In the implementation phase of our two ongoing Horizon 2020 projects, it might happen that some items from the budget we predicted do not really fit with what we want to do. In cases in which we want to transfer budget items from one category to another, for example from “direct personnel costs” (staff) to “other direct costs”; (which include travel, services, equipment etc.) - no amendment to the Grant Agreement is necessary:
The estimated budget breakdown indicated in Annex 2 may be adjusted — without an amendment (Article 55) — by transfers of amounts between beneficiaries, budget categories and/or forms of costs set out in Annex 2, if the action is implemented as described in Annex 1.
Transfers of amounts between beneficiaries or between budget categories (or both) do NOT require an amendment, provided that the action is implemented in line with Annex 1 (Article 4.2).
Budget transfers within the personnel cost category and budget transfers to costs of internally invoiced goods and services are possible without having to amend the GA.
However, we still need to keep track of this. These changes, even minor, will have to be justified and explained to the Commission in the reports. So, in order to make sure everything is documented I invite you to use this google doc. If you are transferring some budget items, please indicate for each project: which item you are transferring and where (category and amount) / and most importantly why (provide the reasoning behind it).
And let’s try to make changes between budget categories only when it is absolutely necessary. For bigger changes, the Grant Agreement Amendment is needed (and this we want to avoid…) - so if you are not sure about the adjustment you want to make please reach out. Here under is a rough overview. Hope you find this helpful! @alberto@nadia@noemi@johncoate …
To follow up on this subject: I am trying to document all changes happening both in POPREBEL and NGI. As mentioned above, it’s being done here. Now the two projects have dedicated tables for:
1.) changes that include shifts in between budget categories and
2.) other adjustments that do not require this, but still need to be explained.
I need input from some team members there and I would need you to introduce any missing items.
Note that for NGI - it is likely that the GA amendment will happen. At this point NESTA is still gathering info and details about it and they will keep us informed. In the meantime, we can think of using this opportunity to introduce some of the budget adjustments and changes that we made so far (or are planning to make). But we need to know exactly what we want to include and have a good reasoning behind it. Therefore in the tables related to NGI there is an extra column to indicate if the described adjustment should be introduced in the amendment or not.
On another, but similar note, when hiring any type of new staff please let me know, or introduce the name of the person directly here.
There’s a slight problem with a thread-like format for documentation content in that it is not well navigable when reading, and also not well discoverable between all the other threads in this category.
I propose you rework this content into something similar to this, and also put it into that same “Documentation & Support → Collaboration” category. That’s de-facto our internal standard for process documentation.
