Explainable artificial intelligence in accounting and financial auditing: a systematic review

Abstract

Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) has emerged as a response to the need to understand and make transparent the decisions of machine learning models, particularly in sensitive contexts such as accounting and financial auditing. In this domain, XAI enables the interpretation of results generated by automated systems applied to fraud detection, risk management, financial analysis, and regulatory compliance, thereby strengthening the trust of auditors and regulators. The objective of this study was to systematically analyze the literature on XAI in accounting and financial auditing in order to identify its application domains, the methods employed, and the main challenges reported. The research was conducted through a systematic literature review following the PRISMA protocol, based on studies retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science. The selected works were organized and synthesized using an analysis matrix, resulting in 85 primary studies. The findings indicate that XAI is mainly applied to fraud detection, credit assessment, financial auditing, and decision-support processes, with a predominance of techniques such as SHAP and LIME. Although these tools enhance transparency, limitations related to computational cost, data quality, explanation stability, and regulatory adaptation persist, highlighting the need to strengthen their integration into auditing processes. Systematic review registration https://osf.io/pb5cy/.