Personnel costs

Personnel costs are usually the largest line in the budget and almost always the largest source of audit findings. They cover the gross remuneration of your own staff for the time they worked on the project: salary, employer's social contributions, and other statutory costs included in the remuneration.

Horizon Europe calculates in days. The daily rate is the annual personnel costs divided by 215 days, and the same 215 is a ceiling: no individual may declare more than 215 days in a given year across all EU grants together. A person on three EU projects has a finite number of days to distribute, and the arithmetic is checked.

Time must be recorded reliably for the days claimed. Monthly declarations signed by the person and their supervisor are the standard, and they must be consistent with everything else the organisation knows: leave records, other funders' claims, teaching timetables. Contradictions between two claims for the same person on the same day are exactly what an auditor looks for.

Bonuses and supplements are eligible only within limits and only where they follow the beneficiary's usual practice and are not tied to winning the grant. A project bonus invented for EU work is ineligible; a long-standing performance scheme applied consistently across the organisation is generally fine.

The most expensive mistake is not fraud, it is informality: charging a researcher's time at a rate derived from a budget rather than from payroll, or claiming a full-time equivalent for someone who also taught. Both are recovered with interest, and both are avoidable by charging the project the way you already account for everyone.