Reliability and controls
A Pricing Change Audit Log Should Explain the Impact
By the Orvlin team · · 1 min read
Pricing change audit trail: what to decide
An invoice rises and support finds a timestamped edit, but no earlier rate. The audit log proves something happened without explaining what changed. Useful evidence preserves the actual rule versions.
Include unit, model and allowance changes, not only numeric rates. Link to the approved contract or change request when relevant. Separate action time from effective time, which can be future-dated or carefully reviewed for historical corrections.
How this works in practice
A rate edited on October 20 takes effect on November 1 for new accounts only. Those three facts—edit time, effective date and cohort—are needed to explain why some invoices changed and others did not.
What can go wrong
Avoid storing secrets or full sensitive payloads in audit text. Auditability should focus on necessary decision evidence and controlled references, with retention and access policies.
Questions for your team
- Preserve rule versions and before-after values.
- Record actor, reviewer and scope.
- Separate edit and effective timestamps.
- Link relevant contract and preview evidence.
Frequently asked questions
- Do logs need every technical field?
- Not necessarily. Capture fields that affect commercial behavior and enough context to reproduce the decision without unnecessarily exposing sensitive data.