Create the Perfect Subcontractor Bill Format for Operations

Subcontractor bill format for Operations

[Music] so let's talk about what contract management is is basically everything that you heard that what we're doing is that we're just taking all of these things that you've heard in terms of compliance policies procedures processes you just button them up to make sure that you have a process in place to manage that contract when you as an example if you get a subcontract from your from a prime who manages that contract for you or is there a contract the I don't think I understand question okay you're a subcontractor right okay is there an agreement between myself and right okay in this which is still a contract a type of contract so who manages the scope and the terms of that contract for you um the Prime does and we respond okay if it's something we don't agree with within that contract or we add our terms to okay you add your terms to the contract okay are there any requirements on your part that you have to do for the prime that are is there anything that you have to report back up to the prime um no and Poss probably because the people we work we worked for or you is very good at being compliant and we're general contractor so we kind of do a wide range of things so okay okay so there's not a like sometimes with my client like me I'm a sub so if my client gets a they're the prime and the contract exists between them and the government I have a contract with the prime there's a written contract with the prime and in my contract it says what the deliverables are the scope of work the terms the exclusions you know all of that stuff so that's what I'm asking do you have something like that in Place oo might want to take a look at that cuz that's um that that can ex that's some exposure and when I say that even as subcontractors I said get all of the contract the agreements and all of those things you know make sure that you have that an understanding of what they are because once you get that in place it manages the contract it manages the relationship you don't have to worry about that anymore but it's those little things that you didn't talk about that came up this additional cost I didn't know I had to cover that cost now that money is coming out of your pocket as opposed to the prime but if you lay out all of those things to terms in the scope you know exactly what is expected of you the the prime knows what they can expect of you and it's you have that relationship it's on paper so that's what I was asking because might want to take a look at that yeah okay um so having a process and procedures in place these are the following contract activities that you want to manage it helps you to have an Administration process in place to say this is the plan in terms of how we're going to manage the contract it helps you to manage your performance because even sometimes when you have a contract whether it's a subcontract or whether it's a contract as the prime you can go back in and take a look at what are the requirements sometimes what what we call a scope Creep meaning that you got a scope of work but then if it's not well defined if there's ambiguity there next yeah it start adding up you know all of those things start adding up and so you know is it such where you it's time for you to do an addendum to the contract to cover all of these things um we talked about the financing and the payment we talked about that also when when is is it appropriate to request a contract modification dependent on the type of contract that it is okay sometimes scope creep will dictate whether there is a modification in the in the contract it just depends um contract disputes hopefully you don't have to ever have to deal with a a dispute as far as a contract is concerned but sometimes that can be very very tax and like as an example you submit a bid or you you submit a bid and then you want to protest okay that's the type of dispute as well it goes to the general it goes I think it's GAO it's gao.gov but they're the general attorney I think it's general attorney office but they are the ones who take care of all of the disputes and everything for the contracts like if you submit a bid and you protest the bid because a larger contract won the bid but it a set aside for a small company so it goes to them they take a look at it you can even see it if you you follow protest you can go out there and take a look at it they give it an ID number and all of that stuff they'll assign an attorney to it they go through and do their due and tell you what the findings are some cases they have to um cancel the contract I mean the solicitation and they start all over again okay but those that's another Avenue to say if you feel like in some way you were harmed that that's an Avenue in terms of how you would take care of it now if it's a contract dispute between you and an individual or a contractor who's a prime or company that is a prime here again what are your terms how will you settle that if you do have a contract your contract should stipulate in the event that there's a conflict um between the two parties you know where will the contract I mean the conflict be resolved is it in Albuquerque New Mexico or is it here in the state of Georgia where your company is set up those terms okay and then the steps are you going to go directly where you're going to litigate it or do you want to look at alternatives to say that you want to use alternative dispute okay resources to say you'll do it that way so those things should be also included in your contract because that can save you money okay and then um contract termination and close out at the end of a contract particularly if you're the prime you know what are some of the things that you need to do to close out that contract or if that contract is being transferred to another contractor what are some of the things you need to do to close it out every contract that you have whether you're a small