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Indirect Costs calculation


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Our company is new to the government arena and so I'd appreciate the gentle help of those with experience. We have a recently awarded IDIQ and when the individual subcontracting plan was included and accepted in the proposal phase, the box was checked for "indirect costs have been included". Can anyone advise as to a good method of assembling what indirect costs (janitorial, for example?) are acceptable?

Also, the contract states "The total of this governement contract divided by the total corporate sales will provide the prorate factor." For total corporate sales should we use the three year average used on SAM?

If anyone knows of any resources besides the FAR, ti would be appreciated. Thanks.

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Legit,

It's been a while, but when I did that stuff, when we included indirect costs, we were tracking the socioeconomic status of our indirect vendors and allocating the percentage of indirect awards to our program reporting.

Caveat: It's been a LONG time and I hope somebody will either confirm my memory or provide the correct info.

H2H

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Including indirect costs in your subcontracting plan is very complicated and requires a system to accumulate the appropriate costs. What did you pay and which of your indirect vendors are large, small, which woman owned, etc. I have found that it is easiest to simply check the box that indirect costs have not been included.

If you already submitted your subcontracting plan, I would recommend simply telling the Contracting Officer that you made a mistake and change it to not included.

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Thanks to those that replied.

The decision of whether to retain the indirect costs stipulation will be above my head. If my managers decide to retain it rather than asking the Contracting Officer to change it, do you have any recommendations on the types of services that can be used for the indirect vendors? The only thing I have seen is janitorial and landscaping. What about travel agencies, copier rentals? I am assuming they must be costs of a repetitive nature? Thank you.

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For types of services have you seen this? Beyond this reference my advice would be to contact the approving authority for your Plan both inside your organization and from the Contracting Agency for further advice.

From the “ electronic Subcontracting Reporting System (eSRS)

Quick Reference for Federal Government Prime Contractors” Page 15. Document is found here –

http://www.esrs.gov/documents/eSRS_Quick_Reference_for_Federal_Government_Prime_Contractors_filing_ISR.pdf

“1. Dollars and Percentages in the Following Blocks: Indicate here if indirect subcontract awards were approved on your subcontracting plan to be included in your reported subcontracting accomplishments. Indirect subcontracts are subcontracts that are not directly tied to a particular contract; they are generally shared expenses amongst all contracts or overhead subcontracts. Examples are landscaping, office supplies, janitorial services, window washing, courier services, etc. Note that indirect subcontracts are different from allowable indirect costs under cost reimbursement type contracts.”

For method of calculating have you dug into your subcontracting plan deep enough? In my experience when a prime indicates that reported numbers will include indirect subcontract awards there is also a requirement to state the method being used to report the indirect, which circles back to Loul’s post #3.

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