Name title

4.0 OPERATIONAL Closure

Financial rule 118.08(a) states “As soon as UNDP programme activities have ceased, the executing entity or, under the harmonized operational modalities, implementing partner, shall declare them operationally completed. It shall inform UNDP of such operational completion and submit to UNDP a budget revision, in conformity with established procedures for budget revision, reflecting actual and estimated expenses to date.” At this point, the budget needs to reflect expenses to date and have an approved budget in place to authorize any additional expenses over the next 12 months including project closure costs such as audit, depreciation of assets, etc.

Financial rule 118.08(b) states “UNDP programme activities shall be considered financially completed when they have been operationally completed or terminated, and if all financial transactions have been recorded, the relevant accounts closed, and a final project budget revision approved.”

Project status (representing Atlas Output Status) as reflected in the Projects module of Atlas (Awards > Project > Project Status) is then changed from Ongoing (O) to (C) = Operationally closed. When the project is declared operationally closed, financial closure must take place within 12 months of operational closure as per financial rule 118.08 (c). The terminology “project” here refers to “Atlas Output”; however, some Atlas screens are using the name as “Project Status” (menu Awards > Project > Project Status). Additionally, some Atlas screens are using “Output Status” (menu Grants > Project Management > UNDP Project Closure Workbench) because there were changes in the following terminologies but not in all Atlas Modules have been customized to reflect the new terminology. Specifically:

Financial rule 118.08(c) states “The financial completion of UNDP programme activities shall be accomplished within 12 months after the month in which they are operationally completed or terminated.”

The steps required in changing the project status from “Ongoing” to “Operationally Closed” can be found in the “Introduction Guide – UNDP Project Closure Workbench in Atlas” located at the Project Closure page (Click here). Refer in particular to pages 4, 7-8 and Annexes 3 & 4 “Operational Closure Checklist” (Click here).