The audit trail

APEX’s ledgers are append-only: history is corrected by adding a new record, never by rewriting an old one. When an auditor asks “prove it,” these are the records you point to.

Work orders: stages and holds

Every stage move a work order makes is recorded with its timestamp, from creation to SHIPPED. The operator console shows the current stage; the full timeline is kept on the record and is what the customer sees, in plain language, on the portal.

Holds are the visible quality trail: each hold keeps its reason, detail, placed date, and — once released — its release date, and released holds remain on the work order’s Holds table. Two reasons matter most to a quality reviewer:

• QUALITY_ESCAPE — the non-conformance flag. Placing one puts the job on the Hold Board, grouped by reason and ranked by days held, until someone releases it.
• CREDIT_HOLD — the finance stop, same mechanics.

There is no separate NCR register in APEX today — a quality escape hold plus its work order documents is the non-conformance record, with the containment date (placed) and closure date (released) on it.

Inventory: the movement ledger

Every quantity change writes a row to the part’s Movements ledger — RECEIPT, ISSUE TO WO, SHIP, ADJUSTMENT, TRANSFER OUT, SCRAP, INSTALL INTO ASSEMBLY — with the signed quantity, cost, reason, and timestamp. The ledger is documented in Locations & transfers; it shows the 50 most recent entries per part. PO receipts also carry a numbered receipt record (RCV-2026-0007-style) tying a delivery together.

The books: reversal, not erasure

The general ledger is append-only. A posted journal entry is never edited — the Reverse action in Accounting → Journal posts an offsetting entry, and both stay visible. Closing a period (Accounting → Periods) locks it: back-dated postings are refused, which is why a Ship + consolidate into a closed period fails whole.

Documents: versions and send trails

Documents are never edited or deleted in place — a corrected file is uploaded as a new document alongside the old one, so the trail keeps both. System actions leave paper too: emailing a purchase order to a vendor records the exact PDF sent as a PO-type document on the order, and the PO detail shows a SENT date. See Release documents.

People and access: Team → Audit

The workspace’s access audit lives at Team → Audit — the “Access audit” screen:

• Columns: When, Action, Actor, Detail.
• A filter box (“Filter by action or actor…”) and Load more paging.
• It records access-relevant events — sign-ins, membership and role changes, access-request decisions — so “who could touch this, and since when” has an answer.

Screen: Team → Audit — the “Access audit” heading, a filter field, and a table of timestamped rows: an action code, the actor’s email, and a detail column.

Roles: Team → Audit (and the rest of Team administration — Members, Roles, Requests) is visible to owners and admins only.

Answering an auditor