Execution | 2021 Support Materials MS

The request for extension for the submission of any of the modules that comprise the assurance package, Accounts, CBRN and/or APR has to be done through SFC.  Please refer to:

18.01.2024: Assurance package EAGF/EAFRD: Request for extension of deadlines document available | SFC Support Portal

In section 2.8.8 EAFRD Non-IACS - Compliance testing / Test of controls - Control activities at the level of interventions / group of interventions of the Certification Body report, the sampling and the audit approach has to be described for each interventions / group of interventions, whether there are findings or not.

In order to fill in the respective section in SFC, the Certification Body will need to fill only the relevant parts of the form.

The Sampling / Audit approach will be required.

There are two mandatory fields in the form:

• Level, where we suggest to indicate not applicable and
• description, where we advise the Certification Body to indicate that there are no findings.

The request for extension for the submission of any of the modules that comprise the assurance package, Accounts, CBRN and/or APR has to be done through SFC.  Please refer to:

18.01.2024: Assurance package EAGF/EAFRD: Request for extension of deadlines document available | SFC Support Portal

You should not include the Technical Assistance Budget code in their Annual Declaration XML file(s), the Technical Assistance amount will be automatically calculated by SFC2021.

However, after you have uploaded your Annual Declaration XML file(s), you will have to include the Technical Assistance Budget code in your Difference Explanation XML file(s) to explain the difference calculated by SFC for this Technical Assistance (with difference explanation code B02 ‘Rounding Error’).

In order not to have this error, you don’t have to include the TA in the Annual declaration XML file but you have to explain this difference for TA in your Difference explanation XML file, by adding this:

<difference>

        <budgetCode>080301010009000000000000000</budgetCode>

            <explanations>

              <explanation>

                <amount>-x.xx</amount>

           <code>B02</code>

       </explanation>

   </explanations>

</difference>

Please consider these points first:

• Only Users with the role of MS Managing Authority, Body entrusted with the accounting function or MS Audit Authority with Update rights (MSMAu/MSAFu/MSAAu) can create the Accounts.
• The CCI list contains all adopted Programmes managed at the User’s Node and which only cover Funds for which the User is registered and for which a required Annual Accounts is missing.

Besides these points, be aware that SFC2021 only allows to create the Accounts when there is at least one non-zero Payment Application (PAP) submitted for the accounting year. 

A zero-PAP is defined as having a Grand Total of Total amount of eligible expenditure (B) in the Expenditure table equal to 0.

Below is an example of a Programme IJG covering two Funds (ERDF and ESF+) for which the User wants to create the 2023-2024 Accounts. There is no PAP for ERDF and the PAP for ESF+ has no eligible expenditure in column (B), but it has some Union contribution in column (C). Following the requirements, SFC doesn’t allow the User to create the 2023-2024 Accounts :

For Payment Application versions > 1, the system will get the information from a previous Payment Application version for the same Fund. If a bank account is obsolete, the User has to delete the entry and add a new and valid bank account.

The budget item to be used for FY2023 and FY2024 for the declaration of negative amounts only relating to exceptional adjustment aid as per R.2022/467 is:

620000000000001 Exceptional adjustment aid – only negative amounts – R.1308/2013, Art.219(1); R.2022/467

There are no data requirements defined for budget sub-item 620000000000001 in the X-table guidelines for FY2023 and FY2024.

Amounts can only be declared via T104 and must also be included in the annual accounts.

However, please note that the Commission could request detailed records for this budget sub-item in the context of a relevant audit enquiry if necessary. 

P.S. MS should consult the latest revision of the budget nomenclature for each FY on the existing 62 “negative amounts only” sub-item for previous exceptional aid to be used for the declaration of negative amounts relating to specific exceptional aid. 

All Users who have the role MSPA (Paying Agency) or MSCB (Coordinating Body) on a Node (top or lower Node) where the Declaration EAFRD was created can download XML files for expenditure and sign for any paying agency. In fact, in terms of security, SFC2021 only recognizes that Users have the MSPA or MSCB role for a given Node, but it does not know that such a User actually serves a paying agency or not. Moreover, for reasons of flexibility/ease (as some MS do not have a Coordinating Body), there is no real distinction between the MSPA and MSCB roles, both can create, upload files, sign and send the Declaration EAFRD to the Commission. It is up to the Member State to ensure that the right people upload and sign for the right paying agencies, and also to ensure that the right person sends the Declaration to the Commission.

Documents and more specifically the Standalone/Referring documents don't have a workflow and without transaction between MS nodes, because this is more flexible and more convenient for users and best reflects how document transmission in most organizations work.

The only type of status is sent or not sent, so a creator cannot indicate that he finished editing the document, that he uploaded all the necessary files, and that the document is ready to be sent. If we would allow someone other than the creator to send, this person could send incomplete documents.

