Jun 23, 2019

Guidelines On DCAA Compliant Accounting Procedures

By Catherine Mitchell


People who are interested in government contracting understand that before getting approval, you need to do a lot of cleanup to your books. The biggest issues that people face when venturing into business contracting is DCAA compliance. When your accounting procedures are DCAA compliant, it means that you are operating within the law. Operating within the law helps you reduce the time spent on legal issues and also avoid complications. Here are tips and guidance for all people new to government contracting and trying to get compliance.

The DCAA is an acronym for the defense contract auditing agency. This is the government department given the responsibility to audit all contracts that are related to the defense department. There are times when the Defense Contract Audit Agency comes in to help the government with audits that are not directly related to the audit agency, but close. The DCAA is responsible for the audit of billions of dollars, with the aim of making sure that the taxpayers are not getting swindled and that they get everything that they pay for.

Your accounting processes can only be termed as compliant when they are done according to the recommendations offered by the DOD audit agency. There are a few recommendations that the agency offers people who want to do business with the government. For instance, they will need your accounting system to have the ability to follow costs separately and also determine whether they are direct or indirect costs. You may also be needed to have an accounting system which tracks time and therefore keeps a real-time record of all transactions.

The other important thing to understand is what exactly a Defense Contract Audit Agency audit entails, and what the department will be looking for in the process. First, you have to understand that there is a difference between the audit items which are looked at by commercial agencies and those looked at by government agencies. The government focuses on things such as allowable and unallowable costs, cost pools, and indirect cost pooling.

There are different types of Defense Contract Audit Agency audits. These include forward pricing, incurred cost, pre-award and CPSR review. There are times when contracting offices request independent financial opinions on specific parts of a contract. When this happens, the agency categorizes them as special audits. It is important to know the type of audit that you are about to get and what it entails.

Before getting a government contract, the agency may perform what is known as a pre-award survey. The survey is meant to establish whether your business can perform all the tasks specified by the contract. The survey will look at your business financial ability, whether the accounting system is acceptable and can keep track of costs.

As a small business contractor, you will be wondering whether there are resources out there to help you prepare for the audit process. There is a lot of reliable information online on how to prepare for the audit. The information resources include links, checklists, and other sources of data which give you guidance on what will be needed from you before you get compliance.

Those are just a few of the most important things that you should know about the agency compliant accounting procedures. It is crucial to get an expert in DOD accounting processes to help you prepare for a Defense Contract Audit Agency audit. They will know the issues you need to fix to become compliant accounting to dcaa.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment