Ally Compliance Solutions, LLC

10/02/2026

𝗪𝗲’𝗿𝗲 𝗸𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗳𝗳 𝗮 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝟭𝟬𝟭 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀!
First up: 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗮 𝗚𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁.
If you’ve ever opened a government contract and wondered where to even start, this one is for you. We walk through the sections of a traditional federal contract in plain language, what you should actually be looking for during an award review, who within your organization needs to be involved, and how to make sure you actually received the complete contract—including all of those attachments listed in Section J.
Because a contract isn’t something Contracts should read once and file away. It’s the roadmap for how your company is supposed to perform, bill, deliver, report and comply throughout the life of the award.
And step one is making sure you have the whole roadmap.
🔗 Read it here: https://www.allycompliancesolutions.com/post/contracting-101-how-to-read-a-government-contract

You just received a government contract. Congratulations!Now what?If you're new to government contracting, opening that first award can be overwhelming. There may be a cover form, pages of contract line items, a statement of work, special requirements, FAR or agency-specific clauses, and a collectio...

09/28/2026

I've realized lately that quite a few people who follow me here probably have no idea what I actually do for a living. 😂
I talk a lot about Contracts, Program Control, compliance, funding, deliverables, project setup and all the weird little things that can go sideways in Government contracting. But I don't talk nearly as much about what I actually do with all of that knowledge.
So, here it is.
When a company wins a Government contract, somebody has to read the whole thing and figure out what the company actually agreed to do. Somebody needs to understand the funding, set the project up correctly, track the numbers, manage the deliverables, watch the burn, forecast where the project is headed, keep up with modifications, recognize when a Government request may create a contractual issue, and make sure Contracts, Accounting, Program Control and the PM aren't all operating in separate universes.
At a large Government contractor, there may be entire departments doing those things.
At a small Government contractor, “somebody” may be Susan. And Susan also does HR. 😂
That's a big part of why I started Ally Compliance Solutions.
I don't believe every small Government contractor needs to immediately hire a Contracts Manager, a Program Control team and a Compliance department. But I do believe they need access to experienced people who understand those functions when the work requires it.
Sometimes that means I provide ongoing fractional Contracts or Program Control support. Sometimes a company needs help setting up the processes, tools and controls to manage the work themselves. Sometimes someone suddenly inherited Contracts or PC and needs training and a person they can call when they run into something they haven't seen before.
Other times, the company doesn't really know what it needs yet. They just know something isn't working—or they're wondering whether the way they've been doing things would hold up if someone actually started asking questions. That's where assessments, contract reviews and a second set of experienced eyes can be incredibly useful.
The common thread is pretty simple: I help small Government contractors manage the work they've already won without trying to turn them into giant Government contractors.
I like practical processes. I like controls that actually serve a purpose. I like teaching people why they're doing something instead of handing them another checklist. And, as you may have gathered from my posts, I ask a LOT of questions. 😂
That's Ally.
And apparently I should mention what I actually do every once in a while. 😂

09/23/2026

The most important two weeks of my career may have been spent annoying people by asking “Why?” 😂

Years ago, I was working for a Government contractor in Kuwait. I had started in an administrative role, moved into Accounting, and by this point had several years of experience working with projects and Costpoint.

Like a lot of companies with employees working halfway around the world from corporate headquarters, we had some challenges between the field and the home office. Information didn’t always flow the way it should. Project setup didn’t always make sense to the people actually using it. Costs ended up in the wrong places. Sometimes the field didn’t understand why corporate needed something, and sometimes corporate didn’t understand what was actually happening in the field.

Eventually, I was sent from Kuwait to our corporate office in Huntsville for two weeks to work through some of those issues. And I asked questions. A lot of questions. 😂

I sat with people in Accounting, Contracts and other departments and tried to understand what they actually did. Where does this information come from? What do you do with it? Who gets it after you? What happens if it’s wrong? Why do we set it up this way? Why do you need this from us? What happens on your end when we don’t do it correctly?

I’m fairly certain there were people ready to put me back on the plane to Kuwait early. 😂

But something clicked for me during those two weeks. I stopped looking at my job as just my part of the process and started trying to understand the entire process.

