2.10. Ways to monitor project budgets

Owned by Varmo Pilt
02 December 2021
3 min read

A separate financing source will be opened for each project that is opened (see also: initiating a project), to which all the project related financial transactions, receipts and expenses and revenue and expenditure are linked in the accounting software. If several structural units are involved in the project, unit-based sub-sources will be created if necessary. To this end, it is also necessary to prepare a detailed budget of the respective structural units.

The project budget is approved in the project proposal (by budget line) and in the decision or contract (the total budget). If necessary, the project manager shall provide a more detailed breakdown by budget line, for example by department, and forward it to the project related contact person in the Research Administration Office.

NB! If it is necessary to amend the approved budget lines, the terms of amending the budget must be reviewed and, if necessary, the funder must be informed or amendment of the budget must be requested prior to incurring any expenses. The project’s contact person in the Research Administration Office and the Target Funding Division must also be informed of the amendment of the budget.

The implementation of a project budget can be monitored:

  • on the university’s budget form (by revenue and expenditure items) on the university’s intranet in the BUDGET VIEW

The budget view gives an overview of the revenue and expenditure associated with the project; select the financing source code in the line “financing source” and the start and end date in the line “period”.  When you have made the first selections, you can move from budget lines to revenue and expenditure entries with a few clicks, where you can see information about the content and amounts of the transactions. Data on personnel costs in the budget view are non-personal - wage costs are recorded as aggregate totals by month.

NB! In the budget view, revenues and expenditures can be tracked by year. If you need a statement on several periods, you have to prepare statements separately for each year and then aggregate the data obtained.

  • on the statement sent by the Finance Office from the project module in NAV, on the form approved by the project funder (by cost item, based on the data from the project proposal or decision).

The project module of the accounting software of the Finance Office allows you to compile a report with the following fields:

  • General information (title, applicant, funder, period)
  • Dimensions (financing source, programme)
  • List of project partners (roles related to the project and persons involved; financial data of persons receiving remuneration for the project)
  • Project financing (total cost, grant amount, etc.)
  • Project conditions (information on indirect costs)
  • Budget and execution of the project (by activity code entered in the budget or by work package based on the proposal or decision)
  • Financial statements (periods and deadlines of the statements, costs reported and approved and costs still to be submitted; detailed or aggregate statements)

Siret Malleus issues a statement from the project module at your request. The corresponding request shall be sent to the address siret.malleus@taltech.ee.

NB! The project module contains data on projects that started in 2019 or later. Other statements regarding earlier projects, e.g. a statement of expenditure of a project financing source from an accounting program, can be obtained from the action consultants of the Research Administration Office

Continuous monitoring of the project budget reduces the risk of cost overruns. When a cost overrun occurs, a request for amending the budget must be submitted to the funder or the coordinator of the project in the European Commission must be notified of the wish to make amendments to expenditure lines. In the case of projects funded by the European Commission, it is generally possible to make amendments to expenditure lines by way of a simplified procedure, provided that the funds have been planned in the expenditure line items, from or to where you wish to transfer funds. If no funds are planned in the expenditure line items, an amendment to the contract must be initiated and this is usually a very long process, in which case we recommend finding additional funds elsewhere.

In the case of projects supported from EU Structural Funds not based on unit costs, the project coordinator of the funder shall be informed of the budget amendment and if necessary, the amendment of the contract should be initiated. The Research Administration Office helps to formalise amendments to contracts. A sample amendment to contract can be found HERE.