Compliance — Pvt Ltd companies

MCA Audit Trail — mandatory for your Private Limited company.

Since April 2023, all accounting software used by Private Limited companies must maintain an immutable audit trail — who changed what, when, and what the before/after values were. PragatiCRM has this built in. It cannot be disabled.

Audit Trail Log
admin/audits — read-only for CA
IMMUTABLE
INV-2026-0847 — Modified20 May 2026, 3:41 PM
User: Ramesh Kumar (Sales)
Before: ₹48,000After: ₹52,000
Payment — Received19 May 2026, 11:12 AM
User: Priya Sharma (Accounts)
₹75,000 — HDFC Bank NEFT
Credit Note — CN-002318 May 2026, 2:05 PM
User: Admin (Owner)
INV-2026-0831 reversed

Every change. Every user. Every timestamp. Permanent.

The legal requirement

What the law actually says.

MCA Rule 3(1) under the Companies Act 2014 is not optional. It is not a best practice. It is mandatory law for every company that uses accounting software.

MCA Rule 3(1) — Companies (Accounts) Rules, 2014

"Every company which uses accounting software for maintaining its books of account shall use only such accounting software which has a feature of recording audit trail of each and every transaction, creating an edit log of each change made in books of account along with the date when such changes were made and ensuring that the audit trail cannot be disabled."

Ministry of Corporate Affairs · Companies (Accounts) Amendment Rules, 2021 · Effective: Financial Year 2022-23 (April 2023 onwards)

What happens without a proper audit trail

  • Your statutory auditor must qualify the audit report — a serious matter for any Pvt Ltd company
  • A qualified audit report affects creditworthiness with banks and NBFCs
  • Investor due diligence flags a qualified audit as a red flag
  • Regulatory scrutiny increases with each qualified report
  • Retroactive compliance is impossible — the trail must exist at the time of the transaction
Enforcement timeline

How the mandate has escalated

2021
MCA Rule 3(1) amended. Audit trail requirement introduced into law.
Apr 2023
Enforcement begins for FY 2022-23. Auditors required to comment on audit trail compliance.
2024–25
Auditors increasingly qualifying reports where audit trail cannot be demonstrated.
Now
Active enforcement. Every annual statutory audit now checks for audit trail compliance. If your software cannot demonstrate it — your auditor will qualify.
Complete coverage

Every transaction. Every change. Every user.

PragatiCRM logs every financial event at the field level — not just the document, but exactly which field changed, from what value, to what value, by which user, at what time.

Invoices

Every creation, line item change, amount modification, date change, and deletion. Before and after values for every field.

Payments

Every payment received — amount, date, mode (NEFT/UPI/cash), reference. Payment reversals and modifications permanently logged.

Credit Notes

Credit note creation linked to original invoice. Any modification to credit note value or reason. Linked payment adjustments.

Quotations & Orders

Every quotation modification, price change, and conversion to order. Order status changes with timestamp and responsible user.

Purchase Orders

PO creation, modification, GRN entries, and supplier payment records — each with user and timestamp.

User Actions

Every login, every setting change, every user permission modification — traceable to the individual and moment.

The one thing that cannot be changed

The audit log in PragatiCRM cannot be edited, deleted, or disabled by anyone — including the business owner, the system administrator, or RamLalla Technologies support. Once a transaction is recorded, it is permanently immutable. This is by design, to satisfy MCA Rule 3(1)'s requirement that "the audit trail cannot be disabled."

For your auditor

What your CA and auditor actually see.

The audit trail is not just for compliance — it is a working tool for your CA, your accounts team, and your auditors.

Read-only CA access
Create a read-only admin account for your CA. They can view the complete audit trail without access to operational data like pending orders or pricing.
Filterable by date, user, and type
Filter by financial year, by specific user, by document type (invoices/payments/credit notes), or by change type. Auditors can drill down to exactly what they need.
Excel export for submission
The complete audit log can be exported to Excel for submission to auditors as part of the annual statutory audit working papers.
Auditor satisfied in minutes
When your auditor asks "show me the audit trail" — you open PragatiCRM, go to /admin/audits, and show them the complete log. The audit question is answered in under 10 minutes.

"Our CA specifically asked us to show the audit trail before signing off on the annual audit. PragatiCRM had every change logged — who made it, when, and what the before and after values were. The auditor was satisfied in 10 minutes. First time in three years we had an unqualified report."

— Business owner, Private Limited company, India

Audit screen path

/admin/audits

Read-only. Immutable. Filterable. Exportable.

Simple pricing

MCA Audit Trail included in every plan.

The audit trail is not an add-on. It is built into PragatiCRM from day one — included at no extra charge in the Starter plan at ₹2,999/month.

Monthly Annual Save 17%
Starter
2,499 /mo
₹29,990 billed annually · Save ₹5,998/year
5 users · 1 location
  • MCA Audit Trail — immutable
  • All core CRM features
  • GST invoicing + GSTR-1 export
  • Customer portal for B2B buyers
  • AI Morning Digest
  • Tally XML export
  • 1-hour onboarding session
Book Free Demo
Professional
7,499 /mo
₹89,990 billed annually · Save ₹17,998/year
25 users · 3 locations
  • Everything in Growth
  • 25 users and 3 locations
  • Priority support
  • Dedicated onboarding (2 sessions)
Book Free Demo

Annual price freeze: Annual subscribers who sign before 31 December 2026 get their price frozen for 24 months — even when we add features and raise prices for new subscribers.

No setup fee on any plan. Free 1-hour onboarding session with the founder included.

MCA compliance questions

Questions about MCA audit trail compliance

All companies registered under the Companies Act 2014 — Private Limited, Public Limited, OPC, LLP where applicable. Mandated from financial year 2022-23 (April 2023 onwards). Enforcement is increasing through statutory audits. If your company uses accounting software, that software must maintain an immutable audit trail.
The current mandate under MCA Rule 3(1) applies to companies registered under the Companies Act 2014 — Private Limited, Public Limited, OPC. It does not currently apply to proprietorships, partnerships, or LLPs by default. However, maintaining an audit trail is good practice for all businesses handling large volumes of financial transactions.
If Tally is your primary books of account, Tally must have the audit trail for accounting entries. PragatiCRM's audit trail covers all transactions originating in PragatiCRM — invoices, payments, credit notes. Tally Prime (from Release 1.0 onwards) has its own audit trail for accounting vouchers. Both systems working together gives you complete coverage.
Yes — you can create a read-only admin account for your CA. They can view the complete audit trail at /admin/audits without seeing operational data like pending orders, pricing, or salesperson conversations. The screen is filterable by date, user, document type, and change type. They can export to Excel for their working papers.
No. The audit log in PragatiCRM is immutable — it cannot be edited, deleted, or disabled by the business owner, the system administrator, or RamLalla Technologies support. This is by design to satisfy the legal requirement that "the audit trail cannot be disabled." Once a transaction is logged, it is permanent.
Yes. PragatiCRM is a Data Processor under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. Your customer data stays yours — we never use it for training AI or marketing. Full data export on request. Permanent deletion on cancellation. Indian servers. AES-256 encryption for all sensitive data.
See it in action

Book a demo — we'll show you the audit trail live.

The founder will run PragatiCRM on a real business dataset and show you the complete audit trail — every change, every user, every timestamp. 15 minutes is enough.