Streamline Your Consultancy Invoice Format for Management

Consultancy invoice format for Management

[Music] like that welcome everybody to our in voice training today appreciate you taking time out of your day to come hopefully that you'll find this this is informational and the value to you one of the main goals that we have for the in voice training is to get consistency in all the invoices that we do and you know I think if you've done business at you dot and we do business in region one they might ask for a little something different on their voices than they do on region three and as a consultant that can be quite confusing not saying either region dozen anything wrong they've done what they've been told and what they understood at the time but this is I think there's been left turnover and there's been enough time that we've done this but this will help get us hopefully some consistency throughout the state so doesn't matter what region you're working in you'll have the same expectations of what you should be putting on your invoices and how they will be reviewed and hopefully that helps those invoices sell through for both you dot and for the consultants and for you guys to get paid because I understand that that's the livelihood before we get going here I just kind of like to go around and do introductions a little bit so everybody knows who's everybody is my name is Dave Schwartz a little bit about me I've worked in region two from the past 20-plus years and now I'm at the complex coming to the complex I saw how region 2 did it now I'm starting to see how the other regions do things and so I was looking at the invoices a lot this might be a good place to start so I asked our comptroller's and our consultant services folks to come up with some checklist or some tools and some training to help us out in the space so that's who I am this is I'm in that shell and with the comptroller's office we do make your payments I'm the job shirt email or Annette chalice and I can give you my contact information later if you'd like to have it for if you need to have if you have any questions or you know I'm gay history food consultant services I'm Sean Fowler and I'm the other half of the job chair so part of this training is to get your questions answered if you have questions so please feel free to ask as we're going along and we'll try and answer your questions if we don't know the answer then we'll give it and get back to you so with that we'll start our training I'll turn it over to the gals of our comptroller's office this is a quick overview of what we're going to be going over today I'm really feeling over the comptroller's office requirements and procedures consultant services requirements QC QA and we're doing this to provide consistent consistency across all regions when submitting documents and to ensure compliance with the consultant services regulations okay so let's start with payment request form and this is the required information and things that we frequently see mistakes on pay requests number is required and it's very important for us because if there's a miss numbering or if there's a jump in the number we track every single payment that comes through so if we miss one will be calling saying why didn't we get this paired list or if you mark one is final and we have one missing we won't final out the contract until we get every day so the pay request number is very important the contract number and the project number are both important because that's how we cross-reference to make sure that we're paying the right hand voice with the right pay requests to the correct contract the fee type would be like Hoss + or 6 I'm sorry unit price and that's important because there's different requirements for each one of those so we need to know that that invoices the correct format for that B type of the consultant name is more of a if you guys have GPAs or you know partner companies we need to know which company is on the contract so if there's you know multiple companies that are always one company it has to be the name of the contents that's on the contract we'll have to send it back if it's one of the other cleaners and the percent build needs to be filled out that's also important for closing so if you have a hundred percent build but you don't have market finally we'll send it back and find out why or call and find out why so that one is important for that and the current amount due must match the invoice that's the most important one that's where we get the most problems and we have to have those match exactly so if on your invoice you need to include your fixed fee amount and your overhead all that needs to be included on your invoice and your pay request form just just clarifying percent build if your contract $100,000 and you've only built $100,000 but your last name voice is still need to be put in hundred percent build on if you know it's going to be a final invoice but it's not completely build out you still have money left over if you know it's gonna be a final you want it to say a hundred percent fails so that we know that this is okay is final out and you're not going to send any more bills through for it and then don't send any whistles yeah and then don't think we're so super loyal person so this is the P request form there's only been one minor adjustments of this and we've taken off the bottom signature line for the project met at the u dot project manager and we're having them fill out a new form now which you'll see later on and so they have to sign that form so we just take it off the signature line and the other thing that's changed is we've added this to the it's like a second page for your favorite platform this is going to be information for the consultants to look at these are all the things that we're requiring on the invoice and the pay request form from the consultants so these are things that we need you to look through make sure it's there make sure is correct where are these new form statistics we have we're going to have them start being me as as with me first but you can so now they are out on our website right now so if you want to start using now one thing we want to stress is we hope these are a tool to you so that you know what we're looking at and what you should have in your invoices so if you turn in form after May first let's not this form and it's the previous form we're still going accepted we're not going to get the paid look based on that right this is a tool for you yeah the second page is just information for you these are the things that we respect that worth checking the scene are there and that we hope that you'll check to make sure are there before the sentiment to try to get them more correct as we're sending immense this is the work task order pay request form and with this one we also took off the u dot p.m. signature this one we want either and keep an eye out and make sure that you're putting your current programming phase on it and the correct work task orders start and end date and then also on this authorize number a lot of people are not sure what that is that's for your program number so that's what that one so on the consulting invoices these are the requirements for your consultant invoices they're also things that we find problems with the ones that are more highlighted so again the consultant name needs to match what's on the contract so it can't be one of the other companies that are also involved we would like to have a remit to address a lot of companies have more than you know that satellite companies will have ones in Salt Lake and then there's something