Audit trail

The four immutability guarantees

Posted entries are immutable. Reversals are appended. The event log is append-only. Posting Rules don't rewrite history. Four rules, all reinforcing the same shape.

1. Posted journal entries cannot be edited. Once an entry is in posted state, no field on it can change. The corrective mechanism is reversal, not edit.
2. Reversals are new entries. A reversal is a separate journal entry that mirrors the original (debits and credits swapped). The original posted entry survives in the GL alongside the reversal.
3. The event log is append-only. Every state change on every entry writes an event-log row. Rows cannot be deleted or edited. The log is the platform's audit chain.
4. Posting Rules cannot retroactively change posted entries. Editing a rule today does not re-run it against historical events. A rule change applies to future firings only.

What's signable

The General Ledger detail report can be exported as a sealed PDF via the platform's e-sign trust model — the same ed25519 seal that the e-sign module uses for contracts. The seal proves the exact GL state at the moment of export. See E-signatures for the trust model.

A sealed GL export is what you hand to an external auditor when they ask for "the books as of date." The seal is verifiable by any third party with the public verify endpoint — no FastYoke involvement required.

The never-delete-the-books guarantee

Uninstalling Yoke Ledger from the Marketplace does NOT delete:

• Journal entries.
• Chart of Accounts.
• Posting Rules history.
• Event log.

The Yoke Ledger app surface goes away. The data underneath stays. (Cross-reference: Yoke Ledger overview.)

Auditor handoff — three exports

When an external auditor (or your firm's review partner) arrives:

1. Trial Balance for the audit period.
2. General Ledger detail for the audit period, as a sealed PDF.
3. Chart of Accounts snapshot — current state of every account.

Each is one click from the Reports surface. The sealed PDF is what makes the package defensible.

What's NOT preserved

Voided/deleted draft entries. Drafts that were never posted leave no audit trail. This is intentional — drafts are working state, not records of business events. If you need a record of "the proposed entry we decided not to post," create the entry, post it, then immediately reverse it. Both posted entries survive in the GL.