ABOUT OUR CLIENT
A publicly traded clinical-stage company with a CFO-level problem in the accounting system
Client was a NASDAQ-listed clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company based in Malvern, Pennsylvania, focused on developing novel cardiovascular therapies. Its lead candidate, was a reversal agent for the antiplatelet drug ticagrelor in Phase III development. The company raised approximately $43 million in its 2018 IPO and carried the full governance and reporting obligations of a public company while operating without commercial revenue.
That combination, public company obligations, active clinical programs, lean finance team, no revenue, creates a specific and well-understood financial management challenge. Every operational dollar is scrutinized. Every accrual matters to the financial statements. Every close cycle adds cost. And every audit finding adds more. Client's accounting infrastructure was not built for the environment they were operating in, and the gap was showing up in every close.
Key Outcomes
- Phase III – Clinical program supported
- Weeks – Removed from close cycle
- Zero – CRO accrual manual estimates
- Audit – Ready from day one
THE PROBLEM
QuickBooks and Microsoft Word were running a public company's finances
Before engaging Archer Insights, Client managed its financials in QuickBooks and tracked its clinical purchase orders in Microsoft Word. The latter detail is worth pausing on: a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company with active Phase II and Phase III clinical programs, each carrying multi-million-dollar CRO commitments, was tracking those commitments in a word processing document with no integration to the accounting system, no approval workflow, and no automated reconciliation against actual invoices.
The mechanics of the problem
- Purchase orders for clinical trial activity lived in Microsoft Word, completely disconnected from any accounting or approval system
- CRO accruals were estimated each period based on email updates from research organizations, with the finance team applying judgment rather than system logic
- When actual CRO invoices arrived, they rarely matched the estimates exactly, requiring adjustment entries that consumed close time and generated auditor questions
- Month-end close required substantial manual effort across data gathering, accrual estimation, approval reconstruction, and intercompany work
- Finance leadership had no real-time view of outstanding clinical commitments, making cash runway forecasting dependent on maintaining a separate tracker outside the ERP
What this cost the organization
- Audit preparation required manually reconstructing approval chains from email and spreadsheet records, adding significant effort to an already compressed close cycle
- External auditors routinely questioned CRO accrual estimates, requiring the finance team to provide written justifications for estimate methodology every quarter
- The absence of a system-enforced Delegation of Authority structure meant that approval authority was managed informally, a finding that recurred in external audit cycles
- Finance team capacity was consumed by close mechanics rather than by the financial analysis and forecasting a clinical-stage company actually needs from its finance function
- As the clinical program advanced toward Phase III, the accrual complexity was increasing with no system in place to manage it
THE IMPLEMENTATION
Archer's NetSuite for Pharma framework: built for clinical-stage operations
Archer Insights deployed its NetSuite for Pharma framework for Client, configuring the system specifically around the financial mechanics of a clinical-stage public company. The implementation addressed three interlocking problems: the absence of a controlled PO and approval system, the manual CRO accrual process, and the close cycle that was consuming disproportionate finance team capacity.
THE THREE PROBLEMS ARCHER SOLVED FOR CLIENT
| # | Problem | Archer solution |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | POs tracked in Microsoft Word with no approval workflow or accounting integration | NetSuite PO module with Archer Approvals App enforcing DOA-based routing for all clinical commitments |
| 2 | CRO accruals estimated manually from email updates, creating audit exposure every quarter | Milestone-based accrual logic tied to contract structure; estimates replaced by system-calculated amounts |
| 3 | Close cycle consumed by manual data gathering, accrual entry, and approval reconstruction | Controlled sequential close workflow with system-generated accruals and time-stamped approval trail |
CRO accrual management: replacing estimation with calculation
The accrual problem at Client was not that the finance team was doing it wrong. It was that no system existed to do it right. Each CRO engagement carries a contract with a defined scope, a set of milestones, and a total value. At any given point in the clinical program, the amount of work completed against each milestone can be estimated with reasonable precision if that milestone structure lives in the accounting system alongside the contract value.
Archer configured NetSuite to hold the milestone structure for each CRO engagement. Accruals are calculated based on actual milestone status against the approved contract rather than on emailed percentage estimates. When actual invoices arrive, they are matched against the established accrual rather than requiring a fresh calculation and a reconciling adjustment. The audit exposure that had recurred every quarter was eliminated structurally rather than managed defensively.
What this means for a quarterly audit cycle:
Client's auditors could now review CRO accruals by pulling the milestone schedule, the contract, and the accrual calculation directly from NetSuite. The supporting documentation was complete, internally consistent, and available without a manual preparation cycle. Accrual methodology questions that had consumed hours of audit response time were resolved by the system itself.
MODULES DEPLOYED
What Archer configured for Client
| Module | Function | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| NetSuite Core Financials | Full general ledger, multi-period reporting, and public company controls | Replaced QuickBooks with an audit-ready ERP configured for NASDAQ-listed operations |
| NetSuite Purchase Orders | Structured PO creation and tracking integrated with the general ledger | Replaced Microsoft Word; every clinical commitment is now a system record with an approval chain |
| Archer Approvals App | DOA-enforced multi-tier approval routing by role, department, and dollar amount | Every financial commitment carries a documented, time-stamped approval trail auditors can access directly |
| CRO Accrual Management | Milestone-based accrual calculation tied to contract structure and actual progress | Manual estimation cycle eliminated; accruals post consistently and accurately without auditor challenge |
| JP Morgan Banking Integration | Direct bank connection for payment execution and daily automated reconciliation | Real-time cash visibility replacing monthly bank statement dependency |
RESULTS
What changed for Client after go-live
| Before Archer Insights | After Archer Insights |
|---|---|
| Clinical POs tracked in Microsoft Word with no accounting integration | All clinical commitments managed in NetSuite with DOA-enforced approvals and full audit trail |
| CRO accruals manually estimated from email updates each period | Milestone-based system accruals; no manual estimation, no adjustment cycle |
| Audit findings on accrual methodology recurred every quarter | Accrual methodology documented in the system and reviewable directly by auditors |
| Month-end close consumed by manual data gathering and approval reconstruction | Controlled sequential close workflow; most manual steps eliminated |
| Finance team capacity absorbed by close mechanics | Finance team redeployed toward analysis, forecasting, and clinical financial planning |
| Cash position required monthly bank statement to confirm | Real-time cash visibility via daily JP Morgan bank reconciliation in NetSuite |
THE ARCHER EDGE
Clinical-stage pharma finance is a specialty. The infrastructure should be too.
A clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company has financial management requirements that sit at the intersection of public company governance, clinical program accounting, and lean organizational structure. The CRO accrual problem is not unique to Client, it is endemic to any company running active trials on a system that was not built for it. The DOA finding is not unique to Client either. It appears in audit reports for clinical-stage companies across the industry whenever the ERP cannot enforce the control that the governance structure requires.
Archer Insights has built the same infrastructure for multiple clinical-stage companies. The CRO accrual module, the DOA framework, the public company close workflow, these are pre-built and pre-validated configurations that Archer drops into each engagement rather than designing from scratch. The result is a faster implementation, fewer post-go-live surprises, and a system that satisfies the audit requirements that clinical-stage companies face in their first post-implementation audit cycle.
Archer Insights is a five-time consecutive NetSuite Alliance Partner Spotlight Award winner (2022 through 2026), recognized specifically for its work in the BioTech and BioPharma sector.
Call to Action
If your clinical-stage company is managing CRO accruals in spreadsheets and your close cycle is a recurring fire drill, Archer can show you what a configured, audit-ready financial infrastructure looks like.
archerinsights.com | Schedule a conversation with our team