you know another city that our state so we need to remit to address of where you want the check to go to if you're not on ESP the contract number needs to be on there so that we can cross-check it with the payment request form and make sure they match the invoice number when we've had a few we have a few that wouldn't send in invoice numbers we used to create an invoice number for them and we no longer can do that so every invoice has to have a unique and voice number so can't reuse invoice numbers our system that we put them in to track them if we try to reuse one it won't let itself through the project numbers the same as a contract number we have to be able to cross-reference it with your favorite clothes farm to make sure the right invoice was submitted with the right pay request form and again the current invoice amount needs to match the pay request form no matter what if it doesn't we'll send it back and the time period covered we have up we want the beginning and end date we have a lot where we get the end date where it's just this is through this date we want the beginning and end date of the invoice and we need that for federal accounting purposes so one question I've had on that is would you prefer to see the on the first day request of the NCPD so say NTP is in 12 would you prefer to see that invoice from the 12th through the end of the month or is it okay to have it save at first it has to save ntp day on the first one I know at least that that's the work period right but we've had a lot of requests for us to have both dates on there so you'll see a change maybe in the six month mark where we add an additional date on there I'm going to show the NTP date versus the start of the work day Franklin as of right now it should be the start of the work period to the Amador's period on it hey request back so so let's just clarify that you're not allowed to build for anything prior to NTP name right so the employ state should not beginning date should not be before the NTP date so the first day that you have anything built is on that NTP date then you're okay right so that would be your NCP date but say you don't start work until a couple days after you get notes proceed then your invoice date would be that first date that you start have work on until the last make they should really pour on that invoice so if you get NTP on the 12th and you don't start working till the 14th then your beginning date would be the 14th and say you go tell the 30th on that month then your last thing would be the 30th okay the jam session yes so sometimes we don't get tell receive until the next month so the laborers although you know say in January that I don't get to generate hotels for sweetness for anyone so in that case what do you want the invoice to go back if they're saying we wanted to overlaps what your hand yes because you're billing for something during the period so it would have to come I mean I don't know that it would matter either way right well we're supposed to put the first date that has any that anything's been done so if it was the prior month we'll still have said that you didn't know yeah any other questions on the invoice art equipment will you just watch the abilities yes yeah I think we have a model to have it not yet we're going to wait till Leah's last training session and cut this recording will also be posted so after that okay and this is just a sample invoice that's on our website under the consultant services form this just shows you where they have a beginning and end date they have like the project number and invoice number on there so it's just kind of an example for you guys see the backup documentation requires your sub consultant invoices your direct expense reports and your labor reports which okay we'll go over a little bit more in detail later okay so we're going to talk about final payments so when you send in the final payment on the pay request it should be marked as final that's the only time you market final sometimes we get a marked final and they're not there the contract is still ongoing and I think some people get confused and think that that's the final four that pay requests please don't market final unless the contract is ready to be closed we also need the final evaluation in order for us to market final once we get both of those we do release what's called an encumbrance which is any money that you had leftover on the contract will be released back not to your pool dollars okay so please make sure that when you mark the payment is final that there is also a final evaluation you usually CMS is already right so usually your project manager will take care of that for you so you should get a copy of it though I mean your your project centers so we're going to talk about the end of the year I think the state end of year is different from most of yours our interviewers students are you so we need to have all charges for interviewer up to June 30th to the project manager early in July and we'll let you know the exact date for that but the p.m. and the project manager of the project managers special to you dot must submit the pay request from you guys once they receive it from you to us early in July so that we can get those paid for the old fiscal year before we start the new year and it's really really important that we meet those deadlines because it affects our funding from the legislature so if you have if we have a lot of payments out there that are haven't we have a big build it's not good for for us so less funding means less project which means less work so please make sure that you get all of your invoices and for work done before June 30th early is right please does everybody understand that yeah it's hard to do it's hard to do it is and it's hard for RT here and because every invoice that comes through come to the RT it's going to be even harder hair even hear about how much harder is going to get a little bit but it's very important for us to have one in marketing one of the bigger budgets in the state is the transportation budget and when the transportation budget is so big becomes kind of a target at the legislature to look at and can we take money from there and put it somewhere else and when we say that we're going to spend X number of dollars this year and we don't end up spending on the legislature looked at that so what you didn't really need that much so maybe we can take some of that money for a ten million dollar pipelining or something out which had happened that actually happened they took money from us what happens is at the end of the year we've got to have all of our bills in so that it goes against that year otherwise we don't get the end of the year and it goes against the next year's bills and we're perpetuating that and say well we're going to spend as much money we really did when in actuality we really did but now it's counting against the next year's so we've had the luxury of not getting in a lot of trouble that way but it's getting more and more so that we could get in trouble there so this is not something that you not come up with the Comptroller's this is something that the statewide accounting we have and like if they already hates us too because every single invoice comes through her office and everybody is trying to get in there if if we aren't going to get them in they've got some workarounds for that but last month how many end of your invoices did you still get for the month I'm 40 last week it was about 8 to 10 I'm getting 8 to 10 per week and somewhere from April of last year so they're holding on to payments way too long so when you say it's hard