Automation of Local Fund Audit (ALFA): Aligning the Goal of Audit in Nation

Abstract

The Audit process conducted by the Directorate of Local Fund Audit (DLFA) was manually driven and involved a lot of paper works with a high probability of error. The overall process had phases like planning, execution and post-audit process. It used to take approx. 54 days at least to plan the Annual Audit Program for various auditee institutions in its purview, which is more than 2 months when it comes with weekends and holidays. The entire planning was done with the active participation of Dr Sadangi and his team. But manual entry and verification at each step made it strenuous as well as mundane. Once the audit plan was approved by the headquarters, it was executed by the District Office Officials in parts. There were a lot of manual efforts to draft the report and the time taken to draft the report was completely dependent upon the size of the report. It required a lot of time to fetch data, prepare statements and then verify it. The present case deals with how automation has not only helped in reducing audit cycle time but also in future, technology can help in Analytics, Analysis and decision making process.