How your AI's changes are logged
On this page
Most changes your AI makes in Pennyweight are written to an audit log, usually with the reason your AI gave. You can ask what changed, when, which AI did it, and why. For how your AI and Pennyweight fit together, start with how Pennyweight works.
What gets logged
Changes your AI makes add entries to the log. That covers editing, categorizing, splitting, linking, deleting and restoring transactions, imports and undoing them, rules, accounts, ledgers, saved knowledge and your AI profile. Creating or deleting a budget or an alert is logged too. Editing, pausing or snoozing one is not.
- The reason. Most changes need a reason from your AI: editing transactions, importing, creating or applying rules, adding accounts and ledgers, and updating saved knowledge or your profile. A change like that sent without a reason is refused, and the reason is stored with the entry.
- Which AI. Each entry records the AI app that made it, such as Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or Grok, from the name the app reports when it connects. An app Pennyweight doesn't recognize is recorded under a generic name.
- What it touched. Each entry keeps the action, the time, a short summary of the inputs and, for most changes, the ids of the items it changed.
- Imports. An import adds one entry for each transaction it adds, plus one entry for the import as a whole. If it pairs transfer rows automatically, each link it makes adds an entry too. Rows it skips or merges as duplicates add no entry of their own.
Some entries can have no reason: switching the active ledger or workspace, listing your workspaces, making an export, and some budget and rule changes. Some changes made on the web, and transactions your bank retracts, can also appear in the log.
What isn't logged
Reading your data is not logged. Searches, reports, balances and category lists leave no entry, so your questions stay out of the log.
The reason and the input summary in each entry are stored encrypted with your workspace key.
How to see it
- Ask your AI for the changes in a date range, such as the last 7 days. It needs a date range to read the log.
- Your AI reads the log of the ledger you have open. Name another ledger to read its log, or ask for the workspace log.
- Narrow it down if the list is long: by AI app, by kind of change, or by one transaction.
- For one transaction, ask why it has its category and who set it. Find out why a transaction has its category covers that case.
- To keep a copy, ask your AI to export the audit log. See export your data.
Show me every change my AI made in the last 7 days and why
Put my most recent Daily Grind Coffee charge in a category called Coffee, then show me who changed that transaction's category and why.
Show me the last 7 days of my workspace log, such as ledgers being created, and the reason for each.
What you'll see
Your AI lists the changes newest first, each with its time, what it did and the reason recorded with it. For the workspace log, it lists changes such as ledgers being created, each with its reason. For a single transaction, it shows that transaction's recent entries and the reason given for each one. Review what your AI changed shows how to turn this into a regular check.
On the web
The AI activity page in the web app shows recent changes to individual transactions in the ledger you have open. Each row shows the action, the reason, the time and a link to the transaction. A row can also show who made the change: "by You", which includes changes your AI made through your connection. It does not show which AI made the change.
The page only looks at the most recent entries in the log and the latest transactions in the ledger. Each transaction an import adds can appear there as its own entry. The entry for the import as a whole doesn't, and neither do budget and account changes, because those entries don't point to individual transactions. Bulk edits and rule runs show up as edits to each transaction they changed. For the full history, ask your AI. See what you do on the web vs with your AI.
Good to know
- Each ledger has its own log. A separate workspace log holds changes that aren't about one ledger: creating, renaming or deleting ledgers, switching ledgers or workspaces, your AI profile, exports and restores, and billing. History from before each ledger kept its own log is in the workspace log too.
- Your AI reads the log in pages of up to 500 entries, 50 by default, and can keep paging for more.
- An audit export comes as a CSV or JSON file and holds the workspace log plus every ledger's log, except demo ledgers. With a demo ledger open, it holds the workspace log and that demo's log only. The download link lasts about 2 minutes, so open it right away.
- Changes that need your go-ahead first are explained in preview and confirm.