yeah but it shouldn't be that hard okay that's that's not acceptable in my mind and in the contracts mind it's not acceptable either because you're supposed to have it in in 45 days that's in the contract so this one that kind of pushes it up a little bit more it's not these guys trying to be difficult it's a state law requirement and that's kind of what we're going to get through to use it when we're doing this if it if it affects our funding it ultimately comes back and affects the purpose firms see it all kind of trickle down all the way around so it's not all of our best interest to get it in time so if you have a consultant or sub consulting that's doing work up to you 30th and you know you're not gonna be able to get your invoice in but you have an amount or an approximate amount please let Artie Johnson know or your p.m. so that we can put it on our accrual accounting spreadsheet that we keep and so that we have an idea of how much money we are actually going to be spending for that fiscal year so if you can't get it in you absolutely can't please let somebody know and with the amount so that we can get that taken care of at least make record of destiny actresses had food last year June 30th 2015 was my first year end processing with you got and we had new targets that were out for mod and so we weren't able to invoice and then feed us a lot after year end and in my own air I had tried to submit like I do any other times there summer months out the charges up to date and then I had to redo them and I'm assuming that this is how you'll continue to want it where one invoice needs to be submitted through your end and then a second invoice for charges from July 1st right and here we are now you're getting like alright so I just skipped the year end state law you guys want to read that you should have it in your handout actually we don't oh my go oh okay I believe it here if everybody wants to read a permanent based orations look on Utah Code Annotated so it is state law it's not something that we just made up like stasis so any other questions about that okay so in the past we did have some salts that we're submitting split year-end invoices which means it covers old ear and new year for the state stay old urine State New Year Kissel what happens is when we try to negotiate or calculate the fixed fee and the overhead rate to sit to split those years out because they have to be accounted for in the right fiscal year it's too time-consuming for us and it doesn't match up with what submitted so from now on you absolutely have to split it anything that is before June 30th must be billed separately than anything after July 1st so they can't come in like this anymore if it does come in like this we will kick it back so please make sure that all work performed before June 30th is built on a separate invoice and all all work build after July 1st is also built on a separate avoid another change that we're making is that if you have a couple of days that are in the end of June that are in a different pay period or something we used to allow you to build it in July you know and just say okay off date doesn't happen no longer they have you even if you have to issue an invoice for two days worth of labor for to get it to June 30th we want you to do another voice that wasn't me that was them forget any questions on that okay so we've created some new care request guides for everybody these are available on the consultant Services website a lot of people will be more angles towards the project the new dot project managers but you guys are welcome to look at them and look at all the requirements that we have so the first one is the pay request guide at the four page guide the first two pages of it are the Comptroller's requirements and the second two pages are for consultant services so this kind of goes through step by step like everything that we expect to see on pay request or invoice we put together just like a small example a piece of it so this would be like the example from ours for invoices and we expect you know the company name remit to address contract over invoice number project number and so on so if it's for there it's for everybody's information these are all the requirements for this so it's just for informational purposes and you're more than welcome to look at them anytime and you can call us and get asked if any questions you have this is a new requirement that we are giving to the UDOT project managers once you guys have turned in your pay request forms and they've gone through and check them they have to fill out this new form right here that says that they've gone through and they've done a quality control check and a quality assurance check the part that would affect the consultants the most is this bottom section right here this is if they find any errors on your invoice or anywhere in the invoice earth pay request and they have to do handwritten changes they now have to send it to you guys and have you sign off on all the changes that they saved me so occasionally on our backup documentation we will have like in Fuji quality and whisper thirds we will find there and so we as of right now I will do like a strikethrough and initial like my initial score reports and there is this pertain to that as well because it would have been changed prior to you guys finding the same every watch if these are changes after they've been sent to us so that like if the PM is going through and doing a quality control check and they say well this contrary this invoice from a subcontractor wasn't added up correctly on the invoice and they find it a lot of times they would write in the changes so we're now asking them to get a signature from you guys saying that you're ok with the changes that they've made or they got to get back injuries yeah or just have physical so that and so on that signatures that have to be our project manager affinity the accountant question it doesn't really matter just someone from your office part part of the issue is we cannot the PM cannot change the invoice and add more cheering voice but they can add less so if you're expecting a payment of $10,000 and you only get 9,000 at some point you're going to say what happened to the other thousand dollars right so this will all be not notifying you the man saying hey we found an issue you can resubmit the whole invoice or if you're okay with me to strike it out giving you less here's how much less you're going to get at least you know about it at that point in time rather than being surprised later on in your books and so that's part of the reason that that signatures later so they just ended this form you sign it so long as your company knows about it and if you got PMS the description to do that or just rejected yeah I think it's too cumbersome at some point because there's a breakpoint and there's information all change if there's too many errors we'll just send it back and have you guys redo the whole thing some of those just one or two this is partially brought on by if the changes are going above what your invoices before we weren't able to do at all we had to just kick it back the auditors told us that if we had something signed by you guys saying that you're okay with us making that change then we to do that so that's why we put this in here but mail we're requiring it for in and handwritten change but before it was just for changes above what the invoice was because the auditors needed that but now we're requiring it for any average the changes yeah changes to the amount yes if it's changes to other portions of this it's an item sometimes we change them