What is an external audit?

Financial audits (or reviews) by the Commission, or a company they have appointed, may be initiated by them during the project lifetime or up to two years after. These audits will check “everything” about your costs and procedure for calculating your cost. Better leave this to research support and accounting. Audits will happen randomly and there may be several years between them. The likelihood of your project being audited is therefore quite small.

The same can happen for your work in a technical audit. EC may come in, check what you have done, who has done it and where and when. This will include interviews with scientific people that has performed the work. Again, EC may go into a quite detailed investigation.

Moral:

If you run your project properly, document work and costs and follow the Annex 1, audits will go smooth.

Punishments:

If the audits or reviews reveals improper cost claims or cost for work not performed or any other deviations or errors the consequences may be severe for your project and organisation.

• It takes a lot of time and effort to settle disputes or clarify problems (many years)
• Not documented cost or work not performed may lead to termination of the project and/or recovery of costs i.e. EC wants their money back (on this they will never give up)
• If errors are found systematic i.e. you have done it in several projects or in a systematic way over time they may punish your whole organisation and all your project