Global Payment Services

Biopharmaceutical and medical device companies rely on investigative sites to complete their clinical trials. Building strong relationships with high-quality sites is critical to addressing a number of key challenges – from the growing number of trials to mounting pressures to minimize cycle times. Yet investigative sites increasingly denounce unrealistic payment schedules and inefficient payment processes as not only frustrating but also threatening to their financial viability.

Many sponsors and CROs continue to use standalone spreadsheets and databases to manage grant calculations – increasing financial risk and the probability of error. Because there is no integration with Accounts Payable once a grant is calculated, manual processes are used to provide such data.

Clinical trial sponsors are facing stringent financial compliance regulations (Sunshine Act and growing global transparency requirements) that mandate detailed descriptions of every payment made to every investigator throughout the course of a clinical trial. Gathering and accurately reporting detailed grant payment information is difficult. Yet failing to comply could lead to significant penalties and trial delays.

CFS Clinical has surmounted these challenges by developing a highly controlled and fully integrated global payment-processing environment. Leveraging this environment, the focused team of CFS experts manages grant payments and pass-through expenses for investigative sites around the world quickly and accurately via electronic funds transfer (EFT). In addition, a detailed electronic payment statement is provided to the investigative sites, essentially giving them a complete inception-to-date financial summary with every payment. Through our partnership with Wells Fargo, this information can be provided to sites in their local language and currency, making CFS your one-stop shop for global payment processing services.

Key Features

Expert teams with a proven understanding of the inherent complexities of global grant payments, including navigating local tax implications and risk
Timely and accurate electronic payments in local currency
Detailed remittance via the Internet in local language available 24/7
Unparalleled visibility via CFS Payment InSite™, the CFS exclusive investigative payment portal for sponsors, sites and CROs
Project and portfolio dashboards that support tactical project and strategic program management, facilitate collaborative communication, and serve as an online data repository
Flexible integration options that allow subject visit information to be captured via Web services (XML), secure FTP upload or Microsoft Excel CSV file - CFS is a technology partner of Medidata for streamlined feeds from Medidata Rave® EDC
Proprietary application that automates the grant calculation process
No software implementation or conversion issues

Outstanding Benefits

Gain financial control and compliance: Our innovative software and rigorous processes allow you to precisely calculate your monthly spend. With that insight, you can make just-in-time payments and better manage your trial budget. Accurate, real-time accruals and reporting enhance business intelligence, while electronic billing transactions and straight-through processing enable superior financial control. Moreover, as a result of CFS adoption of SSAE 16 Type II (SOC 1) compliance as part of our control environment, we help meet our clients' Sarbanes-Oxley Act requirements regarding Service Organizations.
Enhance investigator relationships: Investigators appreciate being paid accurately, on time and with true transparency the CFS automated data extraction process allows us to do that – paying investigators quickly for their activities. Outside North America, the CFS advanced invoicing process and payment tracking further eases your site’s burden. Your investigators are guided with automated alerts to our site portal to see details of their payments. The CFS Payment InSite™ system allows for unprecedented financial visibility for sponsors.
Accelerate cycle times: Because we extract payments from EDC data (eg., Medidata Rave®), investigative sites are incentivized to input data quickly, ultimately providing trial results faster.

Meeting Compliance Requirements

Most enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems lack the functionality necessary to address US federal and growing global aggregate spend requirements, reporting only at the payee level and not at the required HCP/investigator level. Working with CFS, you receive reports and custom data feeds that satisfy Sunshine Act requirements; CFS implementations have accommodated a variety of requirements from our clients to meet the needs and interpretations by corporate counsel and compliance. Our proprietary payment management system offers robust functionality designed specifically for clinical trials, enabling you to deliver all of the required detail in an accurate and timely manner.

Outsourcing the grant payments of your clinical trial portfolio to CFS ensures that all of the critical financial aspects of the clinical trial are in compliance with current regulations and tax laws, thereby reducing financial risk by:

Improving the effectiveness of budgeting and planning
Increasing the effectiveness of regulatory compliance efforts and transparency through comprehensive auditing capabilities and deep reporting
Improving finance/treasury reporting, cash flow management and analytics
Providing accurate and timely accruals

To learn more about our Global Payment Services, please download our brochure.