you guys don't always know that we played to change so your cumulative total of every employee after that is wrong so we have to go and manually change their Open singles infinite afterwards so it's easier for us if you guys know that if you like put in your system and the next invoice will be right cuz it's easier for us if we go back to you guys and say here's what we found you might make the change there saves a lot of changes on partners and with us also because of our cumulative amount is different from yours we're looking to see if there was a payment missed from where so it does it does help if you guys clean up but on the other hand though we don't hold up a $500,000 invoice for a couple of pennies that went wrong so if it can fix it and work it out amongst ourselves and have you find this make that payment and then make sure that the next one is correct that account probably faster signature than trying to hunt down some of our p.m. to internet well I'm hoping that will be easier because in the past we've had to send it back and then you have to get a signature that you know that's paid and then this one is also just a tool for the PM's and consultants for you got to go through you guys can look through this and see what we're requiring them to do once they get the payment of question you can see what they're required to look at there's some that are like the paper clips has to be within 45 days of the work performed the work wasn't performed before the NTP things like that because we'll probably have on your checklist too so these are a check the same list that you have on the back of the para platform it should separate it out a little bit differently but this is just a tool for everybody to look at and it's also available on the website so we can get it in 45 days go back to that right now let's get right there pay request is within 45 days window of the work performed if not please state reason why isn't in late on a separate sheet so what what we're telling you can either do that and let the PM's know about it and one way you can do that is on this a request a request form if you want to add things down here at the bottom for that reason for the p.m. on there nuclear yeah for the PM they can write in this area as well what that reason was so you're kind of being held accountable for why that is all we went on vacation the that doesn't really hold up real well but it's sometimes there are reasons and that go along with it so we want to be flexible there but we will occasionally have to elect to hold off on sending an invoice is that okay or should we really be pushing even on you know small amounts and in that case it is a small amount we have a month we only have like two hours to be like wow because this more distended invoice of the job you will not hear in this training from us to tell you to go outside the contract the contract says within 45 days so that's what we're going to tell you in the strain to take to the contract your endo long run at certainly yeah my mysterious the one sweets admitted very same claim that I just manage [Laughter] yes there is a time frame Brent what's your expectation for your PM's here yes once they turn it in what's the time frame that that you're given your PM's the turnaround most of my team without their invoices take it in two weeks except for when they're not right and we have to return them and ask for something if you return it back to us then we process it if in a month we have to send you another email thank you please give me something ever waiting for we actually stamp it and document it how many times it goes back so if you guys turn it back right away they are normally processed within two weeks they get my desk everything is processed that Thursday before I go home so most of the time at the moment we'll be here free weeks but that depends what we did the good employee circles yeah what the invoice gets them back when I was in region two my expectation of my project managers and did they meet us all the time bacon was two weeks okay that was for a good invoice if they had to send it back and they got it back then the time started all over as far as I was concerned I each region is a little bit different on how they do that I've had some turned in and they would like to turn around in three days and it took them three months past the time and I said excuse me but that doesn't sound very fair that it took you three months to get it in you respect three days that that's that's not are they perfect they're absolutely not so knowing how you guys have to still kind of you feel that you have to keep the project managers you don't want to throw them under the bus so that you can get the next project right you know you don't want to say anything when it's not getting turned in but I'm telling you right now that Brent would like to know about that we understand that that's how you guys can get your money that's how you put food on your table and that's how the company stay in business but we want to companies stay in business why you're doing the work in the first place yeah so if you're not if you're having a problem my first suggestion would be go talk to the program manager in that region if you're not comfortable doing that then go and talk to me and I can deal with it I've had cases where I've had people come to me and tell me that because it was substantial item but they didn't really want to say anything and I was able to handle that without saying that the consultant came to talk to me and panned out you're not turning a voice in and there's an issue so they never knew that the consultants ever came and talked to me so we can do it discreetly too so if you're having that please feel free to come talk to the program managers or to me if you're not comfortable at that point but yeah there isn't expect expectation for the PM's to get those turns around in a reasonable amount of time and reasonable gonna vary a little bit depending as already said the size of the invoice and things like that does that answer your question without really good because I wanted be natural when you return the invoices if they're only asking for one are surviving if you can just return those one or two items that helps about if you return alcohol invoice and you delete it I hope I'm successful added a whole bunch of stuff guess what we are we doing a whole 200 pages all over again testifying at all so we're only asking for one or two thing that if I can help with just any map without a homeland invoice but a lot of times we get in fact and we are we doing to help they go for commitment from X amount of papers that like - can roll our tanks less so we're real insanity novels and the dollar amount exchanged so so if it's just a couple items then that's fine but if you start looking at your invoice again and finding other things I definitely want you to return the whole new invoice but you realize that we're we have to look at the whole thing okay so that's going to kind of bring us to the next section that we have in sorry on that so if I have a sub consultant that's working on our project I usually will review their invoices kind of like Europeans revealing our I will make sure that they're building ing to what their agreement type is and such you then yeah but to make sure they're correct you want us to include their pay rec in our invoice like within their documents I have been taking out because I don't want to confuse their pay rec with our pay rec working tired in I wasn't sure if I'm taking that out if they include a narrative should that be a part of their invoice I'm not sure I don't