18.1 System Notes and Other Audit Tools

Ways of tracking changes to records

The study guide objective is to identify ways of tracking changes to records in NetSuite. System Notes are the field-level log, and the study guide treats them as one of several ways. Help keeps sign-in activity, internal transaction numbers, and a cross-transaction history report in separate tools. Name the tool whose job matches the change.

A system note stores the date of the change, who made it, that user's role, the type of change, and the old and new values. No user, script, or application can edit a system note. Notes are logged on standard records and on custom records. Opening them requires view access to the record and the List > Notes Tab permission.

On a transaction, go to System Information, then System Notes. The Field list on that subtab limits the rows to one field. On a customer, employee, or other record that is not a transaction, System Notes are on the General subtab. Help limits system note descriptions to 300 characters. Any further characters are truncated.

Log System Notes on Updates Only, at Setup > Company > General Preferences, controls whether a note is written when a transaction is created. When the preference is on, creation is omitted and notes begin with updates. Help says it is enabled by default for accounts created in release 2012.2 or later, and disabled for accounts that already existed. A missing creation line can be that preference, so check it before you decide the save never happened.

Items, expenses, and journal lines have a History link for updates to an existing line. Help says it does not record creation or deletion of the line. A system note search at Reports > New Search covers non-transaction records, uses different filters from the Transaction Audit Trail, and can export or be saved.

Which record uses which log

Transactions use System Notes, the line History link, the Transaction Audit Trail, and the Transaction Numbering Audit Log. A ledger-affecting edit also writes an Impact row. A phone number or credit limit on an entity uses System Notes on the General subtab, not the transaction report. Item and project lists can search old and new values, and the record still has system notes. Company Information has a System Notes subtab. Many other setup pages do not, so preference, accounting-list, and tax-setup changes are usually read with a saved system note search.

Old and new ledger impact is a System Notes row

When Accounting is enabled, transaction system notes include general ledger impact. A change that affects the ledger creates a system note for that change. Help's example is an invoice that first sells five widgets and is then edited to sell ten. The note tracks the ledger impact of the increase.

Those rows show Impact in the Field column. View under Old Value opens the previous ledger impact. View under New Value opens the ledger impact after the change. Help describes those views as the debits and credits posted before the change and after it.

The October 2024 sample keyed System Notes for logged old and new general ledger impact on some transactions. It did not key My Login Audit, the Transaction Audit Trail, or the Transaction Numbering Audit Log. Current Help still places those two views on the System Notes subtab, so the sample and Help agree. Leave that comparison on System Notes.

The GL Impact page shows the ledger impact as the transaction stands now, from Actions or from the GL Impact subtab on a standard form. A custom form shows that subtab only when GL Impact is set to show. The Transaction Audit Trail can open one result and show GL Impact for that row. Help treats the previous impact and the later impact as the two View links on the Impact note. A date-range search can find unexpected postings to closed periods, which is a different task from reading those two views.

My Login Audit records sign-in, not edits

The My Login Audit portlet shows your own login activity. Add it from Standard Content when you personalize the dashboard. It can show the previous successful login, the previous failed login, the IP address, and the password expiration date. Dates follow the time zone at Home > Set Preferences. Successful Logins increases when you switch roles, because a role switch counts as another login. The portlet cannot be added to the Customer Center or the Employee Center, and it does not list field edits or ledger lines.

Account-wide sign-ins use the Login Audit Trail at Setup > Users/Roles > View Login Audit Trail. It records who logged in, when, from where, and whether the attempt succeeded. The IP address is the one at the start of the session. An incorrect two-factor code counts as a failure. Opening a login lists transactions completed in that session; an empty list means none. A timeout without an explicit logout does not write a logout row. Those rows answer who signed in, not which field changed.

The numbering log is not a field history

The Transaction Numbering Audit Log lists every internal transaction number, including numbers for standard and custom transactions that were deleted or that never got created. Help's example of a transaction that never got created is a cash sale that fails during credit card processing. The number was still used.

An administrator, or a user with the Access to transaction numbering audit log permission, opens it at Transactions > Management > Transaction Numbering Audit Log. It shows type, number, assignment time, and creator, plus subsidiary and location when numbering uses them. A deletion shows when and who. A transaction that was not created shows the reason in Message. If Use Deletion Reason is enabled, the reason and memo are stored too. A changed phone number is outside this log.

How Help separates the Transaction Audit Trail from System Notes

Help says the historical data for a transaction may be called system notes, an audit trail, or history, and that NetSuite offers many ways to retrieve it. Those names can refer to the same history. Each tool still has its own job.

System Notes on one record store the field and its old and new values. The Transaction Audit Trail reports who entered each transaction and when it was created or modified. Open it at Transactions > Management > View Audit Trail. In the U.K. edition the path is Transactions > Other. That topic applies to System Notes and points elsewhere for System Notes v2.

Filters include user, action (create, change, or delete), date range, amount, transaction type, account, and entity. Audit Results is one line per transaction. Help lists Date/Time, Username, Action, Type, Number, Post Date, Account, and Amount, and the audit trail topic also lists internal ID. Date/Time is Pacific Standard Time, or Pacific Daylight Time during daylight saving time. My Login Audit uses the time zone at Home > Set Preferences. Imported or sample data shows the load time. A void is stored as CHANGE. If no account was affected, Account is blank. Amount is the transaction total. Deleted and voided rows show zero, and so does a change that did not affect the original amount.

Click Date/Time for details and GL Impact for that transaction. That is the impact of the row you opened, not the Old Value and New Value pair on the Impact system note. The report covers transactions, not a customer field edit. Default roles are CEO, CEO (Hands Off), CFO, and Support Administrator. A custom role needs the audit trail permission.