DCAA Compliance

Most pitches lead with cost, 60% of a full-time hire. That is the wrong frame. Federal contractors hire a fractional CFO for compliance reps a generalist does not have.

DCAA found $15.9 billion in audit exceptions in FY24. What separates the contractors who get caught is not price. It is whether their provider passes the 18-criteria DFARS test.

FAR 31.205-18 lets you recover every reasonable dollar of B&P effort through your rates, if you clear the allowability test and the marketing boundary.

DCAA defective pricing audits arrive years after award. The three-prong test auditors use, what triggers a TINA sweep, and how to protect your position.

You filed the incurred cost submission on time. DCAA then has a defined process for adequacy review, audit selection and final rate settlement. Here is every step of it.

DCAA is restructuring in 2026. Learn how new audit priorities, staffing changes, and risk-based approaches affect your compliance.

Most contractors never need a CASB DS-1. The ones who do tend to find out at the worst moment, during a contract negotiation or partway into a DCAA audit.

DCAA findings rarely start with fraud. They start with bookkeeping errors compounding unnoticed for months. CPA oversight catches the seven recurring ones before they become questioned costs or withheld payments.

DCAA questioned billions in contractor costs last year, and the same ten findings drive most of it. Every one is preventable with controls in place before the auditor arrives.

How to run and document a compensation reasonableness study under FAR 31.205-6: the $695,000 cap for 2026, survey sources, the fringe benefit trap, and owner compensation rules.