think there's a set the fast rule to that you try not to confuse the PM's and I appreciate that I think the PM's will appreciate that too but you got to understand that your invoice looks different from their invoice looks different from their invoice so the PM kind of has to figure out what you're doing and how you're doing if you think there's a piece of information that they need that's on that pay right and I would include it if it's not you don't think that it's a value to it and it's not one of those required documents then maybe you don't it's going to be a judgment call you know you mean if you can clarify any like high license subs name or something this makes clear that it's not the prime payment reflex you can write all over does that make sense okay and your question kind of goes to the next one which I glad hear I've heard several comments here when you I'm not going to walk over there about quality control that you guys caught some issues on your invoices and you made changes you're going back and have the program project manager sign them or that you've checked your subs that's what you need to be doing when you guys sign this sheet here down here you're saying that your invoice is correct to the best of your ability we did not put in place a qcq a measure for you guys to do because every consultant may have in different ways as they do it there's quality control is not a new thing that just come up just recently okay this is something that we've been doing all along but there's different levels of quality control and everybody looks at it as though this is what quality control of the Quality Assurance is even within you dot we have different levels of quality control quality assurance if I have a bridge and I'm doing bridge plans if that bridge falls down somebody might die so their quality control of quality assurance is much more stringent than than invoices if you get a number wrong on here nobody's going to die probably okay so the quality control that we do is less on that we kind of look at it to the effort that we need to have for it but we still expect them to be a good job to me it's pride in your work I'm doing the best I can if I have pride in my work then I'm going to check that the best I can and move it on with what I know are we humans we make errors absolutely so what we're asking from you is to do a good check on that and then at you dot we're going to do a check to and it just kind of goes to the history of quality control it started back in the 20s and it's evolved through time and now there's an ISO 9000 and you can go get certified tonight ISO 9000 if that really wined your clock and good for you of that good they've got a national standards but it seems to be a little bit different than everybody feels comfortable with a different level of quality control so for QC @ u dot it is defined that we will be checking your documents ten to twenty percent of the items there okay how each region person wants to do that that's where we're saying this is the minimum if they want to do more they can do more but we're saying this is minimum for me when I got an invoice I looked at it I did ten to twenty percent if I found something wrong then I went up from the ten to 20 to 15 to 25 percent checking if I found something else then but when I hit my third it was like three strikes I'm not looking at anything else on the invoice I'm sending it back and saying you guys need to do a better you see QA on this so that that was my personal some people are more comfortable with less some people are 100% I'm not going to tell anybody that they can't review more but this is the minimum that we expect from our PMS they're the ones that own the contract they're the ones that are responsible for it QA is to ensure that the QC was done okay once again different people have different comfort levels with that but that's the minimum that we're requiring so I don't know how they want to do it in region 3 if they want to have the PM put checkmarks buy the items that they check and then already just go along and look and says you have to check check check yep they did it and sign it since the PM signed it she can do that if that's her level of comfort in region 2 Dicky level Comfort is I'm going to have the PM's do that but I'm still going to check everything after okay that's her level of comfort before she puts her signature on and that is fine more power to work but the minimum amount that she needs to do is check that the only exception on this is the unit price contract on the unit price contract we had an audit done on those and we made a commitment to the feds that we would spot-check them twice so both the PM and the cube QC r and QA are doing QC so that 10 to 20 percent on those unit price contracts because that's commitment we made to the feds are on our contracts any questions on that okay okay the next section so the payment request guide that we've posted out there this the third and fourth page or consultant services related items just a narrow focus onto one section of it so we have the section that's for please verify deliverables and level of effort and received appropriate deliverables we check the overall level of effort matches the progress report we check the staff levels are appropriate for tasks perform for example the principles not out there take pulling samples right we want to pay for that level of effort right essentially we ask our PA UDOT folks to not overlook the big stuff when they're checking all the details right so we want them to make sure that they got the deliverables that they agreed to that the consultants agreed to pay you know give to us for the amount of money that we're paying so in one situation I had a project manager call me and say we've paid out 90% of the contract but I haven't gotten any deliverables and I'm like okay what do you want me to do at this point right I mean so anyway they should be checking all along they're getting the greet upon deliverables contract see types we have three types of CE types in consultant services we have cost plus 60 unit price and lump sum so just a side-by-side comparison of cost plus 60 and unit price will go over lump sum in a minute so we've got cost plus fixed fees used where the scope of work is indeterminate or kinds of labor material and equipment needed or uncertain and then for unit price we use that when we have specific items or that we're buying at a set cost the model on a cost plus 60 have you total up all the relay BER and then you add in the overhead in the profit after the fact they're in the other direct expenses on a unit price one you include the overhead and profit into a loaded billing rate with the actual labor rate or I should say the raw labor rate and you come up with a loaded rate or negotiated rate um so unit price is generally used when the number of units needed is not known and on fee and cost plus fixed fee I guess there isn't once about anyway consultants bill negotiated or loaded rates per unit price and on cos plus sixty consultants bill actuals so once a consultant starts burning arrays they get paid for that raise on a cost plus but on a unit price its negotiated and set for that contract so costal sixty we is that type when it generally when we when the scope of work is not well-defined and generally use when the number of units is not needed its general number when the number of units needed is not known is what we use the unit price for example of units for unit prices like materials testing or labor hours so cost plus fixed fee talked a little bit about this pay actual cost for individuals and items