LITHUANIA: FINAUTO - the Beginning of Financial Audit Automation

In 2024, the National Audit Office of Lithuania (NAOL) launched an ambitious GovTech initiative to begin automating financial audit procedures - a step towards transforming the way auditors work with data.

For many years, auditors had to manually retrieve financial statements from systems managed by the Ministry of Finance – FABIS and VSAKIS – then transform and reconcile data in Excel files. Institutions also submitted signed financial reports in PDF format, which auditors needed to review and compare against accounting records. This process was time consuming and effort intensive and created room for human error.

To improve efficiency, NAOL proposed a digital solution under the Innovation Agency’s GovTech programme and received funding to develop a prototype called FINAUTO – the Financial Audit Automation Tool. Although the first phase was limited in scope, it laid the foundation for the future of automated auditing. Within just a few months, a multidisciplinary team of auditors, IT, and procurement experts turned the idea into a working prototype.

The first version of FINAUTO introduced several core functions:

• Automated data retrieval from FABIS and VSAKIS test environments through APIs and robotic process automation;
• AI-powered OCR technology for recognizing and extracting data from PDF reports;
• Automated reconciliation algorithms that detect inconsistencies between accounting registers and financial statements;
• Generated variance reports for auditors to review potential risks and irregularities.

The prototype demonstrated how automation could reduce manual data collection and preparation, enabling auditors to focus more on analysis and professional judgment. Audited entities also benefit from reduced administrative workload, as data exchange becomes faster and more standardized.

After the successful pilot, NAOL moved into the next phase in 2025, migrating FINAUTO to the production environment and connecting it with real Ministry of Finance systems. The tool is now being tested in actual financial audits, gradually expanding its use and capabilities.

However, this is only the beginning. The system currently automates part of the audit procedures - primarily data collection, transformation, and reconciliation. NAOL plans to continue development by integrating new features such as identification of risky financial transactions and automation of significant-area selection. In the long term, FINAUTO could also be shared with municipal audit offices, strengthening audit quality across the entire public sector.

By: Ms Venera Michalovska, Innovation Advisor of Innovation and Methodology Department, National Audit Office of Lithuania