Budget management
This section contains
the following:
Introduction
It is important that the budget
is managed appropriately throughout the life time of a
trial. It may depend on circumstances specific to
the country as to how
much
responsibility you may have to take on managing the budget on a day to
day basis. If you are part of a large institution then the
finance
department should help to administer the grant or if a commercial
sponsor
is involved they may help with financial negotiations.
However,
if you have to manage the budget primarily by yourself, setting up a
simple budget
spreadsheet which you can devote time to administering on a weekly
basis, may be more appropriate.
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Things to
consider
- When initially applying for funding make
sure you have costed realistically e.g. include salaries, travel
(including travel to meetings), consumables and equipment.
- Before starting check the terms and
conditions from the
funder providing the grant award and check how often they require
financial statements through out the funding period.
- As soon as member(s) of staff are appointed
the budget is activated and is then time limited.
- All trials are expected to be delivered
within the budget and on time.
- Monitor the actual spend against the
projected budget on a regular, at least monthly, basis.
- Time extensions may be negotiable but any
request to the funder must be made in plenty of time and clearly
justified.
- There may be occasions where further funding
is
justified, an example of this is when participant recruitment targets
are not being met and you need extra staff time because the recruitment
period has to be extended. (However, this must be agreed in advance
with the funder).
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Additional
resources
This checklist has been contributed by Barbara Farrell from
the Third edition of A guide to efficient trial management, 2006.
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Further reading
Snowdon C et al. Financial
considerations in the conduct of multi-centre randomized controlled
trials: evidence from a qualitative study. Trials 2006, 7:34.
This page was last updated March 2009.