Lump Sum Funding

Under the ordinary model you spend, collect receipts and prove every cost. Under a lump sum the amount is fixed in advance and payment turns on one question: is the work package complete or not.

This is not "a simpler grant with fewer requirements". It is a different thing to prove: work done, rather than costs incurred.

Two types and the detailed budget table

Type 1 – the amount is fixed in the topic text. Type 2 – you set it yourself, and a detailed budget table is annexed to Part B: a macro-enabled Excel file downloaded from the submission system.

The cost estimates in it must be "an approximation of your actual costs", follow the same eligibility rules as ordinary grants, and match your usual accounting practice. The table itself computes the split per beneficiary and per work package and applies the funding rate.

A technical trap: the file is issued as .xlsm but must be uploaded back as .xlsx – the system rejects .xlsm for security reasons.

What enters the grant agreement (Annex 2) is the split, not the table. Once the amount is fixed, later price changes are not reopened.

Payment: complete or not

The coordinator flags each work package complete or not complete. There is no interim payment for a partially completed package. Partial payment is possible only at the balance, at the end of the project.

A package may be declared complete even if something is missing – if all substantial work was done, or equivalent work was done, or the deviations are duly justified. Achieving objectives and milestones is "desirable but not a requirement for completion". Where several beneficiaries share a package, it is not complete until all of them are done.

If a package is rejected, you are first invited to respond to the project officer's comments. Rejection does not mean losing the money: the package can be finished and declared in any subsequent reporting period.

Ex-post technical review

There are no financial checks, reviews or audits of costs at all – with no financial reporting there is nothing to audit. Instead Horizon Europe provides for in-depth technical reviews after payment with external experts.

They are triggered within two, three or five years after the balance is paid (the exact period is in your Data Sheet), focus on the work of one individual participant in a given period, and may involve supporting documents, interviews with key staff and an on-site visit.

The practical point: a lump sum removes the duty to evidence costs, not the duty to keep evidence that the work was done.

Two mistakes that cost points

Splitting into small packages. The guidance is explicit: lump sum funding should not lead to subdividing the project into many small work packages. What is not a work package: a single activity, a single task, a "percentage of progress", or a period of time such as "year one activities".

Inflated personnel costs. Experts check against a dashboard showing the spread of personnel costs between the 20th and 80th percentile by country and organisation type. Higher figures are allowed but must be justified. Inflation alone does not lower the score – the amount is simply cut. But "serious problems with the lump sum budget" do lower the score under the implementation criterion.

And separately: declaring actual costs in a lump sum grant is not accepted – it contradicts the model.