Fiscal periods to be used for pricing cost proposals

[Bonnie Ross]

Should you use government Fiscal years or your organization's accounting fiscal year periods (i.e. calendar base) for the periods used in the cost breakouts submitted in your cost proposal?

[here_2_help]

What do the pricing instructions say?

Whatever you do, you will need to apply your indirect rates by contractor fiscal year, even if you then aggrege the costs by GFY or by contract year.

[Bonnie Ross]

Do the subcontractors need to use the same fiscal year periods (i.e. government FY, or calendar base) for the cost breakouts submitted in their cost proposals that is used by the Prime contractor?

[here_2_help]

Bonnie Ross,

Not really, but why wouldn't they? If the project work is time-phased by week or month, then it's really no big deal to chop up the weeks or months to conform to whatever "year" the prime is using. At least, that's how I see it. Again, indirect rates are applied solely on the basis of the (sub)contractor's fiscal year. Sometimes insurance premiums or other benefits costs are tracked on a calendar year. Those are about the only constraints I can think of.

If the (sub)contractor invests in professional proposal costing/pricing software, all this can be programmed. Costs can be sliced and diced as needed.