A project setup decision affects Accounting. A contract modification affects Program Control. A staffing decision affects the forecast. A timesheet correction can affect the invoice. Something Contracts does can create work downstream for three other departments, and something Accounting changes can completely change what PC is reporting to the PM.

Everything connects.

That two-week trip ultimately changed the direction of my career. Corporate offered me a position in Huntsville, my family was ready to come back to the U.S., and I took the leap. But the bigger thing I brought home with me was the habit of asking why.

More than 20 years into GovCon, I’m still doing it. If I don’t understand why Accounting needs something from Contracts, why PC built the project a certain way, why the PM needs a particular report, or what happens to information after my part is finished, then I don’t think I fully understand the process yet.

So one of my favorite pieces of career advice is pretty simple: Be professionally nosy. 😂

Understanding your job is important. Understanding what your job does to everybody else’s job is where you become really useful.

09/21/2026

If you’ve seen headlines saying DoD is getting rid of CAS and thought, “Cool…but what the hell does that actually mean?” — this one’s for you. 😂

There is a LOT happening with Cost Accounting Standards right now, and unfortunately there isn’t a neat little “CAS is gone” explanation. There are actually several changes happening at the same time, which makes the headlines a little misleading.

First, a quick refresher for anyone who doesn’t spend their free time reading acquisition regulations. 😂 CAS stands for Cost Accounting Standards, and they establish requirements for how certain Government contractors measure, assign and allocate costs to Government contracts.

CAS applicability has never been as simple as “your contract is over $X, so CAS applies.” Contract value matters, but so does the type of award and whether an exemption applies. There is also a difference between modified and full CAS coverage. That $50 million number many of us are familiar with was an important threshold for full CAS coverage, not the starting point for CAS applicability altogether.

Earlier this month, the CAS Board finalized changes that increase some of those monetary thresholds. That’s a pretty significant development by itself.

Then DoD went considerably further.

Last week, the Department issued direction aimed at reducing Government-unique accounting requirements and relying more heavily on Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and existing commercial accounting practices. The broader idea is to stop requiring companies to create an entirely different way of doing business simply because they want to sell to the Government.

One line in the announcement really stood out to me: “Attach rules to contracts, not companies.”

That may sound like acquisition-policy speak, but it’s actually a pretty important concept. The Department is talking about relying more on existing commercial accounting records and independent audits, focusing Government-unique oversight where the risk actually warrants it, and avoiding situations where contractors end up subject to unofficial “shadow CAS” requirements even when a contract is otherwise exempt.

So what does all of that mean if you’re a contractor today?

Don’t go blow up your accounting system. 😂

This is the direction DoD is moving, but there is still implementation work ahead. Your current contract did not magically rewrite itself when the memo came out.

For now, the boring answer is also the right one: understand the contract you have, know which requirements actually apply to it, and comply with those requirements until something changes.

But keep an eye on this one.

For small and nontraditional contractors especially, reducing Government-unique accounting requirements could remove a very real barrier to doing business with DoD. And I’ll keep following the implementation and translating the Government-speak as we find out what this actually looks like in practice.

09/19/2026

Did you know Ally writes blogs specifically for GovCon newbies—or anyone who could use a clearer explanation of contracts and program control topics? 🙋‍♀️

Government contracting comes with enough acronyms, rules, and “wait…what does that actually mean?” moments. My goal is to break those topics down into practical, easy-to-understand information you can actually use.

Don’t see a topic you need help understanding? Drop a comment and let me know! It might just become the next Ally blog. 👇

And if NAICS codes have ever left you scratching your head, check out the most recent blog:

NAICS Codes 101: What They Are, Why They Matter, and Which One Actually Counts

If you're new to Government contracting, you're going to hear people talk about NAICS codes. A lot.What's your NAICS? What's your primary NAICS? What's the NAICS on the solicitation? Are you small under that NAICS?Before we get into any of that, let's address perhaps the most important question: How...

09/16/2026

Just because the Government didn't call you out doesn't mean you're compliant.

I once took over a contract where a required monthly deliverable hadn't been submitted in eight months.

Eight. Months.

Nobody had noticed.

Not the contractor. Not the Government.

