During the project, you must submit reports documenting progress and expenditure in the Horizon Europe project. Read more about reporting, documentation, audits, and deadlines below.
Accounting periods in Horizon Europe projects usually cover 18 months. Within 60 days of each accounting period, the consortium must report to the European Commission the incurred, project-related costs and the progress of the project. The final reporting must also be completed no later than 60 days after the end of the project.
Reporting is conducted by all partners submitting their contributions to the technical (professional) reporting to the coordinator, as well as completing and signing the financial reporting, which is accessed through the European Commission's Funding & Tenders Portal. The coordinator compiles these into one report and sends it to the European Commission. It is important to meet the deadlines. If you fail to do so, you will not receive your EU payment until the following reporting period.
It is important to be able to document all costs in case of an EU audit, which may occur up to five years after the end of the project. Usually, there is no requirement to submit documentation during the project period.
You need to register project hours in a reliable way, and save invoices and other calculations. When purchasing external services or other purchases, you must be able to document that you have not paid above the market price. This is done by documenting that competing offers have been obtained prior to, for example, purchasing or choosing a conference venue.
About the obligations of the beneficiary in relation to the original documentation in:
At the end of the project, the coordinator must prepare a final report for the EU. The final report is both scientific and economic, and it should give an overview of the most significant results and the total consumption.
Within 60 days of completion of the professional work, the coordinator must submit a final report to the EU. The report must contain both the scientific results and the final accounts for the project. The final report shall be submitted together with the last periodic report.
Once the EU has approved the final report, the final part of the EU Grant will be disbursed to the coordinator. The coordinator then distributes the grant to the project partners.
Beneficiaries are obliged to keep all original supporting documents for all direct eligible costs for five years after the final payment by the EU. It is therefore important to save:
All original accounting documents;
This applies to all participants in the project.
If a beneficiary’s project costs exceed EUR 430 000 (or EUR 725 000 if the beneficiary is pre-approved through the Commission’s Systems and Process Audit, SPA), a certificate on the Financial Statement (CFS) must be submitted by an independent auditor together with the final report.
It is important that EU Grants are used according to the contract between the beneficiary and the EU. To avoid fraud with EU Grants, the EU carries out three different types of audit, where the project is audited at different levels. For all three types of audit, beneficiaries must be able to provide documentation related to the project.
Note! Documentation of indirect costs is not required.
The three types of EU audit are:
For more information on what is being audited and how to prepare for an audit, you can consult:
