📐 Government Contract Cost Accounting

Cost Accounting Standards (CAS)

After this course, your finance team knows whether CAS applies and at what coverage level, can defend every allocation to a DCAA auditor, and understands the 2026 threshold increases and GAAP-conformance changes before they reshape the framework. Covers all 19 standards, the Disclosure Statement, the indirect rate machine, and what is changing now. QMS Workbench stays with the team to draft and pressure-test the deliverables.

48 CFR 9904FAR Part 31FAR Part 30DFARS
12 modules61 lessons5 enrolledQMS Workbench included
Team license
For organizations
5+ seats • demo-gated pricing
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Walk Into Any Audit With Confidence

Other courses give you a certificate. We give you the judgment to use it.

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The Auditor Who Finds What Others Miss

You will not just check boxes. You will follow the work, ask the questions that reveal how things really operate, and write findings that drive actual change. Your audits will be the ones people talk about because they made things better.

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The Credential That Opens Doors

Your ISO 9001 Internal Auditor certificate is not a participation trophy. It proves you can plan, conduct, report, and follow up on audits using real methodology. Employers and registrars recognize this.

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An AI Mentor That Never Leaves

After the course, QMS Workbench stays with you. Ask it about clause interpretation, finding statements, audit planning, or corrective action evaluation. It knows your completed coursework and gives answers that build on what you learned.

QMS Workbench Stays With You

After the course, your AI compliance mentor is available 24/7. Here is what a real conversation looks like.

QMS Workbench
You
Does this supplier evaluation meet clause 8.4.1 requirements?
AI
To fully meet 8.4.1, your supplier evaluation needs three things: defined criteria for selection, defined criteria for evaluation, and defined criteria for re-evaluation. Check that your procedure specifies how you initially qualify suppliers, how you monitor ongoing performance (delivery, quality, responsiveness), and how often you formally re-evaluate. If any of those three are missing or just boilerplate without real metrics, that is a finding.
You
Help me write a finding statement for this calibration gap.
Ask anything, anytime. "What should I look for when auditing design controls?" "How do I audit management review effectively?" "Help me build a process-based audit checklist"

What You'll Be Able to Do

Determine whether CAS applies to a contract and whether coverage is full or modified
Apply all 19 standards: allocation, overhead, pensions, unallowables, and the standalone rules
Build and defend the Disclosure Statement so disclosed practice matches actual practice
Run the indirect rate machine: pools, bases, incurred cost submissions, rate lifecycle
Handle cost accounting practice changes and the cost impact process without a finding
Stay ahead of the 2026 threshold increases and the GAAP-conformance elimination wave

Course Curriculum

1

Module 1: The Ground Floor

Why CAS exists, who enforces it, and the one distinction new govcon accountants get backwards

5 lessons
1.Why Cost Accounting Standards Exist18 min
2.Allocable, Allowable, Reasonable: The Words That Trip Everyone20 min
3.Who's Who: CASB, DCAA, DCMA, and the CFAO18 min
4.The Regulation Map: 48 CFR Chapter 9916 min
5.The Stakes: What Noncompliance Actually Costs18 min
2

Module 2: The Three Questions

Measurement, assignment, allocation, and the consistency wrap: the lens that unlocks all nineteen standards

5 lessons
1.The One Idea Behind Everything14 min
2.How Much? Measurement18 min
3.When? Assignment to a Year18 min
4.Which Job Pays? Allocation22 min
5.Consistency Wraps All Three18 min
3

Module 3: Does CAS Even Apply to You?

Exemptions, full vs modified coverage, the clauses, flow-down, and the 2026 threshold change

6 lessons
1.Coverage Attaches to a Contract, Not a Company13 min
2.The Exemptions: When CAS Stays Out16 min
3.Full Versus Modified Coverage17 min
4.You Read Coverage Off the Clause16 min
5.Subcontract Flow-Down: Where Primes Bleed17 min
6.The 2026 Change Almost Nobody Has Priced In16 min
4

Module 4: The Consistency Family

Standards 401, 402, 405, and 406, the rules that wrap all the others

5 lessons
1.The Family That Wraps Everything14 min
2.CAS 401: Estimate It the Way You Will Book It18 min
3.CAS 402: Same Purpose, One Treatment18 min
4.CAS 405: Find It, Flag It, Do Not Hide It20 min
5.CAS 406: One Clock for the Whole Company16 min
5

Module 5: Allocation and Overhead

How indirect cost reaches a contract: pools, bases, home office, G and A, and the base games (403, 410, 418, 420)

5 lessons
1.Where Overhead Meets the Contract14 min
2.CAS 418: Honest Pools, Honest Bases18 min
3.CAS 410: The G and A Base Game20 min
4.CAS 403: Home Office Down to the Segments22 min
5.CAS 420: Research and Proposals Go Through G and A16 min
6

Module 6: Assets, Depreciation, and Cost of Money

Long-lived things and imputed cost: capitalization, depreciation, material, and cost of money (404, 409, 411, 414, 417)

5 lessons
1.Long-Lived Things and the Cost of Money12 min
2.CAS 404: Capitalize, Do Not Expense18 min
3.CAS 409: Depreciate Over the Life It Actually Lives18 min
4.CAS 411: Cost Your Material the Same Way Every Time16 min
5.CAS 414 and 417: The Cost of Money You Never Wrote a Check For18 min
7

Module 7: People and Pensions

Charging the cost of people to the years they earn it: paid absence, pensions, and deferred pay (408, 412, 413, 415)

5 lessons
1.People Cost, and Why Pensions Get Two Standards12 min
2.CAS 408: Pay for Time Off Belongs to the Year It Is Earned16 min
3.CAS 412: How Much Pension Cost, and Which Year18 min
4.CAS 413: Spread the Pension to Segments, and Settle Up When One Closes20 min
5.CAS 415: Deferred Pay Is Costed When You Promise It16 min
8

Module 8: Unallowables and the Standalone Standards

Unallowable cost in practice plus the two standards that fit no family: standard costs and insurance (405 applied, 407, 416)

5 lessons
1.Unallowables and the Standalone Standards12 min
2.Unallowable Cost in Practice: The Trap and the Penalty20 min
3.CAS 407: Standard Costs, Used Consistently, Variances Disposed Of16 min
4.CAS 