Per diems and attendance lists: how to prevent fraud

At many donor-funded workshops across Africa, whether they are run by an NGO, a development project or a public programme, participants receive a per diem or a transport refund. The attendance list is then no longer a formality: it is the document that justifies every payment. One signature too many means project money spent for nothing, and an expense an auditor can reject.

The most common frauds on a paper list

A sheet passed from hand to hand during the workshop lets through practices every project manager knows:

• Signing for someone who is absent. A colleague signs in place of a registered participant who never came, and the per diem is paid anyway.
• Filling in the list afterwards. Names are added back at the office, once the workshop is over, to “tidy up” an incomplete list.
• Signing every day in advance. On a three-day workshop, the participant signs all three boxes on the first morning, then leaves.
• Duplicates. The same person appears twice, under two spellings of their name, or at two workshops held at the same time.

On paper, none of these frauds shows after the session: the sheet says neither when each name was written nor by whom.

Why it puts the whole project at risk

The problem goes beyond the workshop budget. During an audit, a per diem expense that the attendance list does not credibly support can be declared ineligible. The project then has to repay it to the donor, often from its own funds. And a doubtful list casts suspicion on the rest of the file: an auditor who finds one anomaly looks for others.

A solid attendance list also protects your teams: the coordinator who paid the per diems can show exactly who was there, and when.

What a reliable attendance list must prove

To justify a per diem, the list has to answer five questions:

• Who? A verifiable identity, not just a handwritten name.
• When? The time of signing, for each day or half-day, not a single signature for the whole workshop.
• Where? Presence at the workshop venue.
• Only once? No duplicates, at this workshop or anywhere else at the same time.
• Unaltered? Certainty that the list was not changed after the session.

How Emargix blocks these frauds

With Emargix, each participant signs on their own phone (or the facilitator's), by scanning a QR code or opening their personal link. Several safeguards apply by default:

• One signature per session, during the session. Signing is only possible within the scheduled times: no one can sign on the first morning for the following days. Every signature is timestamped.
• No additions afterwards. The event closes automatically 24 hours after its last session: the list can no longer be completed back at the office.
• A tamper-evident list. Each signature is linked to the previous one by a hash chain: changing or deleting a line afterwards shows.

For workshops where per diems are paid, the Compliance options add evidence at the moment of signing:

• ID number (national ID card or passport), required to sign.
• Photo at signing: the participant takes a selfie, which discourages signing for someone absent.
• Geolocation: the position is recorded at the moment of signing.
• Duplicate detection: Emargix flags a duplicate ID number, a repeated identity, a phone used for several signatures, or a person signing at another workshop at the same time.

At the end, the audit pack gathers in one PDF the attendance register, the evidence sheets, the anomaly log and the integrity check of the list. It is the document to hand to the auditor.

Paying per diems from the list

• Turn the options on before the first signature. Evidence is not added afterwards for people who have already signed.
• Plan one session per day, or per half-day if the per diem depends on it: each session has its own signature.
• Announce the rule at the start of the workshop: everyone signs for themselves, on site, at every session. Simply saying it reduces attempts.
• Pay from the list, and check the anomaly log before paying out: that is the time to clear up a doubt, not during the audit.

And when the network is weak?

Workshops are often held far from big cities. Signing is designed for entry-level phones and unstable mobile connections, with no app to install. Our article on paper vs digital attendance sheets for field trainings covers this in detail.

Going further

For what a donor's auditor expects as attendance evidence, see our article on how to prove training attendance to a donor. The Compliance options and the audit pack are presented on our page Digital attendance for NGOs and donor-funded projects.