Do you have contracts subject to DFARS 252.215-7002, or a solicitation that carries the clause? If so, your estimating system is not just back-office plumbing. It can be a competitive advantage.
The DCAA uses an Estimating System Audit program to determine compliance with the cost estimating system requirements in DFARS 252.215-7002. Passing it does more than keep you out of trouble. It can help you win.
What Is at Stake
An approved estimating system carries real weight in a competitive pursuit:
- It can be a differentiator in your proposal response, giving you a competitive advantage.
- Some evaluations attribute points to an approved estimating system.
- It reduces audit scrutiny of your other business systems.
- It protects you from financial penalties. Failure of any one business system can trigger a 5 percent payment withholding per system until the deficiency is remediated.
What the Audit Looks For
The audit criteria are specific, and each one maps to a practice you can build into your estimating process:
- Clear assignment of responsibility for preparing, reviewing, and approving budgets and indirect rates, with trained personnel.
- A documented budget process and a basis of estimate for every account in the chart of accounts.
- Consideration of historical experience and yearly trend analysis, with rationale for significant departures from history.
- Adequate supervision and review, with errors detected and corrected in time.
- Integration with your accounting and other management systems.
How a Governed System Answers Each
A purpose-built estimating system turns those criteria into standing practice: discrete logins and authentication for the people responsible; a basis of estimate attached to every active account; actual data drawn from the accounting system for trend analysis; a review workflow that reduces spreadsheet error and unintended overwrites; and schedules that show how indirect rates are computed and applied, consistent with FAR 15.408.
The Proposal Payoff
Here is where this connects back to pricing. When your rate impact assessment and your bid pricing come out of that same governed system, the estimating rationale is already documented. You bid faster because the basis of estimate is built in, and you defend easier because the numbers reproduce. The estimating system is not a cost of doing business. It is part of how you win.
Turn estimating-system readiness into a competitive edge. Request a demo of DCAA-aligned estimating in Decerio.
