Invoice Review & Budget Management

Managing the streams of monthly invoices from multiple Service Providers can be a significant burden on the operational and financial staff of a sponsor company, and can ultimately impact higher-priority processes associated with successful project management. Cogent's Invoice Review & Budget Management capabilities are designed to relieve core client staff of this necessary but non value-added business requirement by offering an efficient and accurate means of processing Provider invoices.

At the core of our Invoice Review & Budget Management capability is our proprietary Invoice Review & Budget Management Platform, which receives and logs invoices from Providers, automatically reviews the invoices against standard parameters, identifies variances between the invoice and contract and other pre-determined variables, categorizes the invoices according to their payable status, and diagnoses the base cause of disccrepancies down to Region, Country, Provider, Site, and Line-item Levels. The platform stores all data and forms the basis for forecasting budget projections such as cost to completion, annual spend, and spend per patient, country, or region.

As with all of the services offered at Cogent, we have designed our Invoice Review & Budget Management offering as a complete end-to-end service, which, once set up with client input, is managed with minimal client input or effort. The core steps of the process are:

1. Cogent staff develops the invoice template and required content with our client, and distributes the expected invoice elements to the Service Providers.
2. Cogent receives Provider invoices, either in the preferred electronic format, or in hard copy; invoices are entered into the R&R platform by Cogent staff.
3. The IR&BM platform compares the invoices submitted against project-specific standards, including:
   • Purchase Order, Study, or Project identifying number
   • Invoice dating, including a check for timeliness of submission
   • Goods and services billed versus contract terms
   • Pricing versus contract terms
   • Applied discounts or credits
   • Invoice or item duplication
   • Pass-through or mark-up of third party invoices
   • Contract terms
   • Correct address and notation of responsible party
4. Invoices matching the expected R&R system criteria are designated as “Acceptable for Payment”; those with errors or deficiencies are designated as “Requires Action”.
5. Cogent staff conduct a final review of invoices designated as “Acceptable for Payment” to ensure all elements of a complete invoice are in place; if the invoice is deemed acceptable, it is sent to client for payment.
6. If an invoice is identified as “Requires Action” by the R&R system, Cogent staff review the invoice and initiate the reconciliation process by contacting the Provider, sharing the deficiencies in the invoice, and working through the correction or clarification process.
7. Once a “Requires Action” invoice has been corrected, Cogent staff sign off that the invoice is now “Acceptable for Payment”, and forward the invoice to the client for payment.
8. All results, and a complete status report on open “Requires Action” invoices, are provided monthly to the client; the monthly Invoice Status Report provides detail by individual Provider and for the total project.

As part of Cogent's Provider performance tracking, invoicing history is tracked for each Provider and is included in the RFI process when identifying potential Preferred Service Providers.