What an audit trail is
An audit trail is a chronological record of the actions taken on a document or within a system. It captures who did what and when, so that the history of an event can be reconstructed later. In a signing context, that means recording who viewed a document, who signed it, the order in which they signed, and the time each step happened.
An audit trail matters because it turns a claim into evidence. If a decision or a signing is ever questioned, a clear record of how it happened is far more useful than memory or a stack of emails. The same logic applies to governance: a defensible record of meetings, resolutions and decisions protects an organisation and the people responsible for it.
A good audit trail is created automatically as work happens, rather than assembled after the fact, so the record reflects what actually occurred.
Audit trails in the Cohiva platform
Cohiva Sign keeps a full audit trail for every signed document, recording who signed, when and in what order, which supports the legal standing of the signing. Cohiva Quorum keeps a record of board meetings, resolutions and decisions, so a governance team has a defensible history of how the board reached its decisions.
To see how the signing audit trail works, explore Sign.