The Final Report
The coordinator needs to submit a final report to the EU at least 60 days after completion of the academic work. The report needs to feature the research results as well as the final financial report of the project. The final report is submitted along with the last periodical report. Read more by clicking on the phase ‘Project implementation' in the figure above. The last part of the EU-grant will be paid to the coordinator when the EU has approved the final report. Afterwards, the coordinator is to distribute the grant to the project partners.
Documentation Requirements After the Project
Grantees are obligated to store all original documentation for all directly eligible costs for 5 years after the last EU-payment. This appears from the grant agreement’s article 18. It is therefore important to store every original voucher, employment-contracts, invoices, recording of hours etc. This goes for every participant in the project.
Three Types of EU Audits
It is important that the EU-funding is used according to the contract between grantee and the EU. The EU can therefore implement different types of audits. There are three types of EU-audits which will revise the project on different levels. The grantee is to be able to provide all the documentation related to the project, for all three types of audits. Please note that there is no requirement of documentation for indirect costs.
The three types of audits are:
- Check: An administrative assessment of the explanations for the eligible costs as well as progresses in the project. Check is done by the Project Officer.
- Review: A professional evaluation of the project, done by a specialist on behalf of the EU.
- Audit: An actual audit of the eligible costs from selected grantees. Audit is done by an accountancy firm on behalf of the EU or by the EU.