Budget Development and Management

Budget Development

Using client requirements for each project and the information received from the RFP process, Cogent develops a monthly budget. The budget is constructed at both the Provider level and as an aggregated total budget across all Providers. Our budget matrix provides quantification of budget and cost down to the patient-visit level, enabling clients to analyze cost projections as part of the budget planning process. We can also provide a budget summary based on cost-per-patient-visit across all domains, including by region or country, allowing a cost efficiency comparison of the global locations used for a given trial.

Expense versus Budget Tracking

Once the Provider and total project budgets have been established, Cogent utilizes our proprietary Invoice Review & Budget Management Platform for project-specific expense tracking and forecasting for each project. The process compares the original project design, budget, and requirements to the domain-specific project performance metrics and invoices received to generate a budget status report. The comparison of planned versus actual progress across multiple parameters provides clients with an understanding of study and budget status, and identifies performance outliers across the Providers being utilized.

The combination of expense tracking through invoices received, performance metrics, and the original project budget derived from the RFP process at both the Provider and Total Project levels gives our clients the advantages of:

• An accurate, early, and continuous read on project status
• Information at the Provider, Patient Visit, and Total Project levels, providing early identification of potential issues and challenges
• Analysis of key drivers underlying performance and budgetary issues
• Insight into Provider performance based on objective, factual criteria

Based on the information obtained from our budget development and tracking processes, we assist our clients in developing expense forecasting models which can indicate the projected total spend versus budget and study milestones status of their projects.

The ultimate goal of Cogent's budget tracking process is to provide clients with clear, actionable, and timely information to meet their performance and budgetary objectives.