Many of you may remember the TV commercial many years back where the announcer said "Its 10:00pm. Do you know where your children are?". The idea was to focus parents attention on their children in the formative ages. The same might be said right now to government contractors: "It's September, do you know where your indirect rates are?". The parallels here are astounding. The premise on the parenting message is that if you as a parent don't know what your children are doing at this hour of the day, you may have a nasty surprise when they get caught. In the government contracting world there could be similar consequences. For instance, if your rates are not following your approved rates you could be faced with giving the government some money back at the end of the year or the end of the contract. If you did know where your rates were, how would that change anything you say? Well, if your rates are running too low, there is still time left in the year to spend the indirect money that was originally budgeted in order to bring the rates back into line before the end of the year. The longer you wait, just like postponing writing that term paper, the more difficult this will be to bring your rates back into line. Now is a good time to look at your indirect rates, compare them to your approved billing rates and take action to prevent unpleasant surprises at the end of the year.
