By Nidah Rasool
DCAA timekeeping requirements, read off the agency's own manual and audit program: what each employee owns and the eight things an auditor checks first. DCAA timekeeping rests on one rule: each employee records their own hours, daily, against the work actually performed. Here is what an auditor checks against it. DCAA timekeeping requirements rest on a single rule. Each employee records their own hours, on the day they work them, against the work they actually do. Every audit step after that tests whether the rule held. DCAA Timekeeping Requirements In One Rule No timekeeping product carries a DCAA approval. DCAA audits the system a contractor runs, and the contracting officer decides whether that system is acceptable. The pillar on a DCAA compliant accounting system (/blog/dcaa-compliant-accounting-system) covers that split. So the useful question is not which tool to buy. It is what an auditor looks at once the tool is running. DCAA answers that in its own manual for contractors (https://www.dcaa.mil/Portals/88/Information%20for%20Contractor%27s%20Pamphlet%20%28DCAAM%20764190%29%20%28508%20C%29.pdf). Labor, it says, "is not supported by external documentation or physical evidence to provide an independent check or balance." Then it names the control that stands in for the missing paperwork: "The key link in any sound labor time charging system is the individual employee." A material cost has a packing slip and an invoice behind it. A labor hour has a person and a policy. That difference shapes every requirement below. ! Three stages of a DCAA labor floor check, with the employee interview in the middle and no external document behind it (https://mhhifytmrlyksfrjacvi.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/blog-images/2026/11/dcaa-timekeeping-requirements-figure.png) A floor check tests a person, because a labor hour leaves no document an auditor can pull from a file. What Each Employee Owns DCAA Manual 7641.90, Information for Contractors, dated 26 June 2012, lists what a timekeeping manual must make each employee personally responsible for. Read the list as a job description: - Recording time on a daily basis. - Recording that time on the timesheet itself. - Distributing time correctly by project number, contract number or name. - Documenting any change, with the original charge, the corrected charge and the employee's written concurrence. - Recording all hours worked, whether the firm pays for them or not. - Certifying at the end of each work period that the hours reflect the work and the right cost objective. The manual also tells a firm to hand every employee a current list of project numbers and their descriptions. An employee who guesses a charge code has already broken the chain. What A Supervisor Cannot Do The supervisor approves and cosigns every timesheet.
DCAA timekeeping rests on one rule: each employee records their own hours, daily, against the work actually performed. Here is what an auditor checks against it.
DCAA timekeeping requirements rest on a single rule. Each employee records their own hours, on the day they work them, against the work they actually do. Every audit step after that tests whether the rule held. DCAA Timekeeping Requirements In One Rule No timekeeping product carries a DCAA approval. DCAA audits the system a contractor runs, and the contracting officer decides whether that system is acceptable. The pillar on a DCAA compliant accounting system (/blog/dcaa-compliant-accounting-system) covers that split. So the useful question is not which tool to buy. It is what an auditor looks at once the tool is running. DCAA answers that in its own manual for contractors (https://www.dcaa.mil/Portals/88/Information%20for%20Contractor%27s%20Pamphlet%20%28DCAAM%20764190%29%20%28508%20C%29.pdf). Labor, it says, "is not supported by external documentation or physical evidence to provide an independent check or balance." Then it names the control that stands in for the missing paperwork: "The key link in any sound labor time charging system is the individual employee." A material cost has a packing slip and an invoice behind it. A labor hour has a person and a policy. That difference shapes every requirement below. ! Three stages of a DCAA labor floor check, with the employee interview in the middle and no external document behind it (https://mhhifytmrlyksfrjacvi.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/blog-images/2026/11/dcaa-timekeeping-requirements-figure.png) A floor check tests a person, because a labor hour leaves no document an auditor can pull from a file. What Each Employee Owns DCAA Manual 7641.90, Information for Contractors, dated 26 June 2012, lists what a timekeeping manual must make each employee personally responsible for. Read the list as a job description: - Recording time on a daily basis. - Recording that time on the timesheet itself. - Distributing time correctly by project number, contract number or name. - Documenting any change, with the original charge, the corrected charge and the employee's written concurrence. - Recording all hours worked, whether the firm pays for them or not. - Certifying at the end of each work period that the hours reflect the work and the right cost objective. The manual also tells a firm to hand every employee a current list of project numbers and their descriptions. An employee who guesses a charge code has already broken the chain. What A Supervisor Cannot Do The supervisor approves and cosigns every timesheet.
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