One note to my post yesterday “Some of the Strange Things Contractors Say“:
You want to control your business, your bid & proposal efforts, and all interactions with the government. The two cases I quoted yesterday demonstrate the problems that arise when Contractors lose control of the process to the Government.
In the first case the Air Force, with the subsequent support of the appeals board, recalculated the contractor’s fringe rate resulting (in the contractor’s belief) in the lost of the contract award.
The second case presents the opposite problem. Here, the Protester successfully argued that the government failed to evaluate the winning proposal’s rates, the government simply accepted the proposed rates. The Protester demonstrated pretty easily that these rates were inaccurate.
In both cases, the contractor surrendered control of the process to the government and even their competitor by not bidding supportable rates.
All easily prevented by an accurate complete cost accounting system.