Tenace

There is a bill making its way through the Senate that every small business in the GovCon space should know about.

S4390, the Ending Discrimination in Government Contracting Act, would make significant changes to the programs that have long supported small business participation in federal contracting.

Here is what it would do:

It would eliminate the Women-Owned Small Business program, including the 5% WOSB prime contracting goal and the ability for agencies to direct large primes to apply WOSB preferences in their subcontracting.

It would gut the 8(a) program, ending set-asides and sole source preferences for socially and economically disadvantaged individuals and businesses, and remove agency obligations to track and report contracting dollars awarded to those firms.

It would also repeal the statutory framework for the Minority Business Development Agency entirely.

Importantly, the bill does not eliminate all small business set-aside programs. Preferences for HUBZone firms, Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (VOSBs), and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSBs) would remain fully intact. Those contracting goals and set-aside requirements are unchanged by this legislation.

The bill has been referred to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. It has not passed, but it is worth watching closely.

If your business participates in any of these programs, or if you are working toward certification, now is the time to understand what is at stake. Reach out if you have questions.

Last month, we celebrated something truly special.

Our intern Kylee (Jenn's daughter) got married, and the Tenace team was honored to be a part of the occasion. We wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Congratulations to the happy couple! Wishing you a lifetime of love and happiness.

Today, we honor and remember those who gave their lives in service to our country.

We are forever grateful. 🇺🇸

Happy Mother’s Day from all of us at Tenace! 💐

We celebrate the strength and dedication of all the great mothers in our community. Thank you for the impact you make every day.

From accounting to fractional CFO to compliance, our mission has always been the same: helping our clients grow with clarity and confidence.
Thank you to our clients, partners, and team for being part of this journey. We’re just getting started.
🎉 Cheers to 9 years and everything ahead.

If you're trying to decide whether outsourced accounting makes sense for your business, think about capacity and expertise.

Do you have the right people? Do they have the time? Do they have the GovCon-specific knowledge?

If the answer to any of those is no, outsourcing might be the right move.

Small to medium-sized companies typically outsource accounting because they do not have the bandwidth or need to hire a full-time accountant.

Medium to larger companies outsource accounting to get the best of both worlds: a specialized accountant that can scale alongside them, plus a fractional CFO to help drive the operational aspects of financials and provide insight into strategic decisions.

If you want to learn more about outsourced accounting, reach out. We are happy to answer your questions.

There are three specific criteria for what constitutes a Cost Accounting Practice change:

1. Required Change: If there is a new law in effect that requires a change, you need to comply with the law.

2. Unilateral Change: If it is a request from your contracting officer or from the government itself, they have to reimburse you for any increased costs resulting from that.

3. Voluntary Change: If you, as the company, want to make a change and the government does not find it to be desirable, then they have the right to only reimburse you up to what it would have cost them under the old practice.

There are a few more steps typically involved with voluntary changes, but the bottom line is that changes are allowed. They just need to be compliant and well-documented.

If you are considering changing a Cost Accounting Practice and are unsure how to navigate the process, we can help.

We put together answers to the most common Incurred Cost Submission (ICS) questions we get from clients. Swipe through to see if yours is covered.

If you are feeling overwhelmed by the process, we're here to help.

At Tenace, we help our government-contractor clients prepare for ICS throughout the year, ensuring everything is ready when the deadline arrives.

Provisional rates aren't just numbers you submit to the government. They're cash-flow estimates used to bill the government during contract performance.

If your rates are too high, you'll overbill and have to return money at year-end reconciliation.

If your rates are too low, you're underbilling, which can trigger cash flow concerns for some businesses.

Both scenarios create cash flow problems. Both put unnecessary strain on your business.

At Tenace, we help government contractors develop provisional billing rates that are compliant, competitive, and defensible.

We do this by:
✅ Building realistic budgets based on historical data and trending forecasts
✅ Projecting costs accurately across all indirect pools
✅ Validating assumptions with sensitivity analysis
✅ Documenting every calculation so they can defend their rates

If your organization is struggling with calculating provisional billing rates, reach out. We're here to help.

Here's a quick myth in the gov-con world: CAS only applies to large businesses.

Reality: Even though small businesses are exempt from CAS, many of the same principles still apply through FAR Part 31 cost principles.

For example, FAR 31.203, Indirect Costs, requires contractors to accumulate indirect costs in logical groupings and allocate them to cost objectives using a base that best represents the beneficial or causal relationship of the pooled costs to the cost objectives.

This language mirrors the same causal-beneficial allocation principle embedded on CAS 418, Allocation of Direct and Indirect Costs.
This means that even on non-CAS covered contracts, contractors are still expected to:
• Accumulate indirect costs in logical cost pools
• Allocate those costs using a representative allocation base
• Apply those practices consistently

One of the key objectives of CAS ultimately comes down to one word: Consistency.
If a contractor treats a cost one way today, the government expects it to be treated the same way tomorrow.
That doesn't mean you are not allowed to make changes (but we'll cover cost accounting practice changes in a future post).

Our recommendation to growing government contractors: don’t fear CAS. Instead, operate like the principles already apply.