What the hash chain does and does not show

The audit log of the file is a hash chain. Each recorded version hangs on the previous one. Because of that it is later visible that the file in the program has changed, and in which order those changes have been recorded. That is the whole point of the chain. It shows that a new state has been saved after an earlier state. A staff member can thereby check whether an amount, a name or a letter has later been adjusted. The chain is a trail of the digital file. It is not a judgment on the estate and not a declaration that the content is correct. Anyone who opens the chain reads a history of saving, not a truth about the estate inventory.

The hash chain does not prove that the paper was right. A bank statement, a deed or a letter can be wrong, and still have been neatly saved in the file. The chain then shows that that wrong text has been recorded and whether someone later changed it. It does not make the paper true. A transcribed figure remains a transcribed figure, even if the chain looks intact. So do not use the chain in a conversation as proof that a balance is right. Use it to see that the file changed. The source of the figure remains the document itself: the statement, the decision, the report. Without that document the chain says nothing about a figure that is not in it.

If an heir asks whether the figures have been tampered with, you can lay the chain beside the source. You show that a field was changed at a particular moment, and you show the document that carried that change. You do not say that the chain replaces the bank. A missing statement remains missing, however complete the trail of saving is. Internal notes about a doubt do not belong in a printout you send to heirs. The chain is for the workspace, where staff keep the file. What an heir may see stays limited to the layers that are on, and only if the figures have a source.

Ervazo keeps the audit log as a hash chain with the versions that are saved in the file. Ervazo records and calculates as a worksheet. The chain shows that the file changed. It does not recalculate the truth of a statement. That is not advice. It files nothing and it pays nothing. The program does not declare a paper genuine and it does not fill in a missing source because the chain has seen a change. A wrong amount that you entered yourself stays wrong until you correct it with a document. The worksheet keeps the trail. It is not an expert on the estate inventory and not a return.