The audit trail is Folkbase's written history of who changed what, and why. It is recorded as changes happen, in plain language, on the record of the person each change concerns. The aim is a history that still makes sense to someone who was not in the room.
What gets recorded
Folkbase writes down the events that change a person's standing or their access:
| Event | What the trail keeps |
|---|---|
| Lifecycle transition | Onboarding, activation, offboarding, or exit, with who ran it, when, and why |
| Grant opened | Who granted it, when, and on what basis |
| Grant closed | When it closed |
| Offboarding run | A close time stamped on every grant in the run |
| Access review decision | Keep or remove, logged against the person |
None of this depends on someone remembering to write a note. The entry is a side effect of doing the work.
Plain language, not raw events
A log written for machines needs an engineer to translate it. Folkbase writes entries that a manager, an admin, or an auditor can read directly: a person, an action, a tool, a time, and a reason.
That matters most months later. When a question comes in about a specific grant, the useful answer is a sentence: who granted it, on what basis, and when it ended. The entries on the record already give you that.
History is written when the change happens, not pieced together when someone asks.
Offboarding, stamped per grant
Exit is where access history most often goes missing. In Folkbase, an offboarding run starts from a last day. On that day every grant closes in one action, and each grant gets its own close time rather than a single note saying the account was handled.
The run leaves three things behind:
- A closed state on every grant the person held.
- The exact time each grant closed.
- An archived record that keeps its full history.
Contractors follow the same pattern on their own dates. Elio Park's grants for the Northwind rebrand engagement each carry an end date. When that date passes, the grant closes, and the trail records when. How a run is set up is covered on the offboarding page.
History that outlasts people
People leave, including the ones who approved access. A trail that depends on asking them stops working the day they go.
Folkbase keeps the names in the history itself. A grant keeps the name of the person who granted it, even after they have left. A transition still shows who ran it and why. Read a year later, the trail says the same thing it said on the day.
This is also why the history sits on records rather than in a separate tool. The person's access, the decisions about it, and the history of both stay together, so reconstructing one person's story means opening one record. For preparing evidence ahead of an audit, see audit readiness.
Plan availability
History is written by the features that create it. Grants, with who granted them and when, are on every plan. Onboarding, offboarding, and access reviews, along with the entries they write, come with Growth. The full audit log view is part of Business. See pricing for what each plan includes.