Redstone Government Consulting Blog | Compliant Accounting Infrastructure (14)

FAR Part 31.205 -1 – Public Relations and Advertising Costs

“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” (American Marketing Association)

“Advertising is the action of calling something to the attention of the public especially by paid announcements.” (Merriam-Webster)

“Public relations (PR) is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” (Public Relations Society of America (PRSA))

The budgeting process for any company can be a daunting process.  But, like most things, hard work pays off, and establishing a detailed budget is a critical element to ensure a healthy and profitable company.

It’s everyone’s least favorite time of year.  That’s right, tax season.  For those of us who no longer work in public accounting, this time of year is now a welcome reprieve; although for us, it also marks the start of incurred cost season.  If you’re not sure what an Incurred Cost Submission is or have questions about that topic, visit our website for a variety of resources.

Unless you have undergone a DCAA Accounting System audit under the criteria in DFARS 252.242-7006 (a.k.a. DFARS Accounting System Audit), you do not know what a comprehensive audit is.  To start with there are eighteen criteria, some of which are as broad as “Accounting practices in accordance with standard promulgated by the Cost Accounting Standards Board, if applicable, otherwise, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.”  This leaves the door open to pretty much endless questions.  But don’t worry, DCAA has narrowed it down to only 27 questions. 

Unanet offers a streamlined platform which works for many small contractors and offers a host of benefits you should consider, including smooth integration and a single platform for most of your financial processes. For all of our current Unanet users and potential Unanet users; the Unanet Practice Group would like to give you a quick view of additional products available within Unanet:

You now understand a little bit more about provisional billing rates from our first of this two-part series. In this second part of our coverage of provisional billing rates, we delve a little deeper into the purpose behind provisional billing rates as well as how to prepare them and the differences between provisional billing rates and proposal bid rates. Knowing these details will enable you to prepare an accurate DCAA submission.

For our 12/31 year-end contractors, this is a busy time of year.  Year-end books are ending and 2019 budgets are being formed.  This is also the time of year for submitting provisional billing rates or PBRs for contractors that have cost reimbursable type contracts such as cost-type and time and material contracts. 

Looking forward to closing 2018? It can be a daunting task, even when you have a trained team and an armload of checklists. To ensure you are fully prepared to tackle each of the processes you encounter at the end of the year and to start the new year right, we at Redstone GCI wanted to provide a check-list and some links to the Unanet Knowledge Center to help you through the Year-End Process:

The competition for that big contract you have been dying to win is underway.  This is a great business opportunity for you.  So, you begin the process of putting together the perfect proposal.  As you go through that process, there are several pitfalls that could prevent you from having the best proposal.  As a government attorney, I saw many of those pitfalls in every source selection I worked.  So as one gift as you enter this new year, I want to go over some of the main pitfalls I have seen from the government’s perspective.

What better way to kick off 2019 than with a quick review of your Affordable Care Act (ACA) reporting requirements? Employers subject to the ACA must distribute reporting forms to employees and file with the IRS shortly after the new year, so now is the time to gather and review all required data.