In accordance with Article 135.2 of the CPR and Article 45.2 of the FEAD Regulation the Certifying Authority shall submit a Final payment application before the end of the 31st of July following the end of the previous accounting year (meaning after the 30/06).
If that is not the case then the Interim payment claims for the subsequent accounting year (starting on the 1st of July) cannot be submitted.
If you have already declared expenditure the Final payment claim has to be submitted by the end of July. The Final payment claim might include additional expenditure (leading to an interim payment) or not (requested amount of zero and thus not leading to a payment).
If you have not submitted expenditure yet special rules are applied.
In absence of expenditure declared for the second accounting year and concerning the Final application for an interim payment (to be submitted by 31 July 2017) and the Accounts (to be submitted by 15 February 2018). The following three cases are foreseen:
Case 1: If the notification of the designation under Article 124(1) CPR has been done before 31 July 2017:
- The CA generates manually in SFC2014 a final application for an interim payment with zero amounts, which is then submitted to the Commission by 31 July 2017.
- By 15 February 2018, the CA generates Accounts with zero amounts in SFC2014. All the other documents related to the assurance package have to be submitted by the MS. The AO will most probably contain a full disclaimer, in which case the ACR will be pro forma.
Case 2: If the notification of the designation under Article 124(1) CPR occurs from 31 July 2017 to 15 February 2018:
- The CA generates manually in SFC2014 a final application for an interim payment with zero amounts, which is then submitted to the Commission once the designation has been notified.
- By 15 February 2018, the CA generates Accounts with zero amounts in SFC2014. All the other documents related to the assurance package have to be submitted by the MS. The AO will most probably contain a full disclaimer, in which case the ACR will be pro forma.
Case 3: If the notification of the designation under Article 124(1) CPR does not occur by 15 February 2018:
- The CA does not need to submit a final application for an interim payment by 31 July 2017.
- By 15 February 2018, the CA generates Accounts with zero amounts in SFC2014. All the other documents related to the assurance package have to be submitted by the MS. The AO will most probably contain a full disclaimer, in which case the ACR will be pro forma.