Budget
The budget section differs according to the section of the project. Section 1 projects will provide a more detailed budget table. Financial Officers have the access to view the data entered for both Section 1 and Section 2 projects, but they do not have the access to edit and approve any financial data of Section 2 projects. Nevertheless, the coordinators of Section 2 projects still need to enter the data of the financial part, without waiting for confirmation from the PRIMA Financial Officers.
Screenshot 48: The “Budget” section has three tabs: Planning, Mid-term report, and Final report
The partners enter their organizations’ budget information the project coordinator checks this information then submits it in “Planning”. This information should be checked by the Financial Officer. Until the Financial Team approves or rejects this table, it is not possible to make any modifications by the project coordinator.
Once the information is validated, the partners can enter the information for the mid-term report, which means the first half of the project. The Project Coordinator submits the report and it goes to a workflow to be viewed by the Financial Officers. Meanwhile, Section 2 projects do not report the financial information and there is not a workflow for midterm and final reports approval for Section 2 projects.
Both Section 1 and Section 2 projects ask for the information of the amounts with two boxes. The larger box on the left is for the integer numbers and when the mouse is near the box, a pop-up shows “EUR” to indicate that the number of Euros should be written here. The amount of the cents should be written in the smaller box on the right. When the mouse is near the box, a pop-up shows “Cents” to remind the box shall be used to write the cents.
Available actions in Budget – Section 1 Projects
Available actions in the “Budget” section are four buttons;
Edit Button: Is used to edit information in that row
Details Button: Opens the “Details Tables”
Financial Statement Letter: Opens the “Financial Statement Letter”.
Delete: Deletes the row from the table
Screenshot 49: Available Actions in Section 1 Projects
When clicked on “Edit”;
The Section 1 projects’ budget tables ask for the following information for each partner:
Direct personnel costs
Direct costs of subcontracting
Direct costs of financial support
Other direct costs
Information for indirect costs
Other information
Each title consists of sub-elements and their explanations can be found in the form of pop-ups.
Screenshot 50: Budget Table of Section 1 projects
In the main table, there are the following fields; total costs, Maximum PRIMA contribution, and Maximum Grant Amount.
Total costs: is auto calculated from other inputs "(j=a+b+c+d+e+f+g+h)", so modifying the other fields will be auto reflected to the total cost. These fields can be modified by the financial team (or by the PMs and partners before submitting the budget).
Maximum PRIMA contribution: is auto-calculated from the "Total Cost" and "Reimbursement rate", changing any of the two will be auto reflected the maximum PRIMA contribution. These fields can be modified by the financial team (or by the PMs and partners before submitting the budget).
Maximum grant amount: This field is a manual entry and can be filled only by the financial team.
Details Button:
In addition to the main table, there will be “Details Tables” to fill for section 1 projects. After entering information and saving, the budget details will be visible in the main budget table. On the left, it is possible to click on “Details”. Upon clicking a new section appears in the same window and there will be certain details tables depending on the third-party partners and the phase of the budget. 3rd and 6th tables will only be available for mid-term and final reporting. Also, the details tables with the numbers "3, 4, 5, and 8" are not available for third-party partners while they are filling their budget details.
Screenshot 51: Budget/ Details Tables I
Screenshot 52: Budget/ Details Tables II
Screenshot 53: Budget/ Details Tables III
The budget table to fill for Section 2 projects for each partner is as follows :
Permanent staff
Temporary staff (except Ph.D.)
Ph.D.
Consumables
Travel & subsistence
Equipment
Other costs to be specified (for example sub-contracting, workshop organization...)
Overheads
Screenshot 54: Budget Table of Section 2 projects
For the section 2 project budget, the field funding agency will be retrieved from the PRIMA funding agencies. In case of a deviation in the budget allocation and person-months, please report it when the mid-term is reached.
Financial Statement Letter Button for Section 1 Projects:
The button will show icons based on the financial statement letter status, an empty circle if it is missing with a popover “Financial statement letter is missing”, a loading icon of it was uploaded then the budget was modified with a popover “Financial statement letter is outdated” and a check icon, if it is up-to-date with a popover “Financial statement letter, is up-to-date”.
Screenshot 55: If financial Statement Letter has not yet been uploaded, there will be an empty circle symbol shown on the button
Screenshot 56: After the financial statement has been uploaded, it is up-to-date and there will be a tick symbol shown on the button
Screenshot 57: If the financial information is edited after uploading the financial statement, the statement will not be up-to-date, therefore it will show a “Loading” symbol in the button
Clicking the button will open a window, it shows who was the last person uploading the document and the time of the last modification, a button to upload the financial statement letter (after a document is uploaded it will show two buttons to view and delete the document instead) and a button to extract an MS Word document with the data filled from MEL.
When the coordinator submits the mid-term and final budget reports, MEL will check if all the partners have uploaded a singed up-to-date version of the financial statement letter, otherwise, it will prevent the submission with an alert Signed financial statement letter is missing/outdated for: (the name of the partner).
Note: the system won't compare the actual data when showing the financial statement is outdated, meaning that editing the budget and clicking on Save even without changing anything will outdate the financial statement letter, also editing the financial statement letter and clicking Save even without uploading a new document will change the status to up-to-date.
The file has to be signed by a legal representative or an authorized person in the entity before uploading back to the platform.