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The payment application is made in Min ansökan by registering expenditures and co-financing corresponding to those expenditures. You shall add the mandatory documents and the joint progress report as annexes to the payment application.
After submission of the payment application, you will be able to download a signing document which is to be signed by the authorized signatory at the Lead partner organisation. The signed signing document shall then be uploaded in Min ansökan as additional information. If you haven’t submitted a verification of the bank account before, please upload a bank statement or a financial identification as a proof that the bank account belongs to the Lead partner organisation.
Note: Small-scale projects do not need to report expenditures when submitting the payment application, just upload the joint progress report as an attachment to the payment application.
Payments for regular projects will be made based on approved expenditures and the approved progress/final report.
Payment of the approved lump sum for small-scale projects will be paid as soon as the joint progress report is approved by the Joint Secretariat.
Payments will be made in EUR to the Lead partner who shall disseminate the funds to respective partner as agreed.
Note! Reporting on the fulfillment of indicators is made in the section called Status report directly in Min ansökan.
The expenditure report
The expenditure report in Min Ansökan is created by uploading csv-files with costs for each partner for the current period. The amounts entered in the csv-files shall be gathered from the project ledger for each partner. This means that one line in the csv-file shall correspond to one verification number in the ledger. However, if one verification number refers to posts in several accounts, please make sure to make separate lines for each account with that verification number in the csv-file. As an example, if verification number 56 is split between account 4010 and account 7510 in the ledger, it should be entered as two separate lines in the csv-file.
The csv-file is created from an Excel file. Start with an export of a file from your system for financial records (the ledger) into Excel. The excel file must then be saved as a csv file. A Comma Separated Values (CSV) file is a plain text file that contains a list of data. Open the excel file and select Save as, give the file a name and select csv file format. The csv file can now be imported into Min Ansökan and when doing that you can choose whom of the partners the expenditure in this file refers to.
If your accounting system does not allow exporting into excel, you will need to create an own excel file with all the necessary information from the ledger. There is also an option to create the expenditure report in the system by adding one line at the time, which can be very time consuming why the programme recommend uploading the costs via the csv-file.
Any costs entered in the project accounts that are not eligible or not to be reported as real costs shall be removed before uploading the files.
If your excelfile consists of many sheets, you need to save each sheet as a separate csv.-file. To avoid trouble when uploading the file, please make sure that you don’t have empty cells or lines.
The mandatory headings for the uploaded csv file are the following (the headings must be spelled correctly, but the relative order does not matter):
The different headings refer to each verification in the ledger. The information concerns the verification number, the verification text, the date when the cost was accounted (posted in the ledger) (date format YYYY-MM-DD), the date when the cost was paid (date format YYYY-MM-DD), the number and name of the account in the ledger, the name of the supplier (for external expertise and service costs or equipment costs), the currency (SEK for Swedish partners and EUR for Finnish partners), the amount, which cost type the cost refers to in the payment application and if it is supported with an appendix.
Applicant’s comment
For each verification it is also possible to give a comment, own additional information for a verification. That information can be uploaded via the file as well but are not mandatory to be able to upload the file. You can therefore choose whether you want to add the column to the csv-files or if you prefer to add this information for a specific verification line directly in the system once you have uploaded the file.
In-depth cost specification
For each verification it is also possible to give an in-depth cost specification, that is some additional information for a verification regarding depreciations, procurement above the EU threshold, state aid and the like. That information can be uploaded via the file as well but are not mandatory to be able to upload the file. The in-depth cost specification is not applicable to all types of costs or all programmes using the system so it might be easier to add this information for a specific verification line directly in the system once you have uploaded the file. The questions in the in-depth cost specification are (italicized text are not applicable for Interreg Aurora):
Swedish partners’ costs shall be uploaded in SEK and the system will convert the amounts into EUR using the monthly accounting exchange rate of the European Commission in the month during which the payment application is submitted in Min Ansökan.
The Commission exchange rates used by the system can be found on the official website:
https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/procedures-guidelines-tenders/information-contractors-and-beneficiaries/exchange-rate-inforeuro_en
Payment applications for regular projects – 40%-method
The payment application for projects using the 40%-method will only need to be supported by documentation verifying the eligible staff cost for each project partner. When creating the expenditure report, calculate 40% of the registered staff cost for each partner and add lines for those costs as well. This is done either in the csv-file or as an addition of lines directly in the expenditure report after uploading the real costs.
Payment applications for regular projects – other than 40%-method
The payment application for projects that chose to not use the 40%-method will need to be supported by more documentation to verify the eligible costs for the project. The staff cost as well as costs for external expertise, equipment and infrastructure and works need to be verified. The costs for office and administration (15% of registered staff costs) as well as costs for travel and accommodation (15% of registered staff costs) for each partner need to be calculated and you need to add lines for those costs as well in the expenditure report. This is done either in the csv-file or as an addition of lines directly in the expenditure report after uploading the real costs.
Documents to support the expenditures:
Naming of documents to be uploaded in Min Ansökan
The documents you upload as supporting documents in the payment application need to be clearly named. Instructions for the naming of documents can be found on the webpage For project beneficiaries – Interreg Aurora
Please note that any answers to completions also need to be named according to the instructions.
Management verifications and payments
When the payment application is received, the controllers from Sweden and Finland will perform the management verifications of the expenditure reports belonging to partners from the respective country.
The checks are mostly made as administrative (desk-based) checks by checking supporting documents and calculations but can also be made as an on-the-spot check.
The controllers will contact the specific partner if any completions or clarifications are needed, and the Lead Part will get a copy of the request. The person whom the Controller wishes to answer the said completions/clarifications will receive an e-mail notification from Min Ansökan when the Controllers have published a request for completions/clarifications. All contact persons for the project have the possibility to see the request in Min Ansökan. Only the person uploading the answer as well as the Controllers can see the answer.
When the progress/final report is approved by the Joint secretariat and all partners’ expenditures are checked by the controllers, the Managing Authority will make the payment.
The payment will be sent to the Lead Partner EU’s bank account and a payment notification will be sent to the Lead Partner EU. The Lead Partner EU is responsible for distributing the received grant to the project partners. The eligible expenditure as well as any deductions made will be visible for every partner in Min ansökan once the decision on the payment application is done. It is possible to raise complaints if the beneficiary is not consent with the outcome of the decision of payment.
Interreg Aurora is a brand new programme in the European Interreg community for cross-border cooperation 2021-2027.
The programme offers great opportunities and enables new and exciting cross-border cooperation in the northernmost part of Europe and Sápmi.
Interreg Aurora Managing Authority
County Administrative Board of Norrbotten
Stationsgatan 5
971 86 Luleå
SWEDEN
Phone: +46 (0)10-225 50 00
E-mail: interregaurora@lansstyrelsen.se