Discussion and assignment

Contracting

Name:

Institution:

There are a number of recommendations and advice given in the article for any new contract. One of them is that advice about the authorized agents known as contracting officers who conduct government businesses. This point insists that it is only the contracting officers who have the authority to bind the government and that one should strictly adhere to them unless in cases where one is advised in writing. However, this point makes it clear that one has to be careful with the authority of the person you are dealing with since even these contracting officers have got limits on the authority. This advice is very important since it helps in both increasing accountability and reducing fraud. This is because, it might be easy to trace a certain officer who you conducted business with on behalf of the government in case o certain mistakes. Also, identifying these contract officers may help a lot in reducing frauds especially in cases of imposters who assume to be conducting business on behalf of the government but whose main aim is to commit fraud (Contractors, n.d.).

The other advice is that it is wise to comply with the contract terms. This point tries to discourage contractors from trying to come up with something either bigger or even better from what is in the contract. This is because, if done, it might be either too heavy or even too big for the government to handle it for example in terms of funding it and therefore end up losing the contract (Contractors, n.d.).

The contractor also suffers from a number of challenges due to the government’s right to conduct either audit on contractors’ books, and even record documents. These challenges vary depending on the contract’s types which can lead to vast amounts of audit oversights. This can in turn make the contractor suffers from challenges such as fines, penalties and even at times disallowed costs (Demarest, 2017).

So as to avoid such challenges in question, the contractor can try to comprehend the audit objectives and techniques, the audit’s main areas of emphasis, and also trying to properly respond and analyze the audit findings (Spring, 2014).

References

Contractors, (n.d.). Your Responsibilities as a Contractor. SBA.

Bill Demarest, (2017). The Contractor’s Perspective. Husch Blackwell.

Spring, (2014). Is Your Company SCA Compliant? Figure It Out Before the United States Department of Labor Figures It Out for You! Wiley Rein.