Author: Hour Timesheet

DCAA Compliance | DCAA Timekeeping | Job Costing | Nonprofit | Payroll | QuickBooks | QuickBooks timesheet

Cost Estimating System Requirements: Accuracy in Bid Development
ByHour Timesheet April 2, 2026

A proposal isn’t just a sales document. In federal contracting, it’s a legal representation of your costs — and DCAA treats it that way. I’ve watched contractors win contracts and then spend the next twelve months trying to reconcile what they bid against what they’re actually spending. Sometimes the gap is explainable. Sometimes it’s not….

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DCAA Compliance | DCAA Timekeeping | Leave Management Software | Payroll | QuickBooks | Timekeeping Software

Progress Payments vs. Performance-Based Payments: DCAA Logic
ByHour Timesheet March 31, 2026

Most contractors understand that the government pays them. Fewer understand that how the government pays them determines how DCAA audits them — and those are very different things. I’ve seen small contractors walk into a contract financing arrangement without fully understanding which payment mechanism they agreed to. By the time they realize the difference, they’re…

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DCAA Compliance | DCAA Timekeeping | Leave Management Software | Payroll | QuickBooks | QuickBooks timesheet | Timekeeping Software

The Role of the Compliance Officer in a DCAA-Regulated Firm
ByHour Timesheet March 19, 2026

The single most expensive position a government contractor can leave unfilled isn’t a billable engineer. It’s a compliance officer. I’ve audited firms where the CFO was also the contracts manager, the timekeeping administrator, and the de facto compliance function — all at once. That arrangement works fine until DCAA shows up. Then it falls apart…

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DCAA Compliance | DCAA Timekeeping | Leave Management Software | Location Tracking | QuickBooks Desktop | QuickBooks Online | Timekeeping Software

MMAS Compliance: The 10 Standards Every Government Contractor Must Know
ByHour Timesheet March 17, 2026

If your material accounting system can’t pass scrutiny, neither can your contract. I’ve sat across the table from contractors who genuinely believed their inventory tracking was adequate — right up until the moment a DCAA auditor flagged a $400,000 cost disallowance for unsupported material charges. The system wasn’t fraudulent. It was just incomplete. And in…

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DCAA Compliance | DCAA Timekeeping | Leave Management Software | Location Tracking | Payroll

Interest Penalties under the Prompt Payment Act: GovCon Guidelines
ByHour Timesheet March 12, 2026

Your company submitted a proper invoice on June 15 for completed contract deliverables, but the government didn’t process payment until September 3—79 days later—triggering automatic interest penalties of $8,400 under the Prompt Payment Act that the government paid you without dispute. Six months later during your incurred cost audit, DCAA questioned whether you properly accounted…

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DCAA Compliance | DCAA Timekeeping | Leave Management Software | QuickBooks Desktop | QuickBooks Online

Subcontractor Oversight: Monitoring Financial Health for DCAA Compliance
ByHour Timesheet March 6, 2026March 6, 2026

Your company awarded a $4.2 million critical path subcontract to a vendor whose financial statements showed strong revenues and growth—but during contract execution, the subcontractor declared bankruptcy, defaulted on deliverables, and left you scrambling to find replacement sources while absorbing $680,000 in reprocurement costs that DCAA questioned as avoidable contractor mismanagement because you failed to…

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DCAA Compliance | DCAA Timekeeping | Job Costing | Location Tracking | Payroll | QuickBooks | QuickBooks Desktop | QuickBooks Online | QuickBooks timesheet | Timekeeping Software

CPSR Readiness: Designing a Compliant Contractor Purchasing System
ByHour Timesheet March 3, 2026

Your company won a $15 million cost-reimbursement prime contract requiring you to manage $8 million in subcontracts, triggering a mandatory Contractor Purchasing System Review (CPSR). DCMA reviewers discovered you lacked documented purchasing procedures, competitive source selection processes, price reasonableness determinations, or subcontractor risk assessments—resulting in significant deficiency findings that suspended your purchasing system approval and…

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DCAA Compliance | DCAA Timekeeping | Leave Management Software

Legal and Consultant Fees: Documentation Required to Avoid Disallowance
ByHour Timesheet February 19, 2026

Your company incurred $145,000 in legal fees defending against an employment discrimination claim and $78,000 in consultant fees for “business advisory services”—both charged to indirect pools allocating across government contracts. During your incurred cost audit, DCAA questioned the entire $223,000, citing inadequate documentation supporting business purpose, lack of evidence demonstrating services were necessary and reasonable,…

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DCAA Compliance | DCAA Timekeeping | Leave Management Software

Executive Compensation Caps: Calculating the DCAA Ceiling
ByHour Timesheet February 12, 2026

Your company paid your CEO $875,000 in total compensation and charged the full amount to indirect pools allocating across all contracts including government work. During your incurred cost audit, DCAA applied the executive compensation benchmark limitation—currently $487,000 for the relevant year—and questioned $388,000 in excess compensation plus the associated fringe benefits and overhead allocation, totaling…

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DCAA Compliance | DCAA Timekeeping

Service Center Accounting: Allocating IT and Facilities Costs DCAA
ByHour Timesheet February 5, 2026

Your company allocated IT department costs using headcount—each employee charged equal share regardless of actual technology consumption—while facilities costs allocated based on direct labor hours even though office space usage had no relationship to project effort. During your accounting system audit, DCAA discovered that your engineering contracts requiring minimal IT resources subsidized administrative operations with…

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