a transaction prior to the permanent books closed date,. If a “Soft Close” is in effect, standard users are locked out of modifications; only the Company Administrator can enter or edit transactions.
• Linked Transactions: You can only edit specific, non-financial information on a transaction if that transaction is linked to another financial activity. For example, if a Cash Gift has already been deposited, or a Pledge has already received a Pledge Payment, you are locked out of changing the donor name, the control account, or the total dollar amount,.

3. The Audit Log

To help maintain data integrity, every single entry entered into the FastFund Online system is tracked in an Audit Log. FastFund Online tracks each user’s data entry and maintenance for accounts, names, budgets, lists, codes, and transactions.

Because of the sensitive nature of this tracking data, the Audit Log is strictly limited and only available to the Company Administrator.

4. Filtering and Viewing Audit Logs

Administrators can use the Audit Log to trace the history of an entry and identify exactly which users have entered or modified information.

Steps to Access and Filter the Log:

1. Click the Gear Icon to access Company Administration, and under COMPANY ADMINISTRATION, select Audit Logs.
2. Log Type: Select the specific data table you want to review (e.g., Transactions, Constituents, Users, Codes, or User Permissions),.
3. Date Range: Enter the specific From and To dates for the activity.
4. User & Action: You can narrow the search to a specific User, and specify the Action you are looking for (Create, Update, or Delete).
5. Click FILTER to generate the results.

The resulting Audit Log display provides a complete picture of the event, including the Item description, the Date of entry, the Action taken (Create, Update, Delete), the User who performed it, and crucially, the exact IP address where the user logged on to the FastFund system,. You can click directly on the item in the log to view additional information.