Pricing Service Contracts With Credibility in Small Business Federal Government Contracting

 

Introduction

Assuming a proposal to a government agency has an acceptable technical solution and past performance and management factors that convince the customer it is a viable candidate, then pricing may be the winning element in the source selection equation.

The mechanics of government contract pricing have been discussed previously at this site. The discussion relates how pricing should be a natural outgrowth of the organization structure, market strategy, competitive analysis, business system design and long range planning:

Pricing Service Contracts

The above article also explains how long and short term pricing factors should be integrated with the management and technical elements of any given proposal and that a total view of the business is best presented by integrating long-term company strategy with short term proposal objectives. 

The purpose of this article is to augment the above discussion with tips on establishing and maintaining credibility in pricing to a government customer.

Certified Cost or Pricing Data

Certified cost or pricing data under the “Truth in Negotiations Act” (10 U.S.C. § 2306a) or TINA statute is proposal pricing, which for procurements greater than $750,000, is certified by the contractor as accurate, complete and current as of the date of agreement on price. (Section 811 of the fiscal year 2018 NDAA includes a provision that increases the threshold up to $2,000,000). 

Truth In Negotiations Act (TINA)

The absence of a certificate does not eliminate defective pricing liability.

The statement underlined above is a key principle in relationships with the government and its auditors. TINA influences a government auditor’s thinking and it is in the back of the mind of every contract negotiator. They are taught and learn by experience to look for TINA faults.  

Thus, even if your procurement does not meet the above threshold for TINA certification you should price to establish a similar credibility with your customer, even though you may not have to sign a TINA “Certificate of Current Cost or Pricing”. Doing so is simply good risk management in business.

You may read more about cost and pricing data and the negotiation process at the following link:

Contract Negotiation

Remember Historical Data is Precedent Setting

All auditors, negotiators and pricing analysts are preconditioned to utilize historical data. The last or most favorable price offered a customer for a commercial off-the- shelf product is strong support for what is currently being quoted. This is particularly true of GSA Schedule negotiations, product updates or repetitive buying situations.  If you are a commercial supplier, a quantity factor will also enter into play.  In general, orders of higher quantity than historical pricing quantities undergo downward pricing pressure by the buyer unless some other factor such as a non-recurring tooling charge, learning curve interruption, obsolescent material or other upward factors can be offered as support for a higher unit price on a higher quantity buy.

Educate Your Auditor

An auditor who is familiar with your forward pricing rates, your business system and your product lines will understand your proposal cost and pricing data better than one who has not been briefed on the big picture of your company business operation.  Take the time to conduct briefings at that level and acquaint new government personnel with your operations.  Do not assume he or she has read prior audit reports.  They may have done so but a face to face courtesy briefing is much more effective than reading some other auditors view of a specific proposal. 

This factor can be a double edged sword, however. An auditor who knows the operation extremely well can also spot deviations in cost and pricing data and require explanations for anomalies in pricing based on observed trends.

Develop a Comprehensive Basis of Estimate (BOE)

A good BOE should have the following principal attributes:

* Clear identification of the products, services, skills, materials and performance factors required to complete the contract and material/subcontract quotes, labor categories and skill sets to perform the effort.

* A description of the conditions under which the contractor will be required to perform and any related environmental or location factors that affect the hours or dollars quoted

* Specific references to product specifications that govern an acceptable product or services performance outcome and delivery acceptance so that the cost data has boundaries.

* A schedule for the contract that identifies discrete delivery dates for products and specific start and end dates for supporting labor so that escalation and price expiration are established. 

* A precise description of government/customer furnished material or facilities required and when it will be made available to the contractor to bound the expectations of the client with respect to elements your company cannot or will not control. 

Insure Compliance with Cost Accounting Standards (CAS) Requirements

Small businesses are generally required to meet modified CAS coverage for service contracts. This requires consistency in the manner in which a small business quotes a proposal and the manner in which costs and billings are accounted after award.  You can read about these requirements at the following link:

What Small Business Should Know About FAR and CAS

Insure your proposal contains no unallowable costs and that your direct labor as well as your overhead and G&A rates are applied in accordance with your latest forward pricing agreement. If you do not have a forward pricing agreement, explain precisely how your rates were developed from a CAS compliant business system perspective:

FAR And CAS Compliant Business Systems

Utilize Weighted Guidelines as a Check to Prepare Support for the Profit Rate Quoted

Although policy in FAR Part 215-404-4 states that contracting officers ….” do not perform a profit analysis when assessing cost realism in competitive acquisitions”, it is wise to understand the contracting officer and his representatives are indirectly forming opinions of the risk to the contractor and the mix of cost elements in the proposal. That opinion directly effects profit negotiations and judgments.

Contractors should be aware that the Weighted Guidelines Method is mandatory for all negotiated procurements except Cost-Plus Award Fee Contracts and exceptions as approved by a higher authority. Contracting officers are to prepare their position using DD Form 1547 with associated backup and file it at the conclusion of negotiations.

Understanding the weighted guidelines method can assist in achieving a higher profit on a negotiation because a contractor can present a position at the table that logically supports the following elements required by FAR Part 215-404-4:

* Performance risk

* Contract type risk

* Facilities capital employed

Read more regarding the Weighted Guidelines Method at the following link:

Weighted Guidelines

Summary

A reputation for defective pricing leads to accusations of waste fraud and abuse in government contracting and is mostly about what a contractor knew regarding company prices at the time a bid was negotiated and what the contractor did not disclose in the supporting data regarding the likely cost outcome of the contract.  

Actions taken by the government and litigation resulting from defective pricing become part of the contractor past performance record and must be disclosed during competition for other programs. 

Avoid defective pricing accusations by establishing credibility with your customer through consistent, regulatory-compliant, cost and pricing in your proposal submissions and negotiations.

Cost Center Strategic Planning For Small Business Service Contractors

A growing small enterprise can enhance competitive rate development and cost management by effective cost center utilization in federal government contracting.

A cost center is a single, pricing, accounting, and billing entity within a company, organized for a group of business lines and clients with close similarities for technical and management purposes. It has its own unique overhead rate and houses the projected direct cost labor dollar base and associated expenses for that base.

A cost center is also a financial consistency template that runs from long range planning through proposal pricing, accounting, billing and closeout for the contracts it houses.  It is the way DCAA and contracting officers view major aspects of your business and your rates for that business.

INITIAL COST CENTER EXPERIENCE

Enterprises that have not experienced federal government contracting typically base their initial proposals and bid submissions to the government on their commercial quotation approach and related market rates.  This usually involves a single company cost center approach with both government and commercial work together at the general ledger level. 

When the company gains experience in government contracting through audit exposure during proposal fact finding/negotiations, as well as accounting and billing, it becomes apparent that government cost accounting standards (CAS), job cost accounting and cost management at lower levels than the commercial general ledger are necessary to succeed.  At that point a business system to support the new requirements begins to take shape. 

Below is a typical graphic overview of the processes necessary.

PLEASE CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

Note the long range planning and cost center blocks in the graphic.  The remainder of this article will focus on those two elements of the company business process. 
 

GROWING INTO MULTIPLE COST CENTERS

The time to consider separating government from commercial work and/or establishing new cost centers for bidding, accounting and billing purposes is when the enterprise is generating a long range marketing plan to determine rates for bidding new long term contracts.

The location of the work (both geographic location and whether performance is in or out of a government facility, its duration, skill set requirements, government-mandated fringe benefits for workers and the competition are all factors to consider).

The government will not question your setting up a new cost center and projecting a direct cost business base within it together with associated expenses and the resultant forward pricing rates.  The reality you must remember is that the business in the cost center must materialize as a contributor to the company G&A base for the firm’s rates to remain consistent.   DCAA will check the math during a proposal audit.  You must make the projections happen to succeed if you win the work.  Please see the following article for the details on these relationships:

Establishing FAR and CAS Compliance

Setting up a new cost center retroactively for contracts that are already in process with pricing, job cost and billing records supported elsewhere in the plan, and the business system is extremely difficult.  Looking ahead during the bid process pays big dividends.

PROBABLILITY FACTORS IN COST CENTER FORECASTS

Probability factors reflect the likelihood of contract awards.

Place into the projected base for a cost center only that amount of forecasted direct cost base deemed likely to occur and then market and manage to make your forecast happen.  If major projects in the forecasted business do not materialize your actual, realized base will be too low and your overhead rates will go up during cost center operation unless expenses are cut. That means higher bidding and billing rates to your customers.

Probability factors are usually applied by forecasting the direct dollar labor content for the job in dollars and factoring it based on marketing intelligence relative to competition, the company capability statement, past performance with the agency and how well the firm is known to the customer.  Proper modeling of probability factors avoids unrealistic cost proposals and cost overruns under contracts while permitting flexibility in risk taking to beat the competition. Please see the below article for further details on this practice:

Provisional Indirect rates

SUMMARY

Projects performed in government facilities may require a separate cost center, since many of the associated expenses for such operations are born by the government, who in turn expects a lower overhead rate as a result.

For accounting purposes cost centers usually have individual subsidiary ledgers, balance sheets and profit and loss statements. They are summarized monthly to a company total. Each cost center must have job cost accounting for the contracts residing there and a cost-center-unique overhead rate. 

The sum of the direct and indirect costs in the company cost centers forms the G&A base to which corporate level expenses are applied when calculating the G&A rate that is further applied to all projects residing in all centers after labor, labor overhead, material and other direct costs (travel or like expenses) have been summed.

Assuming your competition pays a generally similar labor rate to employees as you do and that fringe costs about the same for everyone, then cost center overhead, coupled with the company G&A rate, are often what wins and loses price evaluations during source selection. 

For more on cost centers and attendant business system considerations, please see the PRICING, BUSINESS SYSTEMS, FINANCE & ACCOUNTING section of the free book offered at this site as well as the long range plan and estimating and pricing examples in Appendices A and B to the book.