Weekly question:
Are laptops eligible under Equipment cost?
As per Article 6 of the Grant Agreement, ‘Eligible costs’ are costs that meet the following criteria: (a) for actual costs:
- they must be actually incurred by the beneficiary;
- they must be incurred in the period set out in Article 3, with the exception of costs relating to the submission of the periodic report for the last reporting period and the final report (see Article 20);
- they must be indicated in the estimated budget set out in Annex 2; (iv) they must be incurred in connection with the action as described in Annex 1 and necessary for its implementation;
- they must be identifiable and verifiable, in particular recorded in the beneficiary’s accounts in accordance with the accounting standards applicable in the country where the beneficiary is established and with the beneficiary’s usual cost accounting practices;
- they must comply with the applicable national law on taxes, labour and social security, and
- they must be reasonable, justified and must comply with the principle of sound financial management, in particular regarding economy and efficiency.
We would like to draw attention mainly to point (vi), which states that costs “must be reasonable, justified and must comply with the principle of sound financial management”.
This implies that expenditures should adhere to responsible financial practices when utilizing public funds, avoiding the suspicion of any undue excess. Failure to meet this standard, characterized by unnecessarily costs, might be seen as reckless spending, rendering such expenses ineligible.
In this context, recklessness refers to the opportunity of the Beneficiary to renew their equipment on the action’s budget.
In order for a laptop to be considered eligible, the Beneficiary has to come with strong arguments, in order to demonstrate that the cost is linked to the implementation of the action.
e.g. The software that the Beneficiary is working on, as per the action’s specific, requires a high-end processor, and the current laptop lacks the necessary features.
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