Audit trail and evidence in court

What each entry shows

• Every change to your records is written to your audit trail. This covers your company details, customers, quotes, sales orders, invoices, delivery notes, credit notes, statements, payments and users.
• Every sign-in is recorded with the time, the account and the internet (IP) address.

Kept and protected

• Each audit entry is also copied to the archive that is locked for 7 years.
• The audit trail archive is locked for 7 years. Until then nobody can change or delete it, not even DIANO.
• Every 30 minutes a check looks for any change that has no audit entry and adds the missing entry. The platform owner gets an e-mail alert when that happens.

Document numbers

• Quotes, sales orders, invoices, delivery notes, credit notes, statements and payments are numbered in order. A number is never skipped or used twice, and these documents cannot be deleted.

Getting a copy

• A Company Admin or Auditor can download the audit trail for a chosen period, as a spreadsheet file (CSV) or as JSON.
• A Company Admin can download all the company's records at any time as one ZIP file. Each kind of record is in it twice, as a CSV spreadsheet and as JSON, with a list of every file and its SHA-256 check value.

Electronic records and South African law

• South African law says information does not lose its legal force just because it is electronic. (ECTA, Act 25 of 2002, section 11.) Source
• A court may not refuse an electronic record just because it is electronic, and must give it due weight. To judge its weight, the court looks at how reliably it was made, stored and sent, how its integrity was kept, and how the person who made it was identified. (ECTA section 15(1) to 15(3).) Source
• A record made in the ordinary course of business, or a copy certified as correct by an officer of the business, can be used in court as proof of its contents unless someone proves otherwise. (ECTA section 15(4).) Source
• Electronic records meet a duty to keep records if they stay readable, stay in their original format or one shown to be accurate, and show where they came from and when. (ECTA sections 14 and 16.) Source

How DIANO's records support their weight

Ask your attorney who in your business should sign a certificate for a printout or an export.

How long to keep your records

• Tax records must be kept for 5 years after the return is submitted, and longer during a SARS audit, objection or appeal. (Tax Administration Act 28 of 2011, sections 29 and 32; VAT Act section 55.) Source
• Company records and accounting records generally have to be kept for 7 years. (Companies Act 71 of 2008, sections 24 and 28.) Source
• Employers must keep records of each employee's time worked and pay for 3 years. (Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997, section 31.) Source
• SARS's rule says electronic tax records must be kept at a place in South Africa, unless a senior SARS official gives permission to keep them elsewhere. (Government Notice 787 of 1 October 2012, rule 4, made under Tax Administration Act section 30.) Source

Download an export every year and keep it for as long as the law asks you to, also after you stop using DIANO.