Per Diem Billing Automation for Animal Research Facilities

Per diem billing, charging researchers a daily rate for each cage in their colony, is how most animal facilities recover operating costs. Manual per diem calculations are error-prone and time-consuming. Colony.care automates the entire process, from tracking cage occupancy to generating accurate billing reports for each research group.

How Per Diem Billing Works

Each cage in a vivarium incurs a daily charge based on the species housed, cage size, and care level required. The per diem rate covers animal husbandry, veterinary oversight, facility maintenance, and consumables. Facilities must track exactly how many cage-days each PI or research group uses to charge the correct grant or cost center.

Challenges with Manual Per Diem Tracking

When managed with spreadsheets, per diem billing is notoriously difficult. Cages move between racks, animals are transferred between projects, and census counts change daily. A single missed cage transfer can result in weeks of incorrect charges that compound over time.

Automated Per Diem Benefits

Accurate Cage-Day Tracking

Colony management software automatically logs when cages are created, transferred, and decommissioned, calculating exact cage-days for each billing period without manual intervention.

Multi-Rate Support

Different species and cage types have different per diem rates. Automated systems apply the correct rate based on cage attributes, handling complex rate tables that would be unmanageable in spreadsheets.

Grant-Ready Reports

Generate detailed billing reports broken down by project, PI, species, and time period that satisfy grant accounting requirements and internal audit standards.

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