A user gets a task to upload a document to the Commission or to the Member State. There's no need for someone else to verify his job, because only documents previously approved by the organization will be requested to be submitted. The sending of Standalone/Referring documents is considered a purely administrative task, like putting a letter into an envelope and bringing it to the mailbox. That's why for Standalone/Referring documents only, it is also foreseen that the Send Document permission is included for Update users (MSMA Update, MSAA Update, ...). Like that the creator can create, update and send the document having only the Update Roles and not the Send Roles. Having the Send Role would allow such administrative user to send also workflow Objects (such as the Programme, Payment Applications etc), which are much more sensitive, and which definitely need to be verified before being sent.

Another restriction of the Standalone/Referring documents is that the system cannot always determine which Funds are involved. Since Roles are attributed per Fund, this would mean that a user with MSMA Send for AMIF could send a document dealing with only ERDF. Especially for sensitive audit documents this needs to be avoided.

Our current implementation is a tradeoff taking into account flexibility and security, and therefore will not always suit all organisations/users, but we think it is the…

It was decided that Member States should not be allowed to hide or delete sent documents in SFC2021. This is because once a document has been sent it is registered in many internal Commission workflow systems (and may trigger certain processes in these systems), and hiding or deleting in SFC2021 will not delete them in the other systems.

If the Member State sends the wrong document they should then send a correction document (if needed they will have to create a new version of the object and attach the new document).

The system requires that a document contains at least a MAIN or COVER_LETTER type of attachment.

If you want to attach a type “Annex” as the only attachment, you can give it the title "Annex", but the type should be MAIN.

Documents can either be Standalone documents or Referring documents. A Standalone document doesn't refer to anything. A Referring document refers to a CCI number or to an object existing in SFC2021.

For referential documents, when a CCI link is available it means that the document can be linked to a CCI number related to the type of document. CCI numbers are allocated before the related object is encoded in SFC2021. When a Programme (PRG) link is available it means that the document can be linked to a Programme already encoded in SFC2021.  

When an object is returned by the Commission in SFC2021 it will display as 'Current node' -> 'European Commission'. This is because the version that has been returned is no longer editable by the Member state and they must create a new version of the object in order to edit the information.

To search for information in SFC2021 you have two options:

1. General search by CCI:

   Click on the search icon in the top-right of the SFC2021 screen:

   

   Enter the CCI number and the system will find all objects and documents linked to the CCI:

    

2. Search for a specific object version:

   Go to the menu for the object you wish to search for. Hover over the column headers and click on the icon with three lines on any of the columns:

   

   Then click on the filter icon and enter the filter/search criteria:

   

Take a look at our Tips &…

The SFC2021 Support Team is not in charge of subscribing/unsubscribing any of its Users for the reception of automatic notifications generated by the system.

There are 2 options to be automatically notified:

1. By Object:

   Provided that the 'object' is not a standalone document, the concerned user can add his/her email address in the General >  Officials in charge section of the object (e.g. Operational/National Programmes, Implementation Reports etc ). :

   

   To remove/edit a User, go to the appropriate section, select the Official in Charge from the list and Edit or Delete the record as required.

    

2. By combined criteria:

   Each User can subscribe to the Utilities > Event Registration in order to receive automatic notifications generated by SFC2021 and select different event types, groups and filter them by EU Fund and/or CCI (depending on the assigned roles of the user's account):

   

   A detailed guide and video…

COMPARE is currently available for a limited number of objects.

To compare 2 versions, enter one of the versions you wish to compare and click on the compare icon on the top right-hand side of the screen:

Select the version you wish to compare it with:

The Table of Content indicates the sections and /or subsections that contain changes. Information that has been added is marked in green and information removed is marked in red strikethrough:

You can tell when you are in compare mode when the orange icons are visible in the Table of Contents:

! Note that you cannot edit or navigate away from the object when in compare mode.

To exit compare mode click on the the Exit Compare icon:

• Import from Excel is only available for selected and very few tables. Wherever the functionality is active, it will be indicated in the Quick Guides available in the Support Material section of our Portal.
• Export to Excel (Excel and CSV formats) is available on all Tables: 1. Right click on the Table / 2. Export / 3. CSV or Excel Export

…

SFC2021 enforces the "four-eyes" principle, which means that the user who last validated the Object cannot submit it. Two different users are required; one to validate and another to send.

According to Article 69(9) of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 2021/1060 regarding the electronic data exchange system between the Member States and the Commission, one of the responsibilities of the Member State is “Ensuring the verification of information submitted by a person other than the person who entered the data for that transmission”

SFC2021 accepts a limited HTML formatting either when inputting the text or when a copy and paste is done. In order to count the characters, SFC2021 removes all HTML formatting tags, whitespaces, special characters that are non visible (like carriage return, tabulation/indentation, new line….) and only counts the remaining characters.

The rich text fields have no limitation concerning spaces. What needs to be respected is the number of characters without spaces.

Tip: Tools such as Word can be used to approximate as much as possible the SFC2021 character counting, only if the formatting is removed (I.e. save as plain text, format Unicode).