so on labor we as soon as an individual starts making that raise starts making more money we start paying for that additional cost the item a consultant includes the an estimated rate for an item in a contract but we pay actual so if a item is put in the contract it not until seventy cents a unit and after their accounting and everything it turns out at seventy two cents will actually pay the seventy two zones okay get on my Brando located actually yes the only exception is we have some caps for travel hotel rates and for mileage rates um for the overhead on a COS plus six fee overhead established by consultant services based on the financial screening application and questionnaire and potentially an audit and is-6 for the life of the contract so when the contract is written the overhead rate at the time that the contract is written that's what the rate will be captured in the contract so actually I think it's the selection date it's actually what we use fixed fee or profit is based on a percentage that's negotiated between nine to twelve percent and in that percentage is based on narrations complexity schedule and size so we start at nine percent and then add on additional incremental items for example if we have a compressed schedule we'll add on an additional factor with a cap of twelve percent then the fix the amount is calculated based on that negotiated percentage and then the Rolly bearpaw of the rod laver and the overhead so you add the raw labor in the overhead together and then you get that profit or fixed fee on top of that and that amount is captured and set in the life of the contract as a maximum not to exceed amount so the fixed fee amount is set for that contract and there's a maximum not to exceed amount for that fixed fee in addition to there being a contract maximum not to exceed amount so if for some reason you were to bill over that fixed fee cap and it would pass through UDOT as well the auditors will ask for because I can tell you right now though they will catch that so terms of the contract state consultant may bill for balance of the fixed fee if they do the full scope of the work so if the contract scads hold halfway three through you only get a pro-rated amount of the fixed fee but if you do the full scope of work the con the consultants entitled to deal for the balance of the fixed fee not they have to but they can yes do they tell us I guess how do we know what that percentage is because we've had to have normal projects finished early or there's been work left off and so we declined or so no cables so we're not going to build a full fixed fee for that and a lot of times we kind of come up with our own okay well you know we were only about you know conserves the way through so maybe we'll just build a little bit of this six feet there big number that we should be building or should they tell us what amount we can well the contract actually has a dollar amount in it that's called the fixed the amount and if a mod comes along it increases that so you should be capturing as you bill how much you build out in fixed fee for a cumulative total of six fee you build out and then there should be a maximum amount of the fixed fee that you can bill up to so the difference is what you can bill now a p.m. will agree that oh you've done the full scope of work then you're entitled to the full six B when they are all done Alec has half the network and it should be a pro-rated so do we turn you do that I would say it would be based on the amount of Labor billed we kind of worked it out yeah yeah well you know you're doing you can there's two ways to build a fixed fee you can do it as a pro-rated amount of the overall fixed fee or you can pay as you go with that percentage just keep in mind that you can't ever go over that maximum amount of the fixed B so you should be tracking how much you've been you build out for the fixed fee total cumulative okay unit price we may only pay for individuals or items listed in the contract mod or CMS alternative staff non-toxic so if we have an individual that's worked on on the project but is not approved on this unit price contract we can't pay for it so you need to make sure you do your CMS alternative staff transaction and make sure it's approved before you start sending somebody on on the project yes what is the expectation for the UTM to approve the alternates that timeframe it should be within 24 hours but I don't know that they will you phone call might be a good idea two or three weeks isn't appropriate no not really but you can get others to approve it if the PM is out for a week you know the program manager can step in and help you out with that so maybe Dave can speak tomorrow I'm going to speak to that and say there is no time they may not approve it at all that's true it's up to the PM if they want to prove that team so if you just put it in and expecting the PM to approve it I wouldn't hold my breath I've had that happen where the consultant just put somebody's name in and wanted approved they never talk to me they've never said why they've never done anything like that and so I like nope I'm not going to do it you need to have conversation with me to say why are you changing your team at this point of time because we agreed on this team now there are reasons that I would prove it if they sat down and had that conversation but just to put it in and say no I didn't think that that was good sort of was upon me to either call them and say why is this change or upon that project manager for the console call me and say hey this is why I'm doing this or whatever but just because you're putting it in there don't expect the PM is going to see it and go right off of it do they get an email they do get an email I think it inundated with 150 150 emails they get a day or something like that sometimes that comes up they're doing something go on the next and so even if it's been a week or so you're saying I really need to stay at work to me it makes sense to call and say hey I did this because of this I still want to stay on track on schedule you go approve that oh I forgot or what remind me again so would you play a week in the favorable timeframe to kind of allow them to before you start making phone phone calls or something once again it can be done that after never commute a week right I would say that I would talk to him about it in a meeting on a project update meeting or prior to that well and there's a difference between replacing the PM the consultant PM versus a cat tech right I mean key personnel that you then there should be a major conversation about in fact it may jeopardize you know what we wouldn't get your firm on if you have a consultant p.m. leave your firm and you need to propose someone new who is equal or better or it could cause us to cancel the contract if they're not if it's during negotiations before we've executed the contract we've actually gone back and conducted interviews and moved on to the second ring firm before those reasons so it is a serious deal because we do qualifications based selection and a lot of that is based on key personnel so okay okay so back to this so unit price rate listed in the contract modder CMS alternative transaction or lower so even a penny more on a unit price we have to reject it which is pretty harsh but the way we've agreed to with the feds so labor by individuals after approved on the contract we talked about that so that's why it's so important to get those CMS alternative staff transactions submitted this is mandatory for unit price and a good idea for cost plus we would like you to do it for cost plus as well but