A small government contractor's accounting system doesn't just need to track money, it needs to survive a DCAA preaward survey, which checks whether your timekeeping, indirect-cost pools, and job-cost segregation actually hold up to audit. Unanet and Deltek dominate this space and both work, at a price and setup complexity built around contractors who already have a dedicated compliance team, not a five-person shop trying to win its first cost-reimbursement contract.
Most small GovCon shops either overpay for Unanet or Deltek before they're big enough to need everything in them, or try to force QuickBooks through a preaward survey and get flagged for exactly the timekeeping and indirect-rate structure gaps DCAA is trained to look for. We start from your actual contract mix, whether you're bidding cost-reimbursement work that requires a full DCAA-compliant system or mostly fixed-price work where the bar is lower, and match the system to that reality instead of the name every consultant mentions first. Getting the books into shape is only the first half: if your indirect-cost pool structure or job-cost segregation doesn't map cleanly onto how whatever system you pick wants it entered, we build the structure correctly instead of leaving your controller to reconcile it in a side spreadsheet every month.
The real-world complaint we hear most is a contractor's own dislike of forcing QuickBooks through DCAA's preaward survey, timekeeping, indirect-rate structure, and job-cost segregation requirements QuickBooks wasn't built around natively. We check whether your actual contract mix needs a true DCAA-compliant system or whether a properly configured QuickBooks setup can still clear the bar.
Both platforms are built specifically to pass a DCAA preaward survey and are the names every GovCon consultant recommends first. Whether that's worth the price and implementation complexity depends on your contract volume and whether you're bidding cost-reimbursement work regularly, or just need to clear one survey.
Indirect-rate structures, fringe, overhead, G&A, sometimes get built around how a contractor's business actually runs rather than how a standard chart of accounts expects them. When that mismatch is real, we build the cost-pool structure correctly in whatever system you pick instead of leaving your controller to reconcile it by hand every billing cycle.
Your actual contract mix, cost-reimbursement versus fixed-price, and whether you're bidding that kind of work regularly, decides this more than which name a consultant mentions first. Tell us where your contracts actually sit and we'll tell you honestly which system fits, what getting through a preaward survey really takes, or whether your cost-pool structure needs something built custom.
Get a free quote → →It can, with the right setup, timekeeping controls, job-cost segregation, and a documented indirect-rate structure layered on properly. It's a real, common complaint among small contractors that QuickBooks isn't built for this natively, but for a contractor with modest cost-reimbursement volume, a correctly configured QuickBooks setup can clear the bar without the cost of Unanet or Deltek.
Mainly whether your timekeeping system records actual hours worked (not estimated), whether indirect costs are pooled and allocated consistently, and whether job costs are segregated cleanly by contract. These are the specific gaps that trip up contractors trying to force a generic accounting system through without adjustment.
Sometimes, but not always at the start. Both are built for contractors with real ongoing cost-reimbursement volume and dedicated compliance staff. If you're bidding your first cost-type contract, the honest answer might be a properly structured QuickBooks setup now, with a plan to move to Unanet or Deltek as volume grows.
Usually yes. We map your current chart of accounts and cost structure against what a preaward survey actually checks, and rebuild the indirect-rate and job-cost segregation pieces that are missing, rather than migrating everything into a new system from scratch unless that's genuinely the better call.
We do. Unanet and Deltek support their own platforms; mapping your real contract and cost structure into DCAA-compliant timekeeping and indirect-rate pools, in whichever system fits, is the work we handle directly.
Restructuring an existing QuickBooks setup for compliance usually takes three to six weeks. A full migration to Unanet or Deltek, with historical contract and cost data moved in, typically runs six to ten weeks depending on contract count and history.