Timesheets (time records)

Personnel costs are usually the largest line in a grant budget, and they are what auditors examine most closely. The payroll shows that a person was paid. Time records show that the person worked on the project. Without the second, the first proves nothing to the donor.

What changed in Horizon Europe

In the 2021–2027 programmes costs are counted in days, not hours. Under the Model Grant Agreement the daily rate equals the annual personnel costs for the person divided by 215, and the amount declared is the daily rate multiplied by the number of days worked on the action. The rate is calculated for the reporting period, and the denominator is reduced pro rata if the person did not work the whole period or works part-time. The second rule is a ceiling: across all EU grants together no more than 215 days a year can be declared for one person.

Instead of an hourly timesheet, a monthly declaration of days worked on the action is enough: the template is on the Portal, and it is signed by the employee and the supervisor. The requirement covers everyone working on the action, including those assigned to it full-time: there is no separate exemption from time recording for them in 2021–2027. The only choice is between the declaration and your own reliable time recording system.

If you record time in hours

That is allowed, but the hours have to be converted into days. The agreement gives three options: a day equals 8 hours, the average working day under the contract, or the standard that follows from your usual accounting practice. The chosen option is applied consistently to a group of staff, not picked per person for the best result. If both hours and declarations of days are kept in parallel, they must agree: where they differ, the lower figure is accepted.

Fitting it to Ukrainian HR records

• The standard attendance sheet (form P-5) records attendance, leave and sick days but does not show which project a person worked on. It does not replace the project declaration, yet it must not contradict it: a day of leave or sick leave cannot be a day worked on the action.
• Secondary part-time employment. If a separate part-time contract is signed with the person for the project, the denominator of the daily rate is reduced in proportion to the working time share.
• Civil-law contract. A contractor can be treated as personnel only when working under conditions similar to those of an employee. Otherwise it is a purchase of services or subcontracting, with rules of their own. Days still have to be recorded.

Under the Ukrainian retention list an attendance sheet is kept for one year, which is not enough for an EU grant: the periods are explained in the article on record-keeping.

Errors that audits find

• Declarations signed retroactively, all at once before the report.
• The declaration shows days when the person was on leave, on sick leave or travelling for another project.
• The total days across all grants exceed 215 a year.
• Time in the monthly declaration is rounded to half days. Rounding is allowed only when calculating the amount for the report.
• Days in the financial statement do not match the declarations.

How other donors do it

Most donors that reimburse actual costs still require hourly timesheets showing how time is split across all of a person's projects. In lump sum grants actual costs are not checked, but evidence of the work done is needed. Ukrainian state funds are usually satisfied with orders, contracts and acceptance certificates. One rule holds: read what exactly the agreement calls eligible personnel costs.