This chapter describes how to configure service providers, define their resource hourly billing rates, and add them to plans.

To view the list of existing service providers in your environment, from the Maintain menu, select Service Providers.

The Service Providers screen displays all the providers currently available in your environment (including ClearTrial-defined and any user-defined providers) that can be added to plans and to which tasks can be assigned.

If you are a sponsor and an early ballpark budget planner, the service offers five types of out-of-the-box composite providers to select from to add to plans. The ClearTrial-defined composite providers include the following types depending on the type or level of provider you are interested in outsourcing to and generating a forecast:

• Premium: Global presence in all major regions. Studies can be fully outsourced to them; more expensive than other leading CROs.
• Major: Global presence, in all major regions. Studies can be fully outsourced to them.
• Medium: Incomplete global presence. Studies can be fully outsourced to them but they may have to sub-contract some of the work.
• Niche: Typically operate in only one country or region, and often only offer a subset of services.
• Average All CROs: Rates are an average across the other levels/types of composite providers.

For the most accurate budget forecast, attain the actual provider-specific billing rates by rate year from your providers and upload them by selecting Billing Rates from the Maintain menu.

• Define Service Providers
  You must add service providers to your environment before you can use them in your plans. Which service provider types you can add to your plans depends on your customer type.
• Define Resources
  Resources are the roles that people who work on the study are assigned. Associated with each resource are a code for tracking the resource through the study, a job title or classification, and a set of responsibilities.
• Configure Billing Rates
  After you define and publish billing rates for service providers, ClearTrial shares the rates between plans. You cannot add service providers to a plan that does not have a set of published rates.
• Configure Inflation Rates
  You can define plan-neutral inflation profiles for service providers. Inflation profiles correspond to a set of expected inflation rates for the specified years.
• Map Labor and Costs to Departments
  By editing department mappings, you can manage all mappings of ClearTrial-defined labor and indirect costs to departments to apply to plans.
• Map Labor and Costs to GL Codes
  The GL Code screen lists the defined GL codes. You can create, edit, delete, and restore GL codes. You can also map GL codes to labor and costs.
• User-defined Exchange Rate Tables
  A user-defined exchange rate table allows you to create and define your organization's standardized rates for each currency to be used in your plans.
• Map Countries to Reporting Regions
  You can create user-defined reporting regions for use in your plans based on your global organizational structure and accounting practices. You can then map countries to those reporting regions.