What are common budget errors and weaknesses?

by

Last updated: 19-Nov-2025

When completing applications for programs administered OCI, common budget errors and weaknesses typically include:

• Expenses that are deemed ineligible by OCI guidelines;
• Excessive costs or a budget that appears inflated and contains expenses that are not adequately justified;
• Incomplete information (i.e., blanks in the budget or lines left unfilled);
• Use of wrong expense categories and units;
• Incorrectly or unidentified payees; or,
• Incomplete or insufficient detail within the Budget Justification section.

To ensure your application has an acceptable budget that adheres to the program eligibility guidelines, it is important to provide an additional description of each expense as follows in the Budget Justification section of your application:

• How each expenditure supports the completion of the project activities and overall objectives.
• For salary and benefit expenses (including in-kind support from company staff in industry-academic projects), the role of the individual in the project, time to be devoted to the project, rate of compensation, and how the total value was calculated. (For reimbursement claim-based projects, time sheets to support the expenditures incurred for this category must be submitted in interim and final project reports.)
• For travel costs: name/role of individual(s), purpose, location of travel, and expense details (e.g., accommodation, flight, etc.) are required to ensure proper use of funds.
• For equipment usage: type of equipment, value, and how the cost has been calculated for the project.
  • Please refer to the Eligible Expense guidelines for the specific program. Unless otherwise specified in the program Eligible Expense guidelines, capital costs are not eligible; equipment usage (prorated for the project duration) must be included as Operating Expenses in the budget.
    
    

Please note, it is mandatory to complete Budget Justification section of the application. Please carefully review the eligible expense guidelines for the associated program, as the guidelines are unique per program.