Vault Payments allows you to track all clinical trial expenses and study budgets within a single application, including payable items for clinical sites, ad hoc expenses, and vendor payments to CROs and IRBs. This provides you with a complete picture of clinical trial expenses within your CTMS Vault.

Vault creates Payable Items records based on user-defined fees, which can be grouped under one Payment Request record to identify payee information. Additionally, users can route Payment Request record information for processing and eventual payment with their organization’s Accounts Payable system.

Vault Payments relies on a set of objects that represent the design of different fees, along with a set of objects that support actual instances of fees.

How Vault Creates Payable Items from Fee Schedules

Vault automatically creates Payable Item records when Subject Visit, Procedure, or Site Fee records reach the status defined for a corresponding fee within the site’s approved Fee Schedule. Users can also manually trigger a re-evaluation of payable events to generate Payable Items when changes are made to subject visits, procedures, and site fees.

For example, your finance team creates a Fee record of type Procedure Fee for a CT Scan for an amount of $1,000 when the Procedure status is Submitted. When the CT Scan Procedure record for a subject reaches the Submitted state, Vault automatically creates a Payable Item record for $1,000. The Payable Item record appears in the Payable Items section on the Site record’s details page.

To determine which Payee to assign, Vault checks these records in this order:

  1. Any Payee Overrides defined.
  2. The primary payee of the Fee Schedule.
  3. The primary payee of the Site.

Vault assigns any Payees it finds going through the list, creating one Payable Item record for each payee defined by an override or set as a primary payee. Should none be defined, the Payee field remains blank.

How to Manually Generate Payable Items

The Generate Payable Items action allows you to generate bulk payable items for activities performed before a fee schedule was approved. Use this action to re-calculate rate-based fees if changes happen to records that impact whether Payable Events should generate Payable Item records.

For example, if your site does not initially have enough subjects to qualify for reimbursement of rate-based payments, use the Generate Payable Items action to re-evaluate these activities at a later point in the study. This retroactivity generates Payable Item records without updating the Subject Visit, Procedure, or Site Fee records.

Your Admin can configure the Generate Payable Items action for object lifecycles and workflows.

To generate Payable Items, navigate to a Study, Study Country, Study Site, or Fee Schedule record and select Generate Payable Items from the Actions menu. Vault will notify you upon completion with a summary of the number of Payable Item records created or updated and a link to download the CSV file for review.

How Vault Adjusts Payable Items

Vault can automatically update Payable Items after it has generated those items. Reasons for an adjustment may include changes to Visits, Procedures, or Site Fees. Additionally, when you update a Fee Schedule and run the Generate Payable Items action, Vault creates and updates Payable Items accordingly. When Vault adjusts a Payable Item, it can either mark the Payable Item as inactive or it can create an adjustment Payable Item to reflect what has already been paid and/or what still needs to be paid.

When Vault adjusts a Payable Item, it records information about the adjustment through several fields on the Payable Item object:

  • Source Payable Item: reference to the Payable Item that this Payable Item updates
  • Adjustment Payable Item: reference to the Payable Item that adjusts this Payable Item.
  • Adjustment Reason: explains the reason for the adjustment. Vault automatically populates the Adjustment Reason from a predefined picklist, providing additional information to users and streamlining communication with Sites about the adjustment.

Adjustments based on Payable Activities

When you make changes to a Payable Activity (Visit, Procedure, Site Fee), Vault evaluates those changes to determine if an adjustment to an existing Payable Item is required. If updating the Payable Activity results in a mismatch with the Fee Criteria for that activity, Vault moves the corresponding Payable Item to the Payment Adjusted state type. If nothing has been paid and the Payable Item is obsolete based on the update to the Payable Activity, Vault simply inactivates the Payable Item. If needed, Vault also creates a new Payable Item to reverse the amount paid previously.

Adjustments based on Fee Schedules

When you make changes to Fee Schedules and run the Generate Payable Items action, Vault evaluates those changes to determine whether it should update any related Payable Items. When configured, Vault will compare the effective date of the new or updated Fee Schedule to the dates of any Payable Activities you have already recorded in your Vault. Then, it can determine if an adjustment is required. If nothing has been paid and the Payable Item is obsolete due to the new Fee Schedule, Vault simply inactivates the existing Payable Item. If needed, Vault also creates two new Payable Items. One reverses the existing Payable Item and the other creates a new Payable Item for the correct Payable Item that corresponds to the difference between what has been paid and what is now currently owned due to the updated Fee Schedule.

Payment Limits

You can set additional payment requirements, including payment limits and maximums, on your Site Fee records. Vault evaluates payment limits across Fee Schedules to ensure that it does not generate additional Payable Items once the limit has been reached.

