Payment applications – EU-funding

The payment application in Min ansökan consists of: 

• the expenditure report; which you can read more about below on this webpage
• the joint progress report; please read more about the progress report here 
• the reporting of so far achieved indicators; please read more about the indicators here

Note for Small-scale projects: You do not need to report expenditures, nor indicators. It is only necessary to upload the joint progress report and then submit the payment application (and complete it with the signing document after the submission).

The expenditure report
The expenditure report consists of the costs and the corresponding co-financing that partly finances those costs. The costs are most easily registered by uploading a csv-file with each partners costs from the project ledger regarding the period. It is also possible to add lines manually, one by one. However, you cannot lump all costs in one line, all lines in the expenditure report should correspond to lines in the ledger.

All partners shall report on the same schedule as long as they have expenditures in the period. For partners who report costs, you shall add all mandatory documents (see below which those documents are). For partners who have had no costs in a reporting period, you just leave them out and write a comment about that in the joint progress report.

• Reported costs shall be specified with lines corresponding to each line of eligible costs entered in each partner’s project ledger. If one verification number refers to posts in several accounts, please make sure that separate lines for each verification in each account are reported. 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 expenditure report.
• Non eligible costs shall not be reported.
• Costs covered by a flat rate should not be reported as they will be added automatically by the system based on reported staff cost. 
• 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

Add co-financing corresponding to at least 35% of the reported costs. Add the amounts you have been paid from external financiers (no verifications needed) and if needed, fill it up to 35%, by adding own financing from the partners.

How to create a csv-file
Start with exporting an Excel file from your project ledger and save it as a csv file, a Comma Separated Values (CSV) file, which is a plain text file that contains a list of data. If, for some reason, you are not able to export an excel file from your financial records, you can create an own excel file where you add all necessary information from the ledger before saving it as a csv file. To save an excel file to a csv file, open the excel file and select Save as, give the file a name and select csv file format. The costs reported via the csv-file should correspond to the ledger, however you need to delete lines referring to costs covered by flat rates or are ineligible costs. You can post those kind of costs in your ledger but they shall not be kept in the csv-file when you create the expenditure report. 

When you upload the csv-files you will be asked to choose whom of the partners the expenditure in respective file refers to.

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 and make sure that you use the mandatory headings (must be spelled correctly, but the relative order does not matter).

You can find templates with the headings for the csv-file at Templates and documents

Attachments for the payment application
In below bullet points you can see the documentation needed for the payment application. Some documents are needed in every report while others are needed only in the first report and whenever changes occur. If something is missing the programme authorities will ask you to submit it. 

The bullet points are explained in more detail further down on this webpage where you also find instructions for the naming of the files you upload as well as links to different templates. Please note that any answers to completions also need to be named according to the instructions.

• Lead partner’s bank account (with first report and if changes occur)
• Administrative routines (with first report and whenever changes occur)
• Proof of authorization to sign (with first report and whenever changes occur)
• Task assignments for staff (with first report and whenever changes occur)
• Documents identifying the salary costs (with first report and whenever changes occur)
• Partner certificate (every report)
• Project account ledger (every report)
• Summary of staff cost (every report)
• Other documents (only on demand)

Bank account for payments
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. The verification shall be in the form of BIC and IBAN. 

Name the document like this: 
BIC-IBAN Partner name

Administrative routines
A description of administrative routines for every partner organisation shall be submitted with the first payment application (a template is available on the webpage Templates and documents). If changes occur, please keep the description updated. The controllers might ask for a new description when they notice something that do not correspond to the submitted description. 

Name the documents like this: 
FI_Admroutines_Partner name
SWE_ Admroutines_Partner name

Proof of authorization to sign 
The programme authorities need to have documents verifying the right to sign the partner certificate for each partner and the right to sign the signing document regarding the payment application. These documents shall be submitted with the first payment application. When the authorization changes or new people sign the documents, please attach new proofs of the authorization to sign. 

Name the documents like this:
FI_Proof of authorization_Partner name
SWE_ Proof of authorization_Partner name

Partner certificate
In every report you need to add certificates on respective partners’ reported expenditure using the template on the webpage Templates and documents. The amount in the partner certificate shall correspond to the total of reported expenditure for respective partner, including flat rates. The partner certificates shall be signed by an authorized signatory for each partner.  E-signatures must be accompanied by graphic or text elements that show the electronic process by which the signature was created.  

Name the documents like this:
FI_Partner Certificate_Partner name
SWE_ Partner Certificate_Partner name

Project account ledger
You need to add a ledger regarding real costs for the current reporting period, from the system of the financial records of the partner organisations (the system report, not the information exported to excel). Costs covered by flat rates do not need to be included in the ledger. 

Name the documents like this: 
FI_Ledger_periodYYMM-YYMM_Partner name
SWE_ Ledger_periodYYMM-YYMM_Partner name

Summary of staff cost
The staff cost shall be compiled in Excel, using the template on the webpage Templates and documents when there are staff costs in the period. Please note that the template contains information texts and examples on how to fill the template.

Name the excel-files like this:
FI_Summary of staff cost_Partner name
SWE_ Summary of staff cost_Partner name

Task assignments
A task assignment document shall be issued for each employee, both full time and part time assignments. Or, in exceptional cases, a different document covering requirements as indicated in the template task assignment (the fixed percentage of time to be worked by the staff member on the project per month with a proportionate detailed description of the tasks). The task assignments shall be submitted with the first report and whenever changes occur. You can find the template task assignment on the webpage Templates and documents.

Name the documents like this:
FI_Task assignment_Partner name_Initial
SWE_Task assignment_Partner name_Initial

Documents identifying the salary costs
The documents needed refer to all the different types of salary that form the gross salary and employer’s social contributions and other compulsory payments for the staff member. This can be payslips or other accounting documents where the employment costs are clearly detectable. If there are no changes to the salary within the first reporting period, it is sufficient to only submit the payslip for the first month. But if the salary differs between the months, you need to submit them all. If/when salary costs differs between reporting periods and months, you need to submit new documents in coming periods. Please put all payslips for one partner in one document and not one document for each person.

Name the documents like this:
FI_Document salaries_Partner name
SWE_ Document salaries_Partner name

Other documents (only on demand):
Employment contract or any other equivalent legal agreement that permits the identification of the employment relationship with the partner organisation; Proof of payment of real costs (e.g., extract from the reliable accounting system of the organisation); Copies of invoices and receipts; Documentation verifying the correct public procurement procedure; Documentation verifying the correct use of the EU-emblem

Name the documents like this:
FI – Partner name – Type of document
SWE – Partner name – Type of document.
If you submit a copy of an invoice, please also name it with the verification number.

Signing document for the payment application
When you have submitted the payment application you need to complete the application with the signing document which is possible to download when you have submitted the payment application. The signing document must be signed by an authorized signatory at the Lead partner organization. If your organization uses e-signatures, those must be accompanied by graphic or text elements that show the electronic process by which the signature was created. The signed signing document shall be uploaded in Min ansökan as additional information. The signing document shall be submitted preferably within a few days after the submission of the payment application. The payment application cannot be finally processed before the signing document has been submitted.

Management verifications and payments
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.

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 project leader at the Lead Partner organisation will also be notified. 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.