General rule: expenditure is preceded by a legal act.

Pilot schemes: testing new ideas, feasibility and usefulness of the action, could lead to the adoption of a basic act (max. 2 years and 40m)
Preparatory actions: actions to prepare implementation for an act that is being drafted
Exceptions
EC tasks derived from its Treaty prerogatives (eg. communication)
Specific powers: derived from specific treaty articles coordination, reports (eg. social dialogue, health protection, R&D, etc.)
Administrative expenditure: covered by the financial regulation no further enabling legislation is required

Features of
the EU Budget

Commitment appropriations: total cost of legal commitments (contracts, grants, agreements/decisions) for one budgetary year
Payment appropriations: total volume of payments foreseen for one budgetary year based
on the legal commitments of that year and earlier years, which are due in the current year.

EU Budget-3
Chapter 01: administrative expenditure non-differentiated appropriations (payments current or following year)
Chapter 02, 03,...: operational expenditure policies differentiated appropriations (DA) payments in current and subsequent years
Transfers are possible
*How to understand the Budget (online)

*Discharge Procedures

Chart Slide (22), 23

Volume: budget per institution/ Title: policy area/ Chapter: activity area/ Article: specific purpose of the finances/
Item: further sub-division (About 1800 budget lines)