For example, imagine you have a “Screen Failure” fee in Fee Schedule A at a Site with a maximum value of one. One Payable Item exists for the “Screen Failure” fee in Fee Schedule A. Further, you have a “Screen Failure” fee in Fee Schedule B at a Site with a maximum value of one. When a new matching payable event occurs for the “Screen Failure” fee in Fee Schedule B, Vault does not generate an additional Payable Item, since the maximum value has already been reached.

In contrast, imagine that you have a “Screen Failure” fee in Fee Schedule A at a Site with a maximum value of one. One Payable Item exists for the “Screen Failure” fee in Fee Schedule A. You have a “Screen Failure” fee in Fee Schedule B at a Site with a maximum value of two. When a new matching payable event occurs for the “Screen Failure” fee in Fee Schedule B, Vault does generate an additional Payable Item, since the maximum value has increased to two in Fee Schedule B.

Additional Fees for Study Expenses

You can create additional Payable Items at the study, study country, and study site levels. You can then use these fees to track ad hoc and vendor payments that fall outside of pre-defined fee schedules. For example, you can utilize Additional Fees to reimburse IRBs for a study-level ethics review, CROs for managing study conduct in a country, and sites for equipment maintenance expenses.

You can add Additional Fees in the Payable Items section of Study, Study Country, or Study Site records to track study expenses such as vendor payments.

Holdback Items

If a Fee contains Holdback Items, you may run the Update Holdback Item Based on Fee action in order to make the Holdback Items payable. The action confirms that the item meets the Fee criteria, then sets the Pay field to Yes.

Additionally, if you have a Fee that includes Holdback Items, and you update a Payable Event to generate a new Payable Item, Vault automatically populates the Related Holdback field with the related Payable Item on both the primary and holdback Payable Items.

Payment Requests

Payment Requests provide a way for you to group Payable Items records that are marked to Pay. Vault automatically populates the Amount field on the Payment Request record by calculating the sum of all associated Payable Item records. Vault can then route payment requests to your company’s Accounts Payable system if an integration is configured.

Create Payment Requests from the Payment Requests tab or from the Payment Requests section of a Study Site, Organization, Study, or Study Country record.

Adding Payable Items

Payable Items that have Yes on the Pay field will be available for you to add to a payment request. If marked No or left blank, those records will not appear for selection.

Bulk Payments

Vault can generate Payment Requests in bulk for a given study, study country, or site.

To generate Payment Requests in bulk, navigate to a Study, Study Country, or Site record’s details page and select Generate Payment Requests from the Actions menu.

Payment Requests group Payable Items at the site level. Vault generates a separate Payment Request for each Payee that has Payable Items marked Yes on the Pay field at a site.

Payment Letters

Payment Letters are Vault documents based on a document template defined within MS Word. Once generated, you can route Payment Letters for review and approval.

To generate a Payment Letter, navigate to a Payment Request and select Generate Payment Letter from the Actions menu. Once complete, you can navigate to the Payment Letter by clicking the Payment Letter link on the Payment Request.

Sending Payment Letters via Veeva Site Connect

If your Vault has Veeva Site Connect enabled, you can send Payment Letters and Site Invoices directly to sites on SiteVault Vaults with active Agreements using the Send Document to Sites option from the document’s Actions menu. Note that an Admin must configure the Payment Letter and Site Invoice document types for this option to be available to you.

The following permissions control your ability to use Vault Payments:

Type

Permission Label

Controls

Security Profile

Objects: Subject Visit: Create, Edit

Ability to create and edit Subject Visit records.

Security Profile

Objects: Study Arms: Create, Edit

Ability to create and edit Study Arms records.

Security Profile

Objects: Procedure: Create, Edit

Ability to create and edit Procedure records.

Security Profile

Objects: Payment Request: Create, Edit

Ability to create and edit Payment Request records.

Security Profile

Objects: Payment Letter: Create, Edit

Ability to create and edit Payment Letter records.

Security Profile

Objects: Fee: Create, Edit

Ability to create and edit Fee records.

Security Profile

Objects: Payable Item: Create, Edit

Ability to create and edit Payable Item records.

Security Profile

Objects: Study Organization: Create, Edit

Ability to create and edit Study Organization records.

Security Profile

Objects: Study: Object Action Permissions: Generate Payable Items: View, Execute

Ability to view and execute the Generate Payable Items action.

Security Profile

Objects: Study Country: Object Action Permissions: Generate Payable Items: View, Execute

Ability to view and execute the Generate Payable Items action.

Security Profile

Objects: Study Site: Object Action Permissions: Generate Payable Items: View, Execute

Ability to view and execute the Generate Payable Items action.