Gain Insights and Competitive Advantage
Government contractors need a well-planned budget to calculate future indirect rates, plan resources, analyze pricing, and support cost proposals. ICAT gives you tools to build a detailed plan and make informed decisions.
Understand the total cost of doing business
Capture both direct and indirect costs for a view into total costs – by employee, by contract, and for the business.
Accurately estimate what indirect rates will be
Plan for anticipated overhead and G&A costs during the budget period and account for changes to calculate more accurate future indirect rates.
Empower decision-making
Calculate indirect rates with/without proposal data to see the impact of winning new work. Run alternative scenarios and build multi-year projections to inform pricing.
Monitor costs throughout the year
Leverage real-time budget vs actual reports to evaluate current year performance, drill down on variances, and stay on track.
Whether you're a seasoned government contractor or just starting out, a strong budget can set your company up for success.
Enhanced Budgeting and Reporting with ICAT
Tailor QuickBooks to meet the specialized accounting needs of government contracting. ICAT gives your business a flexible framework for developing granular budgets, calculating provisional indirect rates, and tracking performance throughout the year.
Plan for the Future
Map out a financial blueprint for future periods:
- Import cost data directly from QuickBooks as a basis for budgeting the new year
- Assign an escalation rate to prior year costs, or modify specific costs by unique conditions or timeframe
- Identify labor costs at the individual level, including PTO, benefits and bonuses
- Assign direct labor and costs to contracts
- Project indirect costs
- Include/exclude proposal data to evaluate the impact of new work on indirect rates
Develop Provisional Billing Rates
Establish budgetary support for your Provisional Indirect Rate Proposal:
- Calculate provisional indirect rates from budgeted costs instead of defaulting to outdated rates
- Quantify changes that will impact indirect rates
- View cost pool detail and cost allocations for future periods
Run Budget-based Reports
Gain additional insights throughout the year:
- View budget vs. actual reports
- Analyze labor ultilization and costs by individual employee/position
- View remaining contract hours and amounts month-to-month
- Track your burn schedule throughout the year
- Generate an organizational chart from personnel data
ICAT allows you to build out unlimited budget scenarios. Copy existing budgets and incorporate new information to update forecasts, or evaluate alternative scenarios side-by-side.
Build Your Plan for Growth
Watch an on-demand webinar and see how you can gain key insights for pricing, support cost proposals, and inform management using ICAT's Budget capabilities with your QuickBooks data.
The Benefits of Budgeting
Contract-focused budgeting enables businesses to classify direct costs by contract and indirect costs by cost pools, plan personnel costs, calculate Provisional Indirect Rates from budgeted costs, and assess the impact of new work on indirect rates.
Through the budget process, management must make reasonable assumptions regarding the volume of business to be performed, expansion of facilities, as well as the rising costs of items such as rents, health care benefits, and general inflation.
With a detailed budget, management has a tool to:
- Quantify the indirect costs that must be recovered with contract revenues during the budget period
- Evaluate the sufficiency of the company’s existing backlog of work
- Make estimates for new work that will be awarded
- Develop and submit a Provisional Indirect Rate Proposal
- Monitor the profitability of contracts