Redstone Government Consulting Blog (36)

DCAA has caught up on their incurred cost backlog and is concentrating effort on Truth in Negotiations Audits (i.e., Defective Pricing). The objective of the Truth in Negotiations audit is to determine whether a negotiated contract price was increased by a significant amount because a contractor did not submit or disclose current, accurate or complete cost or pricing data.

On October 4, 2021, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed an amendment to its Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Supplement to support the HHS Electronic Invoicing Implementation Project and HHS’s transition to the Department of the Treasury’s Invoice Processing Platform. This rule would add HHS Acquisition Regulation (HHSAR) Subpart 332.70 (which is comprised of HHSAR 332.7000 through 332.7003) Electronic Submission and Processing of Payment Requests to provide policies and procedures for these requests.

Heather Stroud is a Senior Consultant in the Deltek Costpoint group at Redstone Government Consulting. She primarily works in the Accounting, Projects, and Planning modules. Redstone GCI's Costpoint Group works with our clients to implement Deltek Costpoint, create customized training, and assist with day-to-day processing. This two-part video and article discuss some common Deltek Costpoint questions and complaints we hear from our clients.

The Redstone GCI Costpoint group recently attended a Deltek partner meeting to learn more about the changes coming in the latest 8.1 version release. A highly requested feature from our client base, this update contains real time integration of data between Costpoint and Time & Expense. The system will no longer need to pass data back and forth for UDTs (User Defined Tables) 1-11, which include the major master data of Account, Project, PLC, Pay Type, and Organization.

Wage Determination Clauses Can Bite You

What is the spookiest and scariest story for a government contractor? How about a story where the government imposes an expense on a contractor, but doesn’t allow for consideration of this expense in the contract value? So, in layman’s terms, losing money (profit) on government contracts. In a recent ASBCA decision, this is exactly what happened.

Overview

• The deadline of December 8, 2021 requiring Federal contractor employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 is quickly approaching.
• The proposed OSHA vaccine mandate for private employers is NOT YET in effect.
• The EEOC recently updated their Technical Assistance Questions and Answers that address questions about religious objections to employer COVID-19 vaccine requirements and how they interact with federal equal employment opportunity (EEO) laws.

On June 24, 2021, the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals (ASBCA) opinioned that Intellicheck, Inc., a subcontractor, did not have privity of contract or even an implied-in-fact contract with the Government to allow for the recovery of costs incurred by Intellicheck, Inc. to maintain and store Government property after the completion of a Task Order for the Navy. A tale as old as time, the Government lets years go by before taking action to dispose of its property being held by a subcontractor. Then finds a legal out for not paying the costs the Government caused to be incurred.

Source: Deltek blog

A full DCAA Business System Audit can be the longest and one of the most difficult audits a government contractor can experience. To provide some perspective, at a recent audit of one of our clients, DCAA sent 15 auditors to perform the audit. In general, our experience is that these audits take 12 months to over 18 months for DCAA to perform.

In 2017 Congress directed through the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that changes be made to the treatment of independent research and development (IR&D) costs and required the Defense Contract Audit Agency to provide as part of its annual report to Congress both independent research and development and bid and proposal (B&P) costs expended by DoD contractors. Congress intended this change to apply to indirect costs incurred on or after October 1, 2017. The Defense Acquisition Regulation (DAR) Council must have read over that part.

Deltek Costpoint Planning provides access to up-to-date, accurate information for developing, adjusting, auditing, approving, and re-forecasting project budgets and annual operating plans. We usually see three types of users in the Planning module: Business Development, Project Managers, and Project Control/Financial Analysts. Business Development users have access to develop new business budgets. Project Managers can create project budgets and run meaningful reports allowing them to make real time decisions and properly manage their programs. Project control/financial analysts can develop organization budgets and reconcile corporate and project budgets more accurately to better forecast their indirect rates.