CROs Don’t Need to be a Scapegoat to Broken Site Payment Processes

Site payments are complex. What seems like a very simple transaction can be extremely burdensome for all involved, causing a significant impact on their study.

A site’s inability to receive monthly payments and lack of visibility into the timing and backup information is a result of manual, fragmented processes.

Clinical Research Organizations (CROs), specifically project managers, are often tasked to manage this process and, as a result, receive the blame for site payment challenges.

Project managers are spending hours on end verifying payments and fielding site inquiries around the status of a payment, causing a great deal of frustration and turnover in this role. Outsourcing the entire site payment process can introduce additional complexities and risks.

Frustrations and workloads increase and the study suffers.

CROs that leverage an automated approach gain both the flexibility and breadth of features and functionality to fit their workflows and processes, without disruption. A sophisticated technology solution empowers CROs to reduce the resource draining, error prone manual payment processes, restoring confidence in a CRO’s ability to execute site payments effectively – timely, accurately and without headaches.

By introducing efficiencies, control and visibility into site payments, CROs can improve site satisfaction and strengthen their ability to effectively collaborate with research sites and sponsors.

CROs that automate their site payment process can confidently answer questions such as:

• When will my payment arrive?
• What is this payment for?
• Why aren’t we being paid for x, y, and z?

Centralized financial transparency and automated reconciliation keeps sites satisfied and operating at peak performance. In return, less time is spent on manual payment and reconciliation processes, allowing sites to focus on the research.

A centralized approach helps CROs leverage advanced analytics for greater financial insight and better decision making. Analytics include long-term predictability and budget management, budgeted costs vs. actual expenditures, accruals management and cash flow predictability and more. As the industry becomes more and more focused on transparency, reporting and compliance, clean comprehensive and real-time financial reports are more critical than ever.