we'll still pay the invoice whereas on unit price if they have performed work before they're approved on the contract we won't pay it ever okay so don't do that new individuals to the project through prot is required prior to work being performed so we just talked about that a little bit we're test quarters this is a little bit of a nuance for work task orders we do allow if a person is listed on the contract not necessarily the work task order but the contract we will pay for it still but they do have to be on the base contract mod or CMS alternative staff transaction even if they're not on the work task order the ideal if they were but we understand so we'll go ahead and still approve it yes I got one came back the other day because they weren't on the word stands for as far as new staff they will bring new staff new employee and they'd have been approved to the contract yes okay then then we can work that out with you it might be a misunderstanding on behalf of our side so if they weren't and if they weren't they only paper I understand so with that I guess in this case it was on call contract so how do you go back and add family there's there's a CMS alternative staff transaction within CMS to add a new employee to an existing contract without having to go through a full-fledged model to the contract just as there is on a regular contract now it's a little harder to add it to a work task order so we don't require that like I said but the base contract or mod or CMS alternative staff transaction they have to be added to one of those the work needs to be added to be on call correct is what the graduation staff correct I mean if you're adding money addition to the work task order then we prefer that you add the person to the on call and then include them on the work task order mod but if you're not in changing the work tasks other of work task order otherwise and then you can just add them to the base contract okay through a CMS alternative staff transaction okay that clears much lump-sum use when the scope is fully defined and not likely to change due to a third party it's billed by percentage of contract complete the only backup whether it's one addition to this one there's four pieces of documentation there's the payment payment request form there's the consultant invoice progress report and now the new form that you dot has to fill out for the authorization sum of payment okay and we don't use lump sums too much because we rarely scope down to the level that a lump sum will require so we have examples of all three feet types invoices on our website website is that you Utah gov board flash go /cs forms that's where all the forms are and it's on it fits within your documentation somewhere so but we have examples of those three c types along with the backup documentation of later reports so so here I cut off the top and the bottom here and just showing you the cost plus six fee model so you can see gym floor for four hours at $70 an hour and then you can see the raw labor total for that particular individual on down to Suzy Q at one hour for $20 an hour those are the actual raw labor rates and then you get a subtotal then you subtotal all of those amounts to get a total raw labor amount and then you add in the overhead that's 150 percent that's the amount that's set in the contract and then you total those two together and then you calculate in the fixed fee on top of that for a total of five thousand seven hundred seventy seven dollars and 55 cents so that's the model for a fixed cost of sixty per unit price the unit price rate includes the raw labor the overhead and the profit all into one labor rate so it's a billable rate or a loaded rate that's negotiated and set in the contract so for if I've done this correctly you would it would actually add up to the same amount down here because the hours are the same but the unit prices I just pulled out of the air so don't try and cross-check with me so anyway gym floor for hours at 160 dollars an hour you get the 640 and you add all down you can see the bottom we don't add in the profit at the end and the overhead because it's already calculated in each of the labor rates so that's the unit price the difference plus you're not billing actuals you're billing the negotiated set rate or lower we'll accept lower if you want to do that like people usually don't but that's okay and then the love of some billing model so say the contracts ten thousand dollars and we're 80 percent complete with that contract so the total earned to date should be eight thousand dollars they did had a previous progress report a progress payment of two thousand dollars so the current billing is six thousand dollars for a total of eight thousand so you can see the current invoice amount of six Balaban so no rates no nothing like that so yes the less you subtract of it because I've been havin Tyson opinion and it's are not funded at COTC but they're Philippi two or three times and each time your ability is for fill up some amount or 4x4 3,500 whatever and that's really mostly to tell them not for ages and right you shouldn't have incremental like that you should have a percentage complete on the overall contract not how much complete you are on mileage and how much complete you are on each of the tasks various seasons as long as they have John bill here and their invoicing date for about stuff so the first thing rule is like 25 and the loves on the show in the spring that I look at it says 35 so I paid in 25 year but then we mix in with I'm paying another invoice for 35 we got over painted that love some country on that love in the contract well you're not because you're going to reject it I would like all the processing and if you love some X amount of dollars that all the words you really should eat because of your consultants do for yourself you can give rocky dwellers there's a well-defined scope of work so you should know as a consultant exactly what you're agreeing to for that ten thousand dollars and if they're asking for you for do additional things and you're willing to do that with no external cost that's fine but if you're expecting additional payment then there has to be a mod and we don't like to do mods on lump sum that defeats the whole purpose of stealing across you know a lump sum contract because those that the work should be fully defined we shouldn't have to do a mod on a lump sum so that's why we don't do a lot of lump sum contracts okay so let's move on to date Notice to Proceed dates and expiration dates so notice to proceed is defined as the when the consultants authorize to begin work by consultant services not the project manager just saying get that doesn't work got to be by consultant services or through our contract management system work performed prior to the contract NTP cannot be approved for payment and there's no really nothing we can do to say you know oh I'm so sorry we did work for the NGP is there any way you can get paid the answer going to be no that's just a platinum we do have an early NTP process but we don't use it too often we go through that and then yes but other than that and that's considered a authorized NTP by consulting services okay we're performed on a work task order prior to the work task order NTP date we can't pay for that either so even if the base contract or on-call contract has a Notice to Proceed you'll have to wait for the NTP on the work task order for any work to be performed unless you want to just donate when welcome to do that but we don't expect that why are we so rigid about that funds may not yet be authorized by FHWA could jeopardize our