Redstone Government Consulting Blog | Asa Gilliland

In the last article, I talked about some of the early considerations for beginning the path toward your first government contract.  I would encourage you to take a look here before diving in on the next major question to answer when pursuing your first government contract.  That question is: 

December 3rd marked the end of our No Stomach for Cancer Fundraiser and we'd like to extend thanks to all our clients and our team here at Redstone GCI for their generous support.  You know us bean counters had to foot and double-foot the totals, but we're pleased to announce that the audited results are in and we've raised $5,392.46.

For over a decade I’ve had the opportunity to work with many contractors pursuing their first government contract.  In my role as the VP of Special Projects at Redstone GCI many companies that I routinely assist are in the process of acquiring their first contract or in the very early stages of contract performance.  While I do work with small businesses going through the process of initial contract pursuit and mature government contractors, most companies that I work with are larger commercial or international companies.  I like to think of the role that our team provides as a voice of reason providing a measured approach to compliance to ensure the costs for barriers to entry (e.g. DFARS Business Systems) into the U.S. federal market are recoverable by the company. 

A new DCMA CPSR Guidebook has been released effective May 29, 2018 and can be found here:  http://www.dcma.mil/Portals/31/Documents/CPSR/CPSR_Guidebook_052918.pdf The Redstone team will be conducting a more comprehensive review of the guidebook, but we want to share our initial thoughts with readers.

The incurred cost submission is required for all federal contractors holding cost-type or time and materials (T&M) contracts and is a universal requirement regardless of agency customer. All contracts requiring the incurred cost submission will include the Federal Acquisition Regulations "Allowable Cost & Payment Clause" (FAR 52.216-7) and/or the "T&M Payment Clause" (FAR 52.232-7). Following are answers to frequently asked questions and pointers to resources to help you.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

We’ve previously released a few blogs on the topic to make our clients and friends aware of the emerging requirement for registration at SAM.gov.  While the Government has not been entirely forthcoming on why this requirement has emerged, there has been a lot of speculation from a data breach to fictitious registrations stemming from a few unscrupulous “consultants” that charge to register entities in SAM.  

This blog was first published on the Deltek Government Contracting Blog as a guest post by Asa J. Gilliland of Redstone Government Consulting. 

The incurred cost submission is required for all federal contractors holding cost-type or time and materials (T&M) contracts and is a universal requirement regardless of agency customer.  All contracts requiring the incurred cost submission will include the Federal Acquisition Regulations “Allowable Cost & Payment Clause” (FAR 52.216-7) and/or the “T&M Payment Clause” (FAR 52.232-7). Following are answers to frequently asked questions and pointers to resources to help you.

It’s a busy time of year for us and many of our clients, but I wanted to take this opportunity to remind all of our readers of a few upcoming things to keep in mind. For most of our clients, January was a whirlwind of closing 2016 and getting all W-2s and 1099s completed. February will be spent ramping up for financial statement audits and the corporate tax deadline, but for government contractors there’s also a few extra things to do this time of year.

Quite often our clients ask for guidance or research on a particular compliance or cost accounting topic. These types of requests generally result in a run through the usual suspects for guidance, like FAR and CAS; and the customer agency's acquisition supplement like DFARS or DEARS. What many people don't realize is that there is a wealth of other publicly available information that can shed light on some of the more subjective aspects of these regulations.

For government contractors your indirect rate structure is critical to your competitiveness, perhaps more so than any other element of the proposal.  In today’s LPTA environment, most offerors are going to be very similar when it comes to technical capabilities and past performance, so almost always award decisions come down to cost.  For the select few companies that have a technical edge or a differentiator in the way of performance that outweighs the cost to your government customer you can stop reading now.  The vast majority of companies working with the federal government don’t have this luxury, so what are they doing to set themselves apart when it comes to developing their indirect rates and overall wrap rates (wrap rates are a function of total direct and indirect costs for a labor hour divided by the direct labor hourly rate); hence, a lower wrap rate is perceived to be a more competitive overall cost structure)?