Скачать или смотреть SBIR Accounting: Identification and Accumulation of Direct Costs

Building from the “Information for Contractors” developed by the Defense Contract Audit Agency, we developed 10-module series to assist small business contractors with a basic understanding of designing an adequate system that will best-position companies for a pre-award survey. We do not provide any assurances that use of this series will lead to a successful accounting system adequacy audit and we do not represent that the Defense Contracting Audit Agency has in any way endorsed or approved this series. Our comments are based on our firm’s experience with accounting system reviews by government agencies. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected].
At General Ledger (G/L) level, your chart of accounts will include accounts that have direct costs segregated in a manner consistent with your proposal/contract/grant budget lines. This structure allows you to track each budget line in your contract/grant with actual costs to help you manage direct costs associated with your award. These accounts are then drilled down to a subsidiary level (job), driven by the coding of transactions (timesheets and labor distribution, vendor bills, and expense reports). All direct cost accounts MUST have a job included in the transactional posting. This determination is made at the earliest point in the transactional process (daily time, purchase order, vendor bill,, etc.). Only direct cost general ledger accounts have a job. Indirect general ledger accounts NEVER have a job. Excess of Per Diem Costs requires a job although these costs may not be recovered through a federal award but remain a direct cost regardless of recoverability. The general ledger is the first level of transactional processing where transactions are driven by an account number (preferred) or account name.
The second level (or subsidiary level) is the job cost level. The job cost level assigns each transaction to a level below the G/L account level.
Since each direct costs REQUIRES a job, it is important to make sure this occurs. The “job” is an identifier established internally by the contractor that cross-references to a customer (agency), job (contract), and task (CLIN) when applicable. For example, since the Department of Defense typically uses CLINs as part of their contracts, an example for a job may be DOD-8750-0001 where DOD represents the customer, 8750 represents the last four digits of the contract number, and 0001 represents the corresponding CLIN. This same identifier is to be used throughout the transactional coding process to track costs for this contract under CLIN0001. However, if the contract has a CLIN0002, then the identifier may be DOD-8750-0002. By having this level of detail, your accounting system will be able to track costs at the job level as required for an adequate accounting system. Just a reminder that INDIRECT COSTS NEVER HAVE A JOB ASSIGNED. Otherwise, it may be a direct cost. For agencies like NIH or NSF, a CLIN may not be necessary, so having the identifier may not need to go to this level in structure.
Contractors also use acronyms instead of contract numbers in the job identifier. This is up to the contractor provided that the job identifier accomplishes an adequate level of depth and is consistently used throughout the accounting system.
In order for costs to accumulate in the job cost and general ledgers, transactions must be coded accordingly. As mentioned in the previous slide, a job is an identifier that includes enough information to cross-reference to a line under a federal award that is consistently used throughout the accounting system. This identifier is used at the transactional level to code timesheets, expense reports and vendor bills.
Timesheets must include a separate line for each job that include the direct hours spent during a specific pay period. In other words, direct hours must be tracked by job using the company’s assigned job identifier. Indirect hours never have a job assigned, although, independent research and development (that is not attributed to direct jobs) may have a job or use a class or department feature to track costs for indirect rate and research and experimentation tax credit purposes.
Direct costs included in expense reports must include the general ledger account number AND the job (same job identifier used on timesheets and vendor bills/purchase order). Indirect costs must have the general ledger account and NEVER a job unless the contractor is using the job cost system for identification of independent research and development for indirect rate and research and experimentation tax credit purposes.