A core facility management platform is the operational software layer that runs a shared research core day to day: it handles instrument and service scheduling, tracks actual usage, and turns that usage into invoices charged back to the correct grant accounts. It sits underneath the policy questions covered in CASRAI’s Core Facility (Research Core) guide — what a core facility is, how it is funded, and how 2 CFR 200.468 governs its billing rates — and answers a more practical question: once an institution has a compliant rate structure, what system actually books the microscope time, meters the sequencer run, and generates the invoice against a specific award number? This guide covers what that software category does, the two platforms that dominate the U.S. and international core-facility market, and what to weigh when evaluating one.
Why Core Facilities Need Dedicated Scheduling and Billing Software
A core facility is not a normal cost center. It has to let dozens or hundreds of external users reserve time on expensive, shared instruments; meter who actually used what, for how long; and translate that usage into a compliant, auditable charge against a research grant, an internal department account, or an external customer — often at three different rate tiers for the same instrument. Doing this in spreadsheets or generic booking tools breaks down quickly once a facility has more than a handful of instruments, because the scheduling record and the billing record have to reconcile with each other and, ultimately, with the institution’s grants-management and general-ledger systems.
Purpose-built core facility management software exists specifically to close that gap. Functionally, these platforms generally provide:
- Instrument and resource scheduling — a calendar/reservation system so users can book time on an instrument or request a service, often with access-control integration so a badge or login only unlocks equipment during an approved reservation window.
- Usage tracking — recording actual (not just scheduled) usage, sometimes via kiosk check-in/out or direct instrument integration, so billing reflects what happened rather than what was booked.
- Rate-based billing and invoicing — applying the facility’s published rate schedule (internal, external, tiered) to metered usage and generating invoices or recharge transactions.
- Chargeback to grant/project accounts — routing that billing to a specific award, fund, or cost center, typically requiring some integration or file exchange with the institution’s financial or grants-management system so charges land against the correct sponsored project.
- Service request and project management — for cores that provide staff-run services (e.g., library prep, a consultation) rather than self-service instrument time, tracking a request from intake through fulfillment.
- Reporting — usage and financial reporting used both for a core’s own operating decisions and for the periodic rate reviews that 2 CFR 200.468 requires.
None of this changes the underlying cost-accounting rules — a platform doesn’t make a rate compliant, it just makes a compliant rate schedule executable and auditable at scale. See the Core Facility guide for the rate-setting rules themselves.
iLab Solutions (Agilent CrossLab)
iLab Solutions is a web-based, cloud-hosted core facility management platform. It was originally an independent company based in Boston, Massachusetts, and became part of Agilent Technologies when Agilent completed an asset acquisition of iLab Solutions in August 2016; it is now marketed as part of Agilent’s CrossLab Enterprise Services portfolio. According to Agilent’s own product materials, the platform is modular, with a base suite plus add-on modules covering resource scheduling, service request and project management, billing and invoicing, equipment/asset management, and usage and financial reporting, and it is used across universities, research hospitals, and independent research institutes.
Reported capabilities relevant to the scheduling/billing use case, per Agilent’s product pages:
- Reservation-based scheduling for instruments, with kiosk-style check-in that can compare scheduled time against actual real-time usage to inform billing.
- A dedicated billing and invoicing module intended to route usage charges to the correct project/account.
- Both cloud-based and on-premise deployment options, and vendor-supported integrations with other lab and enterprise systems.
These are vendor-reported product claims (Agilent’s own marketing and support pages), not independently benchmarked by CASRAI — treat specific feature and integration claims as REPORTED-tier and confirm current functionality directly with Agilent or a reference institution before relying on them for a procurement decision.
Stratocore (PPMS)
Stratocore is the other widely used platform in this space, offering its product under the name PPMS. Per Stratocore’s own site, PPMS originated at the Institut Pasteur and was subsequently developed further with the Rockefeller University, and the company reports the platform is in use at more than 250 organizations, spanning universities, hospitals, and biotech/pharmaceutical companies.
Reported capabilities, per Stratocore’s product pages:
- Automated scheduling and booking, with access-control integration and usage tracking.
- Dynamic/tiered pricing support and a billing engine that Stratocore describes as using actual (metered) equipment-use time for invoicing rather than only the scheduled reservation.
