Process description and steps
The general concepts of the Grant Management Services system also apply to the reporting process. For a detailed description of the roles mentioned in this process, see the Roles and access rights in the Online Manual.
Step 1: All beneficiaries receive a notification and log on to the Funding & Tenders Portal
At the end of each reporting period, a beneficiary will receive a notification to complete:
- Their own Financial Statement (and the financial report of their Affiliated Entity (Third Party), if any)
- Their own Budget Forecast (after the Financial Statement has been locked for review and signed)*
Their contribution to the Technical Part of the Periodic Report (this is common for all beneficiaries in the project)
*In case of additional prefinancing, the report does not include a budget forecast. Only the reports to be submitted at the end of a reporting period, include a budget forecast. The 'budget forecast' report item of these report(s) will display 0.00 € for the 'additional prefinancing' period(s).
To fill in the information the beneficiary must log on to the Funding & Tenders Portal and access the relevant project.
In the right-hand side of your screen, in the process list, you will find the Periodic Reporting process.
In the left-upper corner of the process box, a link to the Periodic Reporting will lead you to an overview of the periodic report consisting of both the Financial Statement and the Technical Part of the Periodic Report.
Step 2: All beneficiaries complete their own Financial Part (Financial Statement), their own Budget forecast and their contribution to the Technical Part of the Periodic Report. Beneficiaries e-sign and submit their Financial Parts to the Coordinator
A. Completing your Financial Part
a. Draft the financial statement
The Participant Contacts (or Coordinator Contacts if it concerns the coordinating organisation)perform this action.
For Affiliated Entities (Third Parties): the Participant Contacts or Project Financial Signatories of the main beneficiary perform this action.
Click on the task "Financial Part" and complete the costs.
Click here to find more information on how to complete your financial statement.
Complete the requested information and save.
Complete the requested information and, if required, upload 
a Certificate on the Financial Statements and fill in the necessary connected data.
If necessary, you may:
-
view the certificate or -
delete the certificate
Click the Validation button to see whether you have filled in all information correctly, then close the current screen and return to the the Funding & Tenders Portal.
aa. Lock the financial statement for review
Click the "Lock for Review" button, which will prevent further editing and generate a pdf document (This might take a few minutes.)
Confirm by flagging the box and clicking OK.
Same action can be applied for the Financial Part of an Affiliated Entity (Third Party).
aaa. Electronically sign the Financial Statement & submit it to the coordinator to include it in the Periodic Report
Only users with the role Project Financial Signatory (PFSIGN) can perform this action.
Note that also users with the roles Participant Contacts, Coordinator Contacts, Primary Coordinator Contacts, Task Managers and Team Members can open the .pdf document to see the data, but that they can't unlock the data.
If necessary, the Financial Statement can be unlocked ("Unlock to draft") for further editing and after that electronically signed & submitted ("Sign and Submit") to the coordinator.
The system will then ask you to confirm that the information is valid.
Once you have confirmed, the system will ask you to complete your EU Login password, in order to electronically sign the Financial Statement (the comment box is optional).
At this point you have completed your Financial Statement. Your statement has been electronically signed & submitted to the Coordinator. It is accessible via the task Periodic Report composition. Please click on the Financial Statement pdf 
to consult the data you have submitted to the coordinator.
aaaa. Review the Financial Statement of Affiliated Entities/Third Parties and Submit it to Coordinator
Participant Contacts (or Coordinator Contacts if it concerns the coordinating organisation) can unlock the draft for review and submit it to the Coordinator for inclusion in the Periodic Report
B. Completing your Budget Forecast
The Budget Forecast is an additional part of the periodic report which is not included in the technical and financial parts of the report. It is made available to the beneficiary once the Financial Statement is locked for review and signed in the Portal.
There will be no Budget Forecast for a beneficiary when:
- there is no Financial Statement submitted for that beneficiary
- the beneficiary has been terminated
If a project is terminated early, there will be no budget forecast for the final reporting.
b. Draft the Budget Forecast
Only Participant Contacts (or Coordinator Contacts if it concerns the coordinating organisation)perform this action.
Click on the "Budget Forecast" link to complete the task.
To see how to complete your Budget Forecast, click here
bb. Lock the Budget Forecast for review and submit it to the Coordinator
Only Participant Contacts (or Coordinator Contacts if it concerns the coordinating organisation), can finish the drafting and lock the data and submit the generated report to the Coordinator.
Click on the "Lock & Submit" button to complete this action.
The same action can be applied for the Budget Forecast of an Affiliated Entity (Third Party).
Check the box and click on "OK" to confirm.
Once the Budget Forecast(s) have been submitted, you can view it/them by clicking on 'Periodic Report composition'.
Click on the icon beside a "Budget Forecast" to view the details of that forecast.
Once sent to the Coordinator, the Budget Forecast cannot be edited anymore. If you need to edit the Budget Forecast after submission, you will need to get in touch with the Coordinator Contact. Only they can send it back for editing after you have submitted it to the Coordinator (by clicking on the 'Redo' button).
C. Completing your contribution to the Technical Part of the Periodic Report
c. Complete the Technical Part
The Participant Contact usually performs this action (also users with the roles Project Financial Signatories, Coordinator Contacts, Primary Coordinator Contacts and Task Managers can perform this action)
Click on the task "Technical Part contribution" to complete the requested information.
Click here to find more information on how to complete your technical part of the periodic report.
The principle of the technical part is that all beneficiaries contribute to this technical part. When two participants are working on the same data, the data of the beneficiary saving first, will be saved, whilst the other participant receives a notification that the data have been changed and that his data are lost.
Then click the "Save" button. Then close the current screen and return to the Funding & Tenders Portal. The validation button can give you an overview of errors which prevent you from saving.
cc. Lock the Technical Part for review
Only users with the role Participant Contact, Project Financial Signatory or Task manager can perform this action.
Click the "Lock for Review" button, which will prevent further editing and generate a pdf document.
Confirm the action by flagging the checkbox and clicking "OK".
Locking for review might take a few minutes: keep refreshing the page to see the pdf.
ccc. Review the Technical report and accept and include it for submission to the EU
Only users with the role Coordinator Contact and Primary Coordinator Contact perform this action.
Note that also users with the roles Financial Signatories, Legal Signatories, Task Managers and Team Members can open the pdf to see the data, but that they can't unlock the data, nor accept & include the report.
Once reviewed, the Technical report can be unlocked ("Unlock to draft") for further editing or accepted and included ("Accept & Include") in the Periodic Report (you might have to refresh the page to see the buttons appear).
Step 3: The Coordinator approves the elements of the Periodic Report & submits to the EU
Only users with the role Coordinator Contact and Primary Coordinator Contact can perform this action.
The Coordinator must review and explicitly approve those elements of the Periodic Report, which he wishes to submit to the EU. The coordinator can:
- reject a Financial Statement back to a beneficiary for further editing (by clicking the
button) - approve the Financial Statement and include it in the Periodic Report (by clicking the
button) - reject the Budget Forecast back to the beneficiary (by clicking the button)
- include any Budget Forecast that you select for inclusion in the Consolidated Budget Forecast (by clicking the button)
- unlock the Technical Part of the Periodic Report for further editing (by clicking the button)
A draft Consolidated Budget Forecast will be generated for the Coordinator if at least one partner's Budget Forecast is included and it will display the data for all Budget Forecasts selected for inclusion. To access its content, click on the link "Draft Consolidated Budget Forecast".
Before submitting the Periodic Report to the EU, the Coordinator can further modify the draft Consolidated Budget Forecast by rejecting any of its included items (clicking the "Redo" button). After each modification, the draft Consolidated Budget Forecast will be generated again.
Once the elements of the Periodic Report are approved, the Periodic Report can be submitted to the EU.
The Financial Statements, the Consolidated Budget Forecast, and the Technical Part of the Periodic Report are submitted to the EU in one single submission.
To submit, click on the button Submit to EU.
At least one financial statement and the technical part needs to be included for the Submit to EU button to become available.
If there are still validation warnings at the submission of the periodic report, the Submit to EU button will display a warning sign and a warning message when hovering over the button.
Click on the button to find out more about the validation errors (e.g. the amounts included in the Budget Forecast for specific cost categories are different than those included in the Grant Agreement). If you agree with the warning, click Continue.
In some cases, if not all statements were included, it will ask you to confirm that you are aware about it and that therefore their costs will not be considered for payment.
The button will be disabled if there are validation errors (in order to be able to submit to the EU at least one Financial Statement plus the Technical Part of the Periodic Report must be provided; also, a Budget Forecast must be submitted if a Financial Statement has been submitted).
Click the Submit to EU button to submit the periodic report to the EU.
The process goes to the status Submitted and the process box turns blue (this means the process is in the hands of the EU now).
The final version of the Consolidated Budget Forecast is generated during the submission of the periodic report to EC and will contain the budget forecasts for all partners. 0.00 values will be displayed in the consolidated budget forecast for:
Please note that the documents generated after the periodic report is submitted are visible to all the members of the consortium (before being submitted, the financial documents and the Budget Forecasts are visible only to the concerned beneficiary and to the Coordinator).
Step 4: The EU reviews the submitted Periodic Report and accepts, requests additional information or rejects it
The EU can accept the report and start preparing the interim payment.
The EU can request additional information in order to accept the Periodic Report. The Coordinator will be notified via the Participant Notification System. S/he should read the request letter and upload the document containing the requested information.
After uploading the document, complete the task.
The EU can also ask for a revision of the Report, this means that the process described above starts again.
Step 5a: The Coordinator does not agree with the content of the Payment Letter and uploads observations
A letter containing the decision regarding the interim/final payment is sent by the EU via a Formal Notification. The Coordinator will be notified about the sending of this letter via the Participant Notification System. After receiving the Payment Letter, the Coordinator has 30 days to submit observations on the EU decision if it does not agree with its content.
If you need to consult the Payment letter, you can find it in the task - click the link to the document to download it.
The document is also stored under Process Documents- it can be accessed and downloaded from there. To download the letter, click the link and then the download icon 
:
To upload the observations document, click on the Upload button:
Then click Add new attachment to attach the document:
To remove the attached document, you just need to click on the "X".
Once the uploading is finished, click OK:
After uploading the observations, click Submit to EU to send them to the EU. A notification will be sent to the Commission to inform that the observations have been submitted.
If the Observations document has been successfully submitted, the corresponding action is not available anymore and the process will be completed. The submitted Observations document will be added to the Process documents section.
Step 5b: The Coordinator agrees with the content of the Payment Letter and closes the process without observations
If you agree with the content of the payment letter, complete the process without sending any observations. For this, you need to click the Close without Observations button:
If you select this option a warning message will be displayed:
Click OK to confirm or Cancel if you wish to go back and upload observations.
After the observations have been submitted or the process has been closed without observations, the EU will state its final position via a Formal Notification containing the "EU final payment letter".