Reporting

The projects are divided into several reporting periods. Typically, a period lasts 12 or 18 months (and does not necessarily coincide with a calendar year). At the end of each reporting period, the consortium submits a periodic report to the granting authority within 60 days. It consists of a technical report describing the work carried out by the whole consortium and the financial part, where the individual partners describe their costs and explain their use in the project (a request for payment is included). In addition to the periodic report, the consortium is also obliged to continuously add information to the so-called continuous report (this includes information on deliverables, milestones, published publications or project dissemination activities). At the end of the project, in addition to the periodic report, the consortium will also fill in the final report. Reporting to the European Commission takes place fully electronically via the FTO portale. Within a consortium, the coordinator usually requires, in accordance with the consortium agreement, that the partners report to him on a more frequent basis in order to maintain control over the implementation of the project.

Cash flow

The EU contribution is paid out gradually in projects. Immediately after the start of the project, the beneficiaries will receive a pre-financing, which usually provides sufficient resources to cover the expenses of the first reporting period (a certain part of the funds is also transferred to the so-called Mutual Insurance Mechanism at the start of the project). In subsequent periods, beneficiaries will receive interim payments within 90 days of the submission of complete interim reports (including financial statements). The total amount of interim payments made in the project, combined with the advance payment, may not exceed 90% of the maximum EU contribution during the duration of the project. Upon completion of the project and sending the last interim and final report, the balance is paid to the consortium (including the release of funds from the Mutual Insurance Mechanism). The funds are sent to the coordinator's account, which then distributes them to the other partners according to the agreement in the consortium agreement.

Checks and audits

During and after the implementation of the project, beneficiaries may be subject to several types of controls carried out by the European Commission, its executive agencies or external experts and auditors (or the European Court of Auditors, the European Anti-Fraud Office or the European Public Prosecutor's Office). Probably the most common form of verification of the correct implementation of the project are inspections carried out by the project officer. Another control tool is a technical review, sometimes referred to as a technical audit. The last and financially key tool for verifying the proper implementation of the project is the financial audit (sometimes referred to as the second level audit). In addition, beneficiaries whose project costs exceed 430,000 Euros must submit a so-called Certificate on Financial Statements carried out by their own auditor (sometimes referred to as a first-level audit) after the end of the project.

A novelty in Horizon Evrope projects are system and process audits and reliance on the results of audits of other programs and auditors (so-called cross reliance audits).