funding the contract terms have not been agreed to by all parties and may not as far as we know it violates our Code of Federal Regulations I shouldn't say our should say the Code of Federal Regulations and it violates the contract terms and conditions that we make payments about expiration dates may not bill for work after the expiration dates they'll stop paying job Sheriff folk the date a date extension modification may be required but keep in mind we will not authorize a date extension for an on call contract as set in stone the expiration date of alcohol contract however we do allow a three-month butter on the word work task order expiration date so yes is that why and seeing it seems if the work time order expiration dates are pretty much exactly three months and they absolutely will be because it's pre calculated based on the request date of the project manager for that contract so it's all measured from the PM request date we give an approximate 30 days for that to be executed that's just an approximation if you if the consultant doesn't put their information in for six months that eats into the amount of time that you can actually perform the work but so a month for approximately four requests to NTP twelve months approximately or actually thirteen months exactly from the request state to the work task order expiration date and then three months after that will be the contract expiration date so when we hit the work task order expiration date no new modifications that increase the dollar amount no new work task orders may be issued we will allow negative mods to work task orders during that three-month period work can still be performed on work that's already been established in work task orders but the work to the contract expiration date on an on call contract we want to allow you to do any work after that or you can but we won't pay you so yes well the first bullet point where it is may not feel so much performed after contractors so when we're talking about Delhi so we're talking about the worst performance state where we're talking about it's gone through the counting is the work performed date you can because it would be impossible to bill you know the day that you've done the work right so the contract expiration date will still pay the bill after that the 45 days but we won't allow you to do any work after the expiration date well we'll let you but we won't pay you one who's done was three months it's just a buffer we were having too many times when we were doing wanted exceptions to be able to do work after the expiration date so we gave you that three-month buffer and said okay you can do new work task orders up to that date but you have to have all the work done by the end of those three months so it's just a buffer period and you can't do any new work task orders during that so they should age out after that so modifications modifications are required prior to performing the work questions on that okay yeah I know why everybody's giggling I knew you're gonna say something and I'm leaving too so we'll save you effort everybody's giggling because they may say well yeah but the PM's asked me to do that work and we don't have money and I need to do it and so we just go ahead and do it that's the wrong thing the right thing is to work as a team so you should be having PMS that are talking to the consultant and the consultant should be talking to the PM and you should be having that conversation well in the math of the mod being done should there are times that something comes up that was totally unexpected that a mod needs to be done for guess what it can be done I've done an entire contract from beginning the notice to proceed in two hours before it once a mod can be done that way if it needs to be done you can still go through the processes what happened was as I had p.m. had something came up very fast I called band Lisa back then Lisa I got this issue are you going to be ok with it yes I'll get gay and her people ready to go you got you put it in the system you have the consultant put their stuff in the system we'll get through our stuff will sign it we'll kick it back to have the consult side it was all done in two hours it can be done but it has to be a total team effort so if that comes up in this region the PM should be having a conversation with Brent and Brent can use his great influence to make it happen well I happen to happen often it shouldn't happen very often but it can be done so when people say oh we couldn't because no you didn't because it's what my usual answer is so please if a PM asked you to do that please say I'm happy to do that let's get a mob going right now because if it's that important then let this gives us done before we do the work on it because if you do work prior to the ntp of the mod you're doing it at risk and there are occasions when that mod will not go through at all because for certain reasons it's outside the scope is after the expiration date on an on-call contract or you know certain things reasons made that may come up where we can't process that mod at all let alone you know in the time you need it done so so work with your p.m. you have you have the right really to make sure you have a car trying to do before you do works you really do I won't say anymore maximum not to exceed amount is the amount authorized by the contract or the work task order and you can't go over that amount without a modification can't exceed it there may be reasons why we can't do a mod for example if you're at one hundred and forty nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine dollars and it's a direct Celeste contract we can't do a mod on that so you know keep that in mind and plan ahead you know if a project manager approaches you and you know full well that the project this contract is going to be over one hundred fifty thousand you need a towel on that don't go into details but say you know what I don't think there's any way we can realistically do this for under 150 thousand and then they'll go back to the drawing board and potentially revisit the selection method so and then maybe do an arc lock and invite you but if you've gone to the nth degree on negotiation that in you know you come down to it at one hundred and sixty two thousand five hundred thirty two dollars and sixty seven cents you know way too much about that contract be invited to an or clock at that point so keep that in mind that you might be essentially bowing out by doing those negotiations okay questions on them so consultants are required to QC QA your own payment requests before you send them to us that will actually grease the wheels for you to get your payments done much faster if we don't have to kick it back that's all that time of communication and delays that it won't happen if you follow that payment request guide and look through that and the tools that we've offered you know obviously there's a Arizona casian we understand that but the run-of-the-mill ones should be taken care of by your own QC QA that makes sense okay so we're going to cross-check accuracy between these documents so we have the unit payment request we have the consultant invoice we have the new consultant payment authorization form we have the contracts modification CMS will turn the staff transaction we have labor reports we have receipts for travel direct expenses etc we have sub consultant invoices in mileage logs all of that information we're going to cross check for consistency between those documents and also for accuracy we're going to spot-check up to ten to twenty percent for calculations unit price every individual