DOD Proposes Longer Interim Payment Period on Cost Type Contracts; Use of Wide Area Network for Billing.

The Defense Department August 2 proposed amending the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations Supplement (DFARS) to provide interim payments under cost reimbursement contracts for services within 30 days instead of the current DOD policy of making payments within 14 days.  The change would not apply to small businesses.  In the same proposal, DOD is proposing to “update and clarify” requirements for the unique identification and evaluation of all delivered items for which the government’s acquisition unit price is $5,000 or more. Also, a final rule was issued prohibiting DOD from using tiered evaluation – known as “cascading set-asides” - when awarding DOD contracts or task orders unless the contracting officer has conducted market research and after such research is unable to determine whether a sufficient number of qualified small businesses are available to justify limiting competition to such businesses (Fed. Reg. 42366).

The Defense Department published a proposed rule to the DFARS to require use of the Wide Area Workflow-Receipt and Acceptance (WAWF-RA) electronic system to use for submitting and processing payment requests for DOD contracts.  When fully implemented WAWFRA is intended to eliminate paper documentation and redundant data entry, improve data accuracy, reduce the number of lost documents and provide more timely payments. The proposed rule will still allow contractors to submit a payment request through another electronic means or non-electronically if authorized by the CO (Fed. Reg. 45405).

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