Notes & Activity Log

Using Notes

Notes are available on every entity record in Belvak PM - projects, clients, invoices, employees, seekers, proposals, maintenance contracts, payments, purchases, suppliers, and referrals. They provide a simple way to attach internal commentary and context directly to the records they relate to.

Adding a note

1. Open any record by clicking on it to open the view drawer.
2. Scroll down to the Notes section at the bottom of the drawer.
3. Enter a title, type your note content, and optionally choose a color to categorize it.
4. Click Add Note to save. The note appears immediately at the top of the notes list.

Each note captures the title, content, color label, the date it was added, and who added it. The author is displayed next to the timestamp - showing the user's full name if available, or their email username otherwise. Notes are displayed in reverse chronological order, so the most recent note is always at the top.

Editing and deleting notes

Notes follow an owner-only editing model: only the person who created a note can edit it. The edit button is only visible on your own notes. Deleting a note permanently removes it and is available to any user who has delete permission on the parent entity. For example, deleting a note on a project requires the "Delete Projects" permission.

Who can see notes

Notes are visible to all users who have view access to the parent entity. If a team member can open a project's detail drawer, they can see all notes attached to that project. Notes follow the same role-based access control as the rest of the platform.

Common use cases

• Internal comments: Leave observations about a client relationship or project status that other team members should know about.
• Status updates: Record progress milestones or blockers directly on the project record.
• Meeting notes: After a client call, attach a summary to the client or project record so the context is always one click away.
• Follow-up reminders: Note what needs to happen next on an invoice, proposal, or maintenance contract.
• Interview feedback: Attach candidate evaluation notes to seeker records during the recruitment process.
• Payment context: Record why a payment was partial, late, or disputed.

Activity Log

Every create, update, and delete action performed in Belvak PM is automatically recorded in the activity log. No manual effort is required - the system captures changes as they happen across all major entities.

What gets logged

Each activity log entry captures the following information:

• User: The email address of the person who performed the action.
• Action type: Whether the record was created, updated, or deleted.
• Entity type: The kind of record affected (e.g., clients, projects, invoices).
• Entity ID: The unique identifier of the specific record.
• Entity name: A human-readable name for the record at the time of the action.
• Timestamp: The exact date and time the action occurred.
• Full data snapshot: A complete JSON snapshot of the record's state at the moment the action was logged.

Where to view the activity log

The primary activity log viewer is located on the Settings page. Open Settings from the sidebar to access the full log with all filtering and search capabilities. The log displays entries sorted by date with the most recent changes first. For a client-specific view, the Client Activity Tab shows a filtered timeline of all system events and manual interactions tied to a single client.

Filtering and searching

The activity log supports several filters to help you find specific events quickly:

• Entity type: Show only changes to a specific entity, such as invoices or projects.
• Action type: Filter by created, updated, or deleted actions.
• User: See all actions performed by a specific team member.
• Date range: Narrow results to a specific time window using from and to date filters.

You can combine multiple filters to drill down precisely - for example, show only invoice deletions by a specific user during the last month. The log is paginated, so even workspaces with many entries remain fast and responsive.

Covered entities

Activity logging is integrated into 15 entity endpoints across the platform:

• Clients, Employees, Employee Payments
• Invoices, Payments, Proposals
• Projects, Maintenance Contracts, Maintenance Payments
• Purchases, Suppliers, Referrals
• Seekers, Users

Audit Trail and Compliance

The activity log is more than a convenience feature - it serves as a complete, tamper-resistant audit trail for your business operations. Every data change is recorded automatically, creating a verifiable history that supports compliance requirements and operational accountability.

How the audit trail works

When any record is created, updated, or deleted, the system captures a full JSON snapshot of the record's data at that point in time. This means you can reconstruct the exact state of any record at any moment in its history by reviewing the sequence of log entries. For updates, the snapshot reflects the record's state after the change was applied, giving you a clear picture of what the data looked like at each step.

Immutability

Activity log entries are append-only. Once a log entry is written, it cannot be edited, modified, or deleted by any user - regardless of their role or permissions. The activity log endpoint only supports reading (GET requests). This immutability is what makes the log trustworthy as an audit trail: the historical record is always intact and unaltered.

Retention

Activity logs are kept indefinitely. There is no automatic purging or expiration. Every action ever recorded in your workspace remains available for review, whether it happened yesterday or years ago. This ensures you always have access to the full history when you need it.

Use cases for the audit trail

• Compliance requirements: Demonstrate to auditors or regulators that you maintain a complete record of all data changes, including who made each change and when.
• Dispute resolution: When a client questions an invoice amount or a team member disputes a project change, review the log to see exactly what happened and who was responsible.
• Error investigation: If data looks wrong, trace the history of changes to identify when and how the error was introduced.
• Accountability: Know exactly who changed what and when, creating a culture of responsibility and transparency.
• Data recovery context: If a record was deleted, the activity log's JSON snapshot preserves what the record contained, which can aid in recreation.

Notes vs. activity log

Notes and the activity log serve complementary purposes. The activity log captures what changed - the factual record of data modifications. Notes capture why something changed - the human context, reasoning, and decisions behind the data. For a complete picture, use both: let the activity log track the facts automatically, and use notes to record the context that the log cannot capture on its own.