Redstone Government Consulting Blog | Compliant Accounting Infrastructure (4)

If you want to provide cloud-based services to Federal Agencies, you will need to get your service approved through the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) managed by the FedRAMP Program Management Office.

Topics: Compliant Accounting Infrastructure, DCAA Audit Support, Government Regulations, Cost Accounting Standards (CAS), Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)

The Costpoint team at Redstone GCI recently concluded a great event with Deltek, during which DCAA representatives gave a great keynote session on Accounting System Requirements (or SF1408), which was followed by another informative session by our group on how Costpoint meets those requirements. With this article, I wanted to review some of the key points from both presentations for those who missed the event. Now, I will warn you that this is written for those new to the idea of an approved accounting system and its associated requirements. It is not written for the hard-core government accounting system veteran. I will not cover every aspect or criteria related to the standard accounting system audit; instead, I will try to find a somewhat entertaining way to talk about accounting systems and the SF1408 requirements, in particular.

Topics: Compliant Accounting Infrastructure, DCAA Audit Support, Deltek Costpoint

QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop are great pieces of accounting software for small businesses. There is almost no accounting task that QuickBooks cannot handle, and the good news for those looking to calculate indirect rates is that it is considered a government-compliant accounting system when used correctly. This means you can use it to pass an SF1408 pre–award audit and can even use the system to handle your government contract accounting indefinitely.

Topics: Compliant Accounting Infrastructure, Small Business Compliance, Quickbooks

Unanet’s project management and general ledger budget features can be an asset when it comes time to develop provisional billing rates for the upcoming year. The information from the project budgets for the upcoming year can provide the data necessary to populate those areas of the general ledger budget so that billing rates can be calculated based on those same assumptions that project managers are using to maintain their project’s performance.

Topics: Compliant Accounting Infrastructure, Small Business Compliance, DCAA Audit Support, Unanet

Cost Accounting Standard (CAS) 408 was put in place to provide consistency in the measurement and allocation of vacation, sick leave, holiday, and other compensated personal absences. Today, many contractors refer to all paid time off as “PTO.”

Topics: Compliant Accounting Infrastructure, Contracts & Subcontracts Administration, DCAA Audit Support, Government Regulations, Cost Accounting Standards (CAS)

Government regulations can be complex and perhaps even confusing. For those of you experienced in Government contracts and even contract audits, you have heard of the Federal Acquisition Regulation or FAR and, FAR Part 31, Contract Cost Principles and Procedures. The scope of this part describes the applicability of the cost principles and procedures in pricing and accounting for costs on contracts, subcontracts, and modifications whenever cost analysis is needed. There is a lot there, but what’s really important? Well, I will not try to duplicate what can be at least a day course within this blog, but I will highlight three areas that are really important.

Topics: Compliant Accounting Infrastructure, Contracts & Subcontracts Administration, DCAA Audit Support, Government Regulations, Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)

If you have Government contracts, you probably heard of the Federal Acquisition Regulation, or FAR, but how much do you know of its parts? Why is it important to know? How could it possibly impact me?

Topics: Compliant Accounting Infrastructure, Contracts & Subcontracts Administration, DCAA Audit Support, Government Regulations, Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)

How does the Government define construction? We need to consider some of the definitions in FAR part 2:

Topics: Compliant Accounting Infrastructure, Proposal Cost Volume Development & Pricing, Government Regulations, Cost Accounting Standards (CAS), Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), Commercial Item Determination, Federal Construction Contracting

January 1^st is a popular Go Live date for any software implementation, and we certainly see that with our Unanet clients. The benefits of starting a new accounting system at the beginning of the year include several things such as:

Topics: Compliant Accounting Infrastructure, Unanet

So, you have a contract with the clause FAR 52.230-2 Cost Accounting Standards, subject to full CAS coverage. If you receive allocations from a home office, the home office must comply with CAS 403, Allocation of home office expenses to segments. A home office has the responsibility for directing or managing two or more segments of an organization and includes intermediate home offices or a corporate office.

Topics: Compliant Accounting Infrastructure, Proposal Cost Volume Development & Pricing, Contracts & Subcontracts Administration, DCAA Audit Support, Government Regulations, Cost Accounting Standards (CAS)