And unfortunately, the Government not noticing didn't make the requirement disappear. 😂

Deliverables are one of the easiest places for a contract to quietly drift out of compliance. Everyone remembers the big recurring reports. It's the quarterly report, the annual submission, the one-time plan, or the requirement buried somewhere in the PWS that tends to get missed.

This is why one of the first things I want to see when I'm reviewing a contract is the compliance matrix. What are we required to submit? Who owns it? When is it due? Where does it go? And how do we know it was actually submitted?

If there isn't a matrix—or some other reliable way of tracking those requirements—my next question is pretty simple:

How do you know you're compliant?

Don't rely on the Government to manage your contract for you. Sometimes they'll catch something immediately. Sometimes eight months will go by.

The requirement is still the requirement.

Contracts folks: what's the longest you've ever seen a deliverable go unnoticed? I have a feeling eight months isn't going to win. 😂

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09/07/2026

One of the easiest ways for important information to fall through the cracks on a Government contract?

Surely.

Surely Contracts told the PM.

Surely the PM told Program Control.

Surely PC told Accounting.

Surely someone told Billing.

Surely HR knows.

Surely somebody told the subcontractor.

And three weeks later, everyone is sitting in a meeting realizing that Surely didn't tell anybody. 😂

A contract touches a lot of people, and one change can have a ripple effect across several departments. That's why one of the simplest habits I've learned is to ask two questions whenever something happens: Who needs to know this, and who does this impact?

Don't assume information made its way to the right people just because it seems obvious that it should have. Know your stakeholders, communicate intentionally, and when something could affect another part of the organization, make sure the right people actually know.

I'm firmly on Team Overshare. I'd much rather hear something twice than find out three weeks later that everyone assumed Surely had it covered. 😂

09/04/2026

Program Control people: it's okay to be a little nosy. 😂

Actually, I encourage it.

Someone new is charging to my project?

Who are they?

Travel is being planned?

Where are they going? Is it budgeted? Is it allowable? Do we have funding?

There's an unexpected cost in my actuals?

Where did it come from?

We're suddenly burning more hours?

Why?

A subcontractor invoice is much higher than forecast?

What's going on?

I have always viewed Program Control as one of the project's gatekeepers.

That doesn't mean PC owns every decision.

It means **very little should happen financially on that project without PC knowing about it.**

The better you know the contract, the budget, the people and the work, the faster you'll recognize when something doesn't look right.

Be curious.

Ask questions.

And yes… verify. 😉

https://wix.to/qZyxKWq

09/03/2026

“We're under budget.”

Great.

**Are we supposed to be?**

That's the question Program/Project Control should be asking.

If you've spent $400K against a $1M budget, that doesn't automatically mean the project is healthy.

What if you're only 25% through the work?

What if you planned to have spent $500K by now?

What if you're understaffed and work isn't getting done?

What if $100K in subcontractor invoices hasn't hit the books yet?

Or what if you're nearing the end of the period of performance and your forecast shows you aren't going to use a significant amount of the funding?

Being under budget isn't always a victory.

Depending on the contract and circumstances, unused funding may eventually need to be deobligated — and that funding potentially could have been put to use elsewhere.

The goal isn't to spend money simply because it's available.

**The goal is to accurately forecast what you need and communicate changes early.**

Actual cost tells you what has happened.

**Budget + actuals + forecast tells you where you're going.**

That's why I'm a big believer in building a project budget even when the contract or customer doesn't require one.

Without a plan, you're reporting history.

With a budget and a solid forecast, you're actually managing the financial performance of the project.

https://wix.to/g28erng

09/02/2026

New blog: Program/Project Control 101 — Know Your Contract, Know Your Numbers, Know Your Project. Whether PC owns budgeting or works alongside Accounting and Contracts, strong PC pros need a full financial picture to drive project success. Read practical guidance on roles, forecasting, variance analysis, and reporting in government contracting. 7 min read ➜ https://wix.to/Glf6I8g

Program/Project Control (PC) is one of those functions that can look completely different from one government contractor to another. At one company, PC may own budgeting, forecasting, revenue, funding, variance analysis, and financial reporting. At another, some of those responsibilities may sit wit...