What is sponsor invoicing for a research site?

Sponsor invoicing is the site’s process of requesting payment for work earned under a clinical trial agreement. The fee schedule and agreement define which visits and individual procedures are payable and what evidence is required. Configure a procedure at every visit where it is scheduled, or limit it to one visit. It is distinct from participant payments or patient billing.

What makes an item unbilled?

An item becomes available when it meets its configured entered or verified trigger and is eligible for billing but not linked to an invoice. Staff review that state against the agreement. Unbilled is not a guarantee of immediate sponsor acceptance or payment.

Can a fee wait for investigator verification?

The fee schedule supports entered or verified billing triggers. Select the one that reflects the negotiated milestone conditions and inspect a sample source record as it crosses that trigger. Staff should review configuration with finance rather than infer payment terms from a procedure name.

How is invoice KT-2026-0002 created in the sample?

The illustration starts with completed work, then shows eligible unbilled lines selected into a sponsor invoice. The number and amounts are sample records, not an existing customer’s invoice or revenue result. In the app, authorized staff review eligible items and create the linked invoice.

What happens when an invoice is voided?

Authorized staff use the shared reason-required signature workflow. The original invoice remains in the record, and its linked billable items return to Unbilled so staff can prepare a corrected invoice. Your finance procedures determine approval, sponsor communication and reconciliation.

Can we promise invoices contain no PHI?

No automatic guarantee should replace review. Use study and participant codes, avoid names and clinical details in descriptions, and inspect the printable invoice before sharing. A coded identifier can still be sensitive in context. Your site owns the minimum necessary disclosure and sponsor-facing review.

Sponsor invoicing for clinical research sites.

Connect the negotiated fee schedule, completed study work and sponsor invoice without losing the item trail.

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Kyros Trials / Sample workspace

CARD-204 / Sponsor billing

01Visit work completed
02Unbilled items accrue
03Invoice created

Week 4 procedures: Linked to invoice
Visit fee: $650 invoice line
Additional procedure: $120 invoice line
Sponsor invoice: KT-2026-0002 / $770

Draft invoice retains its underlying item trail

Sample record. Not real participant data.

What breaks today

The finance question starts before an invoice is drafted: what did the site earn under the clinical trial agreement, and what evidence releases that fee? Kyros Trials keeps a study/site fee schedule, entered or verified triggers, unbilled items and sponsor invoices connected. Staff review the items before invoicing and retain their relationship to the underlying work. This is sponsor billing, not participant billing. The contract defines entitlement, payment conditions and disputes; the software provides a record workflow for applying the fee schedule your team has agreed.

01The visit is done, but I’m still checking the budget line.
A completed visit is not automatically invoiceable under every contract. Finance needs the negotiated milestone, amount and trigger beside the evidence of work. The site should distinguish entered data from verified data when the agreement uses those events differently.
02The procedure was earned, but it never made the invoice.
A manual tracker can lose the link between a source procedure and its billing status. Unbilled items should be reviewable by study and participant before selection. Staff still reconcile the list against the agreement and confirm that the sponsor has not paid the item through another process. In Veeva’s 2025 site survey, 63% rated not being paid on time/according to clinical trial agreements as a critical-to-moderate challenge. Third-party research. Not Kyros Trials customer results.
03I need to correct the invoice without losing its history.
Deleting a mistaken invoice removes context that finance may need later. A reasoned void preserves the original invoice and releases its linked items for a corrected invoice. The site should confirm who can perform that action and review the resulting item state.

Sample tubes arranged in a laboratory rack — Illustrative workspace. Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash.

Fee schedule to invoice

Completed work should have a billing trail.

Follow the fee schedule, its entered or verified trigger, and the billable item into a sponsor invoice. Your contract determines what is earned and when.

CARD-204 / Fee schedule

Sample workflow

Fees: Week 4 visit plus scheduled ECG
Trigger: Verified
Fee: Negotiated study/site amount

Illustrative workflow. Not live records or customer results.

What’s included

These are core site workflows, available with Advanced off. Access still follows your staff roles and study permissions. Optional AI depends on the plan and service configuration.

Study/site fee schedule: Maintain negotiated per-visit and per-procedure amounts in the study context. Procedure fees apply at every scheduled visit or one selected visit.
Procedure completion checklist: Review scheduled procedures at visit entry. Mark procedures not done with a short reason; those procedure fees do not accrue.
Entered triggers: Accrue a configured item when source entry meets its trigger.
Verified triggers: Use review completion where the negotiated trigger requires it.
Unbilled review: Inspect pending earned work before invoicing.
Study grouping: Group unbilled items by study for reconciliation.
Participant-code context: Follow an item to the participant’s completed work.
Linked invoice items: Create an invoice from selected eligible unbilled items.
Printable invoice detail: Review sponsor, site, study and item totals before sending, with visit and procedure lines grouped under each visit.
Status and reasoned void: Track invoice status and preserve corrections through voiding.

Controls and site responsibilities

Use this mapping to structure your review, not as a regulatory determination. Regulations and guidance describe expectations; your intended use, procedures, training and evidence determine how the workflow supports your study.

Regulation, software support and site responsibility
Regulation or requirement	What Kyros Trials does	What your site still owns
Clinical trial agreement fee schedule	Keeps negotiated per-visit and per-procedure fees and triggers linked to study/site work.	Interpret the signed agreement, reconcile payments and approve the invoice.
Invoice data minimization	Uses study and participant-code context rather than participant billing.	Review every invoice and description for identifiers or health details; a study code can still be sensitive.

Compliance depends on how each site validates and uses the system.

How it connects

The sponsor invoicing connected to completed study work workflow feeds the next site record while preserving the distinction between captured information, staff review and an authorized action.

01
Completed visit
02
Billing trigger
03
Unbilled item
04
KT-2026-0002

A connected record is not an automatic approval. Staff check the underlying evidence, confirm permissions and decide when the next step is appropriate. The sample demonstrates a handoff; it does not access clinical records or imply a measured customer result.

Before and after, at the site

Paper or spreadsheets compared with Kyros Trials workflows
Site task	Paper or spreadsheets	Kyros Trials
Apply the fee	Look up a separate negotiated budget workbook.	Study/site visit and procedure fees and triggers retained together.
Identify earned work	Compare procedure sheets with a manual tracker.	Trigger-linked items available in Unbilled.
Prepare an invoice	Copy lines into another document.	Selected items linked to a sponsor invoice.
Review the amount	Recalculate totals across separate files.	Printable item detail for finance review.
Correct an invoice	Delete or overwrite the original spreadsheet.	Reasoned void preserves history and returns linked items to Unbilled.

Workflow comparison, not a claim of time saved or improved clinical outcomes. Review the steps against your own protocol and operating procedures.

Bring your data from CRIO, RealTime-CTMS or spreadsheets

Start with a de-identified export and agree on the field mapping before moving records. Staff review identifiers, dates, statuses and the destination structure. Keep the original records available under your retention policy; a CSV import does not reconstruct another system’s audit trail. Document and historical-record migration require a separate review of available exports and file structure.

Review switching Open the related site resource

Published pricing, before the demo

Included in every plan. Published price: $599 per site per month.

That is the Site plan price. Starter is $299 per month with its study limits; Network is $499 per location per month for two or more locations. Core modules are included across plans. AI drafting and prescreen chat are Site and Network options and require configuration. Review current terms and limits before selecting a plan.

Review plans and pricing

Questions before you choose

Answers to the questions research sites ask most.

Still have questions? Book a demo

Related site workflows and resources

See your own protocol in Kyros Trials.

Walk through your visit schedule, source records and sponsor billing with our team.

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