Boof

Thanks Vern, I may not have been clear on why I need the information . This reference is for audit of the records. We utililize DCAA and they audit as in their manuals. What I need ot know is what should be provided with the invoice. My COR refuses to approve the invoice without boarding passes or some other proof the traveller actually got on the plane. He insists that unless he has a document in file, the OIG is going to write them up. I am just wondering what the industry standard is for providing proof of travel at time of invoice approval? Also the cost of that travel. This is becoming a bigger issue now that we are being pressured to review invoices and pay in 15 days at the same time we get OIG reports saying we are doing enough verification prior to payment. I want to hear from other COs facing this issue what they are requiring to be submitted and how deeply they look at it before payment. I believe the incurred cost audits conducted later should be the main enforcement method.

I know travel has been beat around several times on this forum. I know Vern believes it can always be fixed price but some contracts are very heavy on it. While there is no one answer, what is an acceptable amount of support documentation that will satisfy both auditors and OIGs. My cost reimbursable contract involves recruiting nationwide, paying travel for him to process in and be given company orientation, returned home to await Government training, flying him to Washington area, flying him to middle east, paying for 3 R&Rs (2 regioanl and one to home of record), and finally flying him to either the company HQ or home. Now repeat that up to 700 time per task order. This is tens of millions in travel. I plan to fix some of these costs on future orders but there is still a lot of trips where the employee may be coming from anywhere in the US and going back there. Is there a consensus as to what the firm should have to supply as proof of each flight and the incidental costs incurred. I have a COR who wants them to provide boarding passes for every flight but now that most travellers use electronic passes on their smart phones, that is unreasonable. But how do you prove the guy actually got on the plane? Do some firms provide computer printouts of some type that are accepted? What have other COs with heavy travel contracts found acceptable to do???.

I am curious, how would one go about issuing a task order against an IDIQ task order. I will bet my automated contract system would choke on it.

What do you mean by "the work requires our employee's to be sponsored"? I have never heard of that before.

We are all too busy to take it. I lie, I took it. But time is a big reason. At my agency 19% of COs took it but only about 1% of CORs and PMs. I don't think the word got to them and many don't consider themselves in the "acquisition" workforce anyway. A Department notice was sent and all us supervisors were expected to encourage our personnel and CORs. Lets see if the numbers go up?

Hi all, I need to resurrect this topic for your thoughts on another angle. The contractor created a special operations unit just for our extremely large contract. This unit does no other work than our contract. This includes their accounting and invoicing departments. What is an indirect cost on some contracts ends up a direct cost for us. Since they are not supposed to invoice for any work done after the task order has expired, we have extended the POP just for the program office to close subs, find lost documents and invoice costs. They are almost at 2 years now charging us thier staff. It is time to extend again and our program office demands we let the task order expire and stop paying for the program office to do this work. They say they don't want to pay his inefficiencies any longer and he can file a certified claim with a final invoice if he chooses. What do you think of this? Is this a viable way to deal with this or is it just creating more trouble. I know it is my issue to solve but I am interested in hearing what everyone thinks.

I believe they are trying to pay for the mediation services of a third party mediator.

What is meant by Administration costs? Do you mean the cost of conducting the procurement? The cost of the COR inspecting the work? What is the IGCE for the amount that you estimate the Government is spending on administration?

Since you are using a J&A anyway for this service why not just negotiate a new sole source IDIQ? Usually all the pre-deployment, travel, security, life support, medical and other costs involved in deploying personnel to the Afghanistan requires extreme negotiation wether it is a mod or a new contract.

If they had used the FFP CPARs form, they would not rate cost control. Your firm should have been given the opportunity to respond to the report and point out the issue. All reports go to the contractor for comment before going final. I would consider anything less than outstanding on any element detrimental to my getting another contract. Some "dings" may be proper and some may be improper. The problem with past performance is that it is subjective in the eye of the beholder. The more we use CPARS for source selection, the more protest issues are going to come up.

I have a cost reimbursable, fixed fee contract that work was completed 18 months ago but invoicing goes on. The contractor created an accounting unit that segregated all costs for this contract so 100% of G&A gets invoiced to this contract. While performing the contract, the contractor did such a horrible job keeping thier records that they have millions in uninvoiced incurred costs. They have many personnel attempting to find the supporting records, doing things like calling former employees at their homes and searching old offices no longer used in an attempt to find supporting documentation for thier invoices. They have been charging us these personnel for 18 months and they say they need many more months to complete the billing. While a cost contract only requires best effort, how do I detemine when the contract management was so bad that "best effort" does not exist and the adminstrative costs can be denied? The Government takes the cost risk but why should we have to pay for gross mismanagement. What leverage can I use to deny payment. (Mr opinion is 90% of the invoicing should have been done in 6 months from the contract ending).

Thanks H2H. It was my opinion that it was not an issue. You agreed and now my legal advisor has also agreed. I am setting the person who objected straight. I just wanted to be sure of my interpretation.

Just my 2 cents worth but first you got to believe in and be proud of the mission of the agency. Do you want to support the warfighter, do you want to support Diplomats around the world, do you want to build highways and bridges to brag as you cross them, etc. Second is to find a place that will provide reviews/criticism to help you make a decision and then support your decisions to outsiders. Third, what is thier training policies and are most personnel well trained. You can't fly high if they don't support your training needs. And finally, do you like the workplace, office personnel and amount of travel you may have to do. Most agency COs don't do much travel but a few like USAID and Department of State offer lots of travel and some overseas assignments. It is really up to what you want to do as to what place is best. And to do research, look at thier website to see the organization and important work they are doing. Ask for a tour and to meet some co workers when you go for the interview. See if they look motovated or just trying to get to 5Pm. It takes a little covert action sometimes.

I have a CPFF contract that requires DBA insurance. The contractor estimates thier payroll to the insurance company and is charged a premium based on the estimate. Then at the end of the year or performance period they audit the companies payroll and determine the actual cost of the insurance premium. We have always accepted an invoice with the proof of incurred cost from the contractor and then at the end of the year made sure they reconcilled and we usually get a small refund but could possibly owe. So there was two invoices per year or POP backed up by supporting docs from the insurance company. Simple process. Someone just challenged this process to say we should not be paying the tentative insurance to the prime because we have not received the labor that it covers yet. The person challenging us says that it is OK to prepay insurance on a prime contract between us and an insurance company but not prepay the premium paid by the prime to a insurance firm. They think the vendor should multiply wages by the insurance rate and bill it every month with the invoice for fixed unit price labor. Then the insurance is spread out over many invoices and their is no supporting document to match to it. Seems overly complicated and less supported to me. In 15 years, I have never even thought that the process was wrong. Long story for a short question: Can we pay the tentative insurance premium using the primes proof of payment prior to the labor being performed or is this considered an advance payment?

Yes, I hope it gets reinstated. I already had my Procurement Executive checking into the expiration. It does not affect me much on my current job but I used it extensively in my previous position. It allowed me to treat commercial services, such as audit or evaluation services, of $3 or $4M as simplified acquisitions. I could just get 3 to 5 proposals from companies with good past performance and known to not be sore losers. I could solicit and award in 2 to 3 months with no issues. Now I would have to post the same solicitation on FEDBIZOPPs, get 10 or more proposals, evaluate them all, make a selection, get protested by 2 or 3, reevaluate or recompete, then go through it all again and get an award in maybe 9 months or a year. I am very negative on protests due to our agency being swamped with them this year. I think the test program may have been used more and just coded wrong in FPDS. That is shame on us.

Thanks for the advice. I have some real doozie contracts that seem to have everything wrong on them. Oh well, that what they pay me the big bucks for.

I believe so.

This thread strayed from the orignial question of requiring Performance and Payment bonds on services other than construction to a long discussion of bid bonds. I am curious like the orginal poster as to the prevalence of service contract bonds. I have never seen any procurment at my agency require them.

Joel, The subcontractor is requesting the Prime approve all their labor and management costs for 90 days of delay in finishing the project. The sub says the Government delayed them and our observer on site says it was mostly the fault of the subcontractor. The prime plans to approve the added cost and then charge it back to the Government under our cost reimbursement contract. We disagree that they should approve the majority of the costs and think they should make a bigger effort to deny the cost. What real leverage does the Government have in a case like this?

I have a CPFF contract with many, many subcontracts. If the Prime awards a FFP contract for construction, to what standard can we hold him accountable when his sub does not complete on time and then wants double the cost due to the delay. Government personnel at the site say the delay was about 80% the subs fault that he did not complete on time. The Prime wants us to pay 100% of a "equitable adjustiment" on the added cost. If the sub was my prime I would deny the REA and let them file a claim if they so chose. Should the prime not have to do the same due diligence. I am not experienced with cost contracts and am not sure the level of scruitiny that is the Government norm on issues such as this.

DHSGUY You are singing to the choir about losing the funds and having to find new money, but the issue of how to force a contractor to invoice by a certain date remains. No one seems to have an answer to that. All, What if on future contracts/task orders we write in a clause that requires all incurred costs to be invoices in 120 days of incurrance. Can we make such a requirement or will we be sure to lose in a protest? If not protested pre-award, can we hold the contractor to the requirement? What do you all think?

Thanks for the discussion on this. It confirms my other research that there is little we can do to get the invoices any faster than the company wants to bill it. I am only concerned with Direct Charges as I am aware that they can't do indirects until DCAA does thier audit. I think they do have some bad business practices and part of the reason for not invoicing is they can't find supporting documentation for the charges. On the other hand having contractors deploy to a hostile environment in time frames that are far too short to organize good procedures is a fact of war but not good Government planning. It just blew me away when one firm said that they were $160M behind in invoicing us at one point. How do you stay in business with that many receivables????

Only 52.232-22 Limitation of Funds.

We have a CPFF service contract that is being performed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The contractor has millions in what it calls "incurred but not invoiced" costs from as long as 4 years ago. All these costs spread over several years is causing us (and the contractor) to not have a clue how much funds is left on the CLINS or how much the overrun of the orginal cost estimates might be. Plus we need to close out certain fund citations in order to return unused funds to other agencies and don't have a clue as to how much is actually excess. The contractor says the costs were incurred but they can't invoice because they are still hunting for the supporting documentation. How long does a contractor have to invoice these costs? How has other COs dealt with not being able to ascertain the incurred costs versus the cost estimates and amounts incrementally funded. I am new to cost contracts with huge corporations doing work in hostile environments with subs that are years behind in submitting thier invoices to the prime. Any advice in how I can better control, manage and cope with this problem would be appreciated.

Lots more to it than just the Dubai trip that I was using as an example. Don't worry, we have several people who challenge all thier costs before we authorize them to do the work on the contract so it will be well vetted before authorized.