company a large company you should have a process in place to say that you're closing that contract out because it helps you to reconcile if they're missing things you haven't done that you need to put in place or that you haven't taken um that you have not um finalized this is an opportunity for you to have a check system in place to make sure that you've covered all of those things like if you no longer need that account if you set up a joint venture account do you still need that joint venture account or do you want to go ahead and and close it out okay I'm post award once you get a contract you want to make sure that you go through that contract you read it thoroughly um when you get a solicitation there's a sample contract that is included in the solicitation but just because a sample contract is included in the solicitation does not mean that it is exactly the same in terms of the contract that you have so you need to make sure that you read that copy of the contract before you signed off on it okay reviewing the contract for a schedule and and even with this you want to create a schedule like your startup date it's like your kickoff you have a work plan that says your kickoff date the startup date because if the government says the first phase of the contract has to be delivered in 45 days how you going to do is you just going to meander along and just kind of get it done or do you want to set up a timeline to make sure you get everything done because God forbid you get a contract and now you get a then you get a notice from the government saying for non-performance so you want to make sure once you get a contract you going to set up your timeline but also set up a timeline to say if there are hiccups that happen along the way you've got some days you have some time in there to help you with that to help you mitigate those things and also milestones in usand when you set this up a copy of it goes to the co because as well this is part of developing that relationship with the co is making sure that they understand what your plan is we know what you said when you respond you know in your bid but now it's time to put it into action and so that plan that you set up you want to make sure that you're working with the COO and give them a copy of and say okay this is the plan to say how we're going to kick off the meeting and execute the contract and let them see what your timeline is and your Milestones because that's peace of mind okay oh um read it okay have we covered that um the contract budget an oversight and I think you all heard this from Jack as well as you all heard it from Richard is to make sure that part of it is that you got a written Nar your technical response to say what you're going to do and how you're going to do the work but the other part of it is managing your cost don't be I had a situation where a client they won the contract and they had a cost proposal okay but because they have experience doing it they have years and years of experience doing this contract they set aside the budget that that they just set that aside to say oh yeah we've done this kind of work before we know that it's going to take X number this to get it done that kind of stuff well they set the budget aside they didn't give a copy of it to the um the operations manager so when they're doing inventory and looking at Cost control that they were using this based on you know the the price and their um cost proposal so they're buying inventory you know the person comes in and say how much do you need this we how much do you need that way so they just buying inventory buying inventory so midpoint through the contract they see now they're like $10,000 in the hole and I said well how do we get $10,000 in the hole well it would have helped if you gave your operation's manager a copy of the the budget because they can order to say okay we have a cap to say we can only ordered this much well they didn't so Shirley is out there she's just using her usual routine to ordering supplies and stuff and so they ended up $10,000 in the hole now was that Ma it made it wasn't as major as it could have been and they were able to recoup some of the the money that they spent out in other ways but don't take your budget and set it on the on the Shelf you know just because some people say you manage your money like a little bit of this a little bit of that or a some of that you need to know exactly what your numbers are okay um it also sometimes even as well as we do in terms of writing the proposal we write our cost proposal and we going through now that we've got the contract and we're looking at you know how they manage the contract and everything it's not unusual that that it happens at times is that you see something there that you need to manage okay whether it's the cost whether it's you need negotiate it for a cost that's a little bit lower than what you submitted because that's not unusual sometimes you will submit a budget to the government and they say your pricing is good but can you sharpen your pencil some That's Not Unusual and if you sharpen your pencil and you notice now say ooh you know there's a less $5,000 that I have in my budget that I really need it so how are you going to mitigate that you have to look at ways that you have to mitigate that loss so even when you get a contract you still have to make sure that you understand the terms um plan for the loss of key personnel and when you're doing your contract you want to make sure that you stay within those parameters in terms of the cost but what happens if you lose a key personnel and now you got to go out and you have to recruit and replace that person okay what about the time the hours and all the Lost productivity you know how do you manage that okay so all of these little things go back into managing a contract um prepare a strategy for addressing risk and it's to it would behoove you when those situations come up that you take the initiative to contact a Contracting