- Integration with institutional ERP systems for downstream financial processing.
- Maintenance and incident management for instruments, alongside the scheduling/billing functions.
- Operational and financial reporting across a core or a multi-site network of cores.
As with iLab, these are the vendor’s own claims and should be verified directly (a live demo, a reference-site conversation, or a current feature comparison from Stratocore) before being treated as settled fact for a specific institution’s requirements.
Other Platforms and Institutional Build Options
iLab and Stratocore are the two commercial platforms most consistently referenced by U.S. research universities and medical centers for general-purpose, multi-core scheduling and billing, but they are not the only options. Some institutions use narrower, instrument-specific scheduling tools (for example, tools built around a specific electron-microscopy or NMR facility’s needs) rather than an institution-wide platform, and some larger research institutions have built or maintain custom in-house scheduling/billing systems instead of adopting a commercial product. Selection is also shaped by what an institution’s central grants-management and financial systems can integrate with; a platform that cannot cleanly pass charges into the institution’s general ledger or sponsored-projects system creates manual reconciliation work regardless of how good its scheduling interface is.
What to Evaluate When Choosing a Platform
Because this software sits between scientific operations and federally regulated cost accounting, an evaluation typically needs input from both the core facility’s own leadership and the institution’s central research administration or grants office (see CASRAI’s guide on how departmental and central sponsored-programs offices typically divide this kind of responsibility). Points worth confirming with any vendor, rather than assuming from a features list:
- Financial-system integration. Can the platform export or directly post charges in a format your grants-management/ERP system accepts, mapped to the correct award or fund codes, without manual re-entry?
- Rate-tier support. Can it enforce the internal/external (and, where used, subsidized) rate tiers your institution’s 2 CFR 200.468 rate methodology actually requires, and can it apply a rate change across all bookings going forward without disrupting historical billing records?
- Audit trail. Does it retain the usage and billing history needed to support the periodic (at least biennial) rate review and over/under-recovery reconciliation that federal cost-accounting rules require, and to answer a Single Audit or sponsor billing inquiry?
- Multi-core / multi-site scale. If your institution runs many cores, does the platform provide a consistent cross-core reporting view for your research administration office, or does each core operate as an island?
- Instrument access-control integration. Does scheduling actually gate physical/electronic access to the instrument, or is the calendar advisory only — the latter leaves a facility relying on user honesty for both scheduling conflicts and accurate usage-based billing.
- Total cost. Licensing/subscription costs, implementation and configuration effort, and ongoing administrative burden vary by vendor and by the number of cores and users being onboarded; get current pricing directly from the vendor rather than relying on any figure not sourced to that vendor for your specific configuration.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is iLab or Stratocore better for core facility management?
CASRAI does not endorse or rank specific commercial products. Which platform fits a given institution depends on factors like existing financial-system integrations, the number and type of cores being managed, multi-site needs, and vendor support terms — these are worth evaluating directly with each vendor and, where possible, with peer institutions of comparable size and structure rather than from marketing materials alone.
Does this software replace the need to follow 2 CFR 200.468?
No. Scheduling and billing software executes a rate methodology; it does not create or certify one. The rate schedule itself — and the requirement that rates recover only aggregate cost, apply without discrimination between federal and internal users, and undergo periodic review — still has to be set and maintained in compliance with the Uniform Guidance, as covered in CASRAI’s Core Facility (Research Core) guide.
Can this kind of software charge a core facility’s costs directly to a specific grant?
That is generally the point of the billing/chargeback module in these platforms: it applies the facility’s rate to a user’s metered usage and routes the charge to whatever project, fund, or account code the user specifies at the time of the request, subject to the institution’s own approval and account-validation workflow. The platform itself does not determine which accounts are eligible to be charged — that is governed by the institution’s own grants-management and financial-approval processes.
Do small core facilities need this kind of platform, or is a spreadsheet enough?
There is no fixed threshold. Institutions with a single small core and few users sometimes manage scheduling and billing manually or with general-purpose tools for a time, but as the number of instruments, users, and rate tiers grows, manual reconciliation of scheduled-versus-actual usage against billing becomes harder to sustain and audit, which is why most multi-core research institutions adopt a dedicated platform.
