Documenting Delays for Government Contract Equitable Adjustments (REA)

Is a government shutdown, stop-work order, or lack of access sidelining your federal contract work? If you are an 8a firm, a Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB), or hold Disabled Veteran Small Business (SDVOSB) certification, idle time can hit especially hard, burning crucial cash.

This episode provides a clear, efficient, and FAR-compliant survival strategy for small and mid-sized government contractors. We show you how to protect your business margins and build a solid record for a future Request for Equitable Adjustment (REA). Without clean, contemporaneous documentation, you risk losing out on cost recovery altogether.

In this episode, you will learn:

• The Regulatory Foundation: Which key FAR clauses (including FAR 52.242-14, FAR 52.242-15, and FAR 52.243-1) authorize adjustments for government suspensions, delays, or changes.
• Documentation Without Overkill: How to keep your REA file lean yet defensible by focusing on consistent, real-time notes that connect delays directly to contract performance.
• Practical Steps to Track Costs: We detail essential documentation methods, such as instructing staff to use annotated timesheets (e.g., noting “8:00–12:00 idle due to site locked”), maintaining simple daily logs from the project manager, and preserving all CO/COR email logs related to the delay.
• DCAA Compliance and Cost Segregation: Why you must track idle labor costs separately using segregated cost codes in your accounting software, instead of burying them in overhead.
• The Credibility Factor: Why claims relying on reconstructed logs or vague estimates often get rejected, emphasizing the need for contemporaneous evidence to meet GAO standards.

A credible REA is built before the claim, not after. Tune in to ensure you have the paper trail that actually holds up and empowers your Contracting Officer (CO) to say "yes".