TL;DR: An audit log is a record of every action taken inside a system: who did what, to which record, and when. In Warp, that means every change to your workers, compensation, benefits, bank accounts, offer letters, and tax filings is captured automatically. You'll find it under Settings > Audit Logs, and you can filter it by user type, source, object, and date range. Warp keeps 30 days of history by default, and your Account Manager can extend that if your compliance program needs longer.
What an audit log actually is
An audit log is a running, time-stamped record of activity inside a piece of software: who logged in, what they clicked, what they changed, and what the value was before and after. Security teams call this an "audit trail." HR and finance teams usually just call it "proof."
The distinction that matters is this: a regular system log tells an engineer what the software did. An audit log tells a human what a person did, in language a non-technical reviewer, auditor, or new admin can actually follow.
Why it matters more once HR and payroll data is involved
Your HRIS & Payroll software is holding some of the most sensitive information your company has: compensation, bank accounts, benefit elections, offer letters, and employee records. When software holds data at that level, "who touched it and when" stops being a nice-to-have and starts being something your compliance program, your board, or your next SOC 2 auditor will actually ask you to produce.
Warp itself is SOC 2 Type II certified, which is part of why audit logs exist as a first-class feature rather than something bolted on after a customer asked for it.
The three moments most admins open their audit log
According to Warp's Customer Activations team, almost every audit log request falls into one of three buckets.
1. A security review or audit
Someone, internal or external, needs proof of who has been accessing sensitive data and what they did with it. This is the SOC 2 auditor, the enterprise customer's security questionnaire, or your own annual access review. You need an answer with a timestamp, not a best guess.
2. A change nobody can account for
A pay rate looks wrong. An approval went through without an obvious owner. Instead of pinging three people on Slack and hoping someone remembers, you open the record and see exactly which field changed, what the new value was, and who made the change.
3. Offboarding an admin
When someone with admin access leaves, you want to see exactly what they touched on their way out, not reconstruct it from memory after the fact.
In all three cases, the answer already exists inside Warp. There's nothing to request and nothing to reconstruct.
Your audit log in Warp
Audit logs live under Company Settings in Warp. Warp automatically records every administrative action in your account, with no setup required and no separate tool to configure.
What's inside a single audit log entry
Open any entry and you get the full record:
- Who acted: the specific admin or employee who took the action
- What they did: the action taken, and on which object
- The exact timestamp: down to the second
- The client and session: where the action came from
- The field-level change: when a field changes, the new value is listed, followed by every other action taken on that same record
If the log tells you something happened but you need the underlying source, you can open that record directly from the entry itself. No second search required.
Every object type your audit log covers
The same level of detail applies across every object in Warp, including:
- Expenses
- Offers
- Time off requests
- Workers
- Bank accounts
If it's a change to sensitive company data, it's in the log.
How to filter your audit log
Four filters narrow the view down to exactly what you're looking for:
- User type: separates what your admins did from what your employees did
- Source: shows where the action originated, whether that's the web app, Slack, or the public API
- Resource: covers every object type, searchable from bank accounts to workplaces
- Date: takes a range, a cutoff in either direction, or simply "the last however many days"
How long Warp keeps your audit log history
Warp retains 30 days of activity by default. If your compliance program requires a longer window, your Account Manager can walk you through the options.
Warp is the only AI-native HR & Payroll platform built for ambitious companies. Instead of clicking through clunky dashboards or .gov websites for taxes, Warp's AI agents open every state tax account, file every payroll form, and resolve every tax notice, automatically.
Every company gets a dedicated Account Manager and Benefits Advisor included to guide them through payroll setup, multi-state expansion, and benefits selection, so you don't have to spend hours on hold with tax agencies or worry about compliance mistakes.
With Warp, you'll never visit a government website, negotiate with tax agencies, or pay accountants $150 per filing. Just focus on building your business while Warp handles payroll, compliance, and benefits for your team across any state or country.
Thousands of fast-growing companies trust Warp to stay compliant while they scale.