officer and I'll give you an example I was working with one client and we had a situation where um we we had some employees that that left we had to hire new people they weren't trained they had to get trained and everything so we had a choice we could have said okay I'm going to wait till the Contracting officer come to to come to us now mind you the contract specialist and all of that they're on the site so we contacted the um the co and we said okay this is what happened but this is our plan to mitigate it and we wrote down every step with a timeline just like smart goes put us you Tim stamp everything to say okay this is the problem this is how we're going to mitigate it and we want a follow-up meeting with you by this day so that would have given us enough time to put a plan in place to execute that plan but also to make sure that as we executed that plan that now we can see where it's addressing some of the problems that it created by losing the staff people but take that it it's to your advantage to contact the contrac and officer to let them know what's happening and how you going to resolve it as opposed to they're hearing information that's coming up from the bottom up to them okay it would take it's in your best interest to show and to demonstrate that even though I have an issue there's a risk here I'm taking steps to mitigate that risk okay um if you got a good project manager on on on um who's helping you manage the the contract these are some of the things that they're going to take a look at in terms of anticipating when they changes that are coming up as an example if you know at the beginning of a new contract year that you you need to negotiate whether it's the H&W even if it's the payroll if you doing cuz sometimes people say well you know I don't have to give employees uh uh you know cost of living increase those things well you need to make sure it's in the RS that you don't have to do that but if you do that at the beginning of your budget did you take account for if you wanted to do give your employees a an increase did you take that in consideration when you did your budget so all of those things you need to factor in and I guess forecast as that because part of it is that in terms of mitigating risk is that you want to make sure that you you retain your employees CU if you got high turnover that creates a risk for the government okay all contract modifications must be communicated in writing and that is so important okay um to have a yeah because even when I have a verbal contract I mean a verbal conversation if it's important I send an email to say to recap our convers cuz I'm stamp it I'm giving it a date and everything but I'm recap that so that way it's a written record of what it said and I will even go so far as to do a read receipt yes okay so those are some of the things that you can do when situations like this come up that you need to manage okay okay basic requirements when you're talking about invoicing these are all of the things that are required but here again most often when you get a contract and you have to invoice the government will give you a little template to show you exactly what it looks like no more no less just follow exactly what they give you okay um you these are some of the other elements here you know it requires if you need if it asks for your your EIN in I mean your your tax number you include that but often times too what the government does is that they will pay you electronically so do you remember when you went into Sam's and you had to set up your banking information well if you haven't experienced this often times what the government will do is that they do electronic fund transfer which I love you know just wake up and it's there it's there exactly it helps for pay all kind of you know it's a good thing um contract termination okay when you're talking about things that you need to do to close out a contract these are all of the things that you want to do because this is the you're creating like um the when you talk about a contract and you closing it out you it's like you're creating a file where you can archive everything so in the event that you have to go back and pull that file up you've got all of these things here in terms of what you did with that contract it's like it tells you everything all of the activity that happened with that contract okay even when you talk about closing out your financials and your accounts and stuff that's important okay um like you said where you have like staff release activities um the plan all of those things are important can you imagine two years later you have a contract or somebody come to you and they say well you didn't pay me all my labor hours my vacation time and stuff and then if you didn't manage that contract and secure those documents you may not have a record of it okay so all all the more reason to think the things that you do now it pays off for you in the end is it extra work that you don't want to do probably okay but do you want I rather take the time to do it right and know that I've done it right as opposed of waiting for a situation that happened to me and now I'm going through the closet or in the I'm digging through all of these records and stuff the fing system is messed up so this you want to make sure and the other yeah and the other thing is scan now you can scan documents okay and that's even better than having paper copies okay so any questions about you know the information that I cover with you um and part of it as you mature as as government contractors probably some of the stuff here doesn't make a lot of sense because say you know I'm a subcontractor or I'm doing this and I'm just standing up my business so some of this things that you that you hear now you know you have used them as you mature in the space and as you continue to grow and expand your company and stuff but I rather you have the information and the know how so when you get ready to do it hopefully you'll do it right