FAR Survey
K&F's FAR [Federal Acquistion Regulation] survey is part of its management consulting services offered to federal government contractors. It provides a quick preliminary assessment of problem issues or concerns of management within any of the various areas to which our expertise extends such as
- Cost Accounting Standards (CAS), including applicability, type of coverage, requirement for disclosure statements, cost accounting practice changes and cost impact proposals;
- FAR Part 31 Cost Principles and Procedures and related recovery of allowable costs, identification of unallowable costs and cost structure optimization;
- Truth-in-Negotiations Act (TINA) and your duties to disclose Cost or Pricing Data during proposal preparation and negotiations as well as defense against Defective Pricing in the event that required disclosures were omitted;
- Acquisition methiods using negotiation, competition or commercial items along with the requirements for cost or pricing data, exemptions for adequate price competition and qualification of commercial items;
- Assessment of problem contracts and your ability to recover through equitable adjutsments your increased costs related to excessive customer inspection, interference, delays, or constructive changes in scope;
- Contract terminations or program cancellations;
- Protection of Data Rights, to name a few.
The survey typically involves 2 or 3 days of on-site field work analyzing data, reviewing documents and talking with personnel about the issues of interest.
The field work is then followed with a letter report summarizing our findings, conclusions and recommendations, if any, with appropriate citations to applicable rules and regulatory requirements.
The FAR survey is a great way to get started in assessing government contract concerns. The complex nature of government contracts often results in the basis of concern and its remedies being very different than what management may have feared. The survey tends to focus management on the correct issues for determining success.