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Michael11

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Everything posted by Michael11

  1. I promised Joel a follow up. The guidance provided in this thread was followed to a tee. Claim successful with zero questions asked. Payment received
  2. Help, I’m reading your man-splanation again, I think you are saying that a deposit as I described can be recorded in one’s accounting system as either an allowable project expense (as the small biz did) or as as a prepaid expense (asset account, not a cost, not billable, will not be indicated to client and will be handled within the accounting department). Both are equally correct for any size business ?
  3. Help, thanks for mansplaining this to me. Makes perfect sense
  4. Help- If a “deposit” is required for the acquisition of a direct project cost, is it still not an allowable cost? I ran into a situation recently that tested this. My response would normally be the same as yours that a prepaid deposit is an asset. Unbeknownst to us, we recently paid a small biz subcontractor - via their monthly invoice under a T&M subk - the cost of a deposit that a hotel required to honor per diem rates for a conference. We didn’t catch it in our review, then passed it along in our invoice to the government. Nobody at the government blinked an eye and our invoice was paid. It wasn’t until the next month that I noticed it because the cost of the “deposits” were shown as credits to direct cost. So, instead of the small biz recording the deposit to their asset account they billed it as a direct project cost, then had to extend the credit when the hotel gave it back. This isn’t the same question OP is asking but I think the underlying themes are similar. Is what the small biz did wrong? Maybe a large business with lots of cash has no problem floating the deposit and only processing travel costs as direct when they are incurred (recording the deposit and the ensuing offset as a separate accounting transaction). But for a small biz to float a hefty deposit may not be reasonable (and probably argued by the small biz as unfair).
  5. Neil let’s suppose the subcontract was identified as ‘cost’ but the agreement was largely silent on what that meant (are rate adjustments required at actuals and at what frequency, etc). The ACP was not there. In a commercial agreement I am not aware of a set of regs that would alone define what a commercial ‘cost’ agreement means. Is it fair to say that absent language in a commercial agreement that says what cost plus means between the two parties that it’s plain ambiguous
  6. Thanks help! Your overemphasis of the submission frequency is exactly what I was hoping to hear. You are right that my initial Q referred to a CR prime that includes the ACP. Separately in a cost reimbursement subcontract where no ACP was flowed down, that sounds like a problem right?
  7. Retread in reading it again I see in absence of audited rates that billing rates shall be anticipated final rates i.e. the rates not yet deemed final but reflective of the submitted incurred cost submission. So I suppose the answer is yes, when you submit your ICS your Billings should be updated to reflect those rates. When rates are actually audited they’d become the ‘final’ rates. Is that close? As for the subcontract, in the absence of specific guidance for this process and the failure of the ACP to be incorporated in the agreement, it could be anyone’s guess right?
  8. Indirect rates are submitted via incurred cost submission to DCAA annually within six months of the end of fiscal year. At what point is the contractor obligated to extend the 'actual', which is contractor-calculated-but-not-audited, rates to the govt, when the contractor has received no endorsement of the rates from the government. Are they obligated to submit a true up bill to the government annually? If they do not is there a consequence? This assumes allowable cost and payment clause as a prime. Is the answer different if you are a sub.
  9. Pepe, I have admittedly never encountered a ‘rain maker’, but I have heard of them and know they are out there. In my experience, though, BD folks are far less prestigious generators of ‘business’ than anything you described. They are often (but not always) folks with subject matter expertise in whatever they are ‘selling’, and have performed the work themselves in their careers before BD. They are normally qualified to walk the walk and talk the talk. As it pertains to government contracts, I haven’t personally met many BD people that were overly persuasive or well-suited for sales. It’s often someone who knows the business reasonably well (or is an expert), knows just enough about government contracts to be dangerous, and knows what a teaming agreement is and why we need one. They are good at evaluating RFP opportunities, are good technical writers, and they know enough about the opportunity to know if it’s rigged or ‘wired’ for another company. They know whether or not they or their partner firm has ‘capes’ and can be competitive for work. Sometimes they assume the position of a proposal coordinator for a big, competitive RFP. I guess I have a pretty jaded view of BD because a lot of times the opportunities they 'win' turn out badly. In my experience BD folks are quick to make a ‘sale’ at any cost. Which often means an ill-advised budget compromise, a persuasion to accept contract terms knowing full well they shouldn’t, and a lack of awareness or caring for contract administration, traded for ‘client’ relations. They would be the enemies of many Wifcon members. Oh, and I have never seen them paid on a commission basis. The position I described is salaried and in the range of $140K - $200K per year.
  10. thanks for everybody pushing the rock up that hill. I will moveon to reading some solicitations more closely.
  11. what I am talking about is the development of procurement proedures for an institute of higher education, a university, or a non profit as indicated in 2 CFR 200.318. It is also described in .319 and .320 describe specifically what methods of procurement must be followed. IN short, it says a covered entity should have procurement policies that sorta mimic the government's when it comes to soliciating subcontractors. don has aptly stated that this is a post award requirement and I am saying that it's rare that you haven't already picked your partner before your proposal goes to the government. i am looking for a way to reasonably select subcontractors that are included in a proposal when time does not permit a full and open competition. if you always selected/competed subs post award i am crystal clear. that is not my reality. I am missing something and my denseness is not by design. Im taking a rest from this and taking more time to research. appreciate the insights
  12. Don you make a really good point. I agree these regs are post award. But, in my experience, if you are including a subcontractor in your proposal, often times, not always, it’s because they are providing a technical qualification that you yourself may not possess. Maybe they have exceptional past performance doing xyz and you don’t. Maybe they have some highly qualified expert on their team. Wouldn’t the government be ticked if you included them in your bid, won, and then competed the subcontract post award and it had to go to someone else. If the government awards without discussions isn’t that sort of what you’re left with? Plus an unhappy teaming partner. If the proposal instructions say one thing and post award you have a different set of rules that seems like a problem. Pending a contract award the majority of subcontract awards I have seen were done deals with the prime proposal submission.
  13. Thanks Don. If you’re submitting a competitive proposal and you need to include your subcontract costs for example, maybe you need the partner for tech requirements also, how do you negotiate a price before the bid is submitted if you don’t compete it or solicit quotes. its often the case that the taming May indicate a general share of the Sow and as part of the government’s cost price analysis wouldn’t they want that performed before proposal submission. Post award doesn’t make a lot of sense to me
  14. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/2/200.320 200.320 section D1 says: (d) Procurement by competitive proposals. The technique of competitive proposals is normally conducted with more than one source submitting an offer, and either a fixed price or cost-reimbursement type contract is awarded. It is generally used when conditions are not appropriate for the use of sealed bids. If this method is used, the following requirements apply: (1) Requests for proposals must be publicized and identify all evaluation factors and their relative importance. Any response to publicized requests for proposals must be considered to the maximum extent practical; (2) Proposals must be solicited from an adequate number of qualified sources; https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/2/200.318 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/2/200.319 They seem straightforward especially when considering post award. But, preaward it seems unreasonable to comply competing everying subcontract over $250k.
  15. Thanks Jamaal. This would seem applicable to contractors who have already secured an award in excess of the SAT. Same thing for the subcontractors which would again seem post award. What about as a prime responding to a competitive RFP (pre-award) where under uniform guidnce subcontract competition is required. Am I correct that this option to send to FBO would be excluded? If you decide to secure subcontract partners for your proposal, chances are you have executed a teaming agreement. It wouldn't make sense to compete it after the fact, so I'm curious how organizations grapple with publishing an RFP for a subcontract, evaluating the proposals, select a (potential) awardee should they win the contract, and perform a price/cost analysis all in the short time they have to respond to the RFP as a prime.
  16. Purchasing policy requires competition of subcontracts > $250K via formal advertising. What method of publication have companies found to be the best? Besides emailing RFPs to vendors, or publicizing the requirement on company website, is there another method? I have heard of companies using FBO as a publication for sub RFPs but I have not seen it done.
  17. That’s good foresight JI thanks. I can’t tell you for certain that we are entitled to payment. I’ve heard we are. And after all of the deliberations I have to trust the experts. I look forward to finding out once and for all
  18. Thanks for all of the great feedback. To clarify yes this is a contract. I will research the dispute clauses included in the contract and hopefully there is reprieve. Ji thanks for your opinion that a claim may not be adversarial. I’m sure that is what folks who are tasked with the client relations will want to hear if we decide to move forward with it. I hope we will. Joel I’m with you that a face to face would be effective. I think essentially that same course of action was already taken months and months ago over the phone and obviously whatever the outcome was wasn’t convincing enough for the government.
  19. Thanks Ji. Would you consider it a courtesy to give them one last chance to pay ie indicate our intention to file a claim.
  20. FFP agreement. There was some initial disagreement over whether all requirements of the contract had been met. Government and contractor deliberated and contractor offered reasonable accommodations to complete scope to the government’s liking all the while contractor maintained work, as written in the contract, was completed. Contractor patiently waited following submission of final invoice. Despite multiple pleas from contractor to COR for technical clarification if it was needed and emails from company leadership over several months to the CO it has been pure radio silence from the govt. Invoice is approaching one year old, staff has now turned over, and still nothing. Invoice was never formally rejected. What is a reasonable course of action at this point? Emails are not returned phone calls are not answered. Emails have been sent that tee up the situation to the government still nothing. Would is be reasonable to say one last time the situation, give the govt a 30-day deadline and then they will receive notice from an attorney? I cant say I’ve ever seen a situation quite like this and the more time that passes the less likely I see the contractors chances of collecting payment due without outside counsel or something of the like? Any ideas?
  21. In a case where you priced your bid with labor rates that include Industrial Funding Fee (IFF), and you invoice those same labor rates to your client, which would be your 'sales', in a T&M contract, you could take the entire value of the invoiced labor, times it by .0075 and that would be your IFF on labor. You could apply the same .0075 on any invoiced ODCs. Would this method be incorrect? Is there a better method? Someone has suggested that when an award is made to a price that included IFF on labor rates, the IFF portion is essentially not 'yours', and is reserved strictly for IFF. so they go through the trouble of tracking the contract value at the amount less the IFF. I'm guessing they do something similar to the above when it comes time to calculate the bill. This doesn't sound logical. Thinking about this always makes my head hurt. Is there more than one way to skin this cat?
  22. Thanks Neil that sounds like a reasonable course of action. Retread - you are correct this was a competitive order under an idiq contract. As it is a contract subject to commercial terms and conditions the only mention I found re: patents has to do with patent idemntity and does not contains clauses that refer to royalties over $200 or inventions. it didn’t initially dawn on me that the govt could be requesting completion of a form that isn’t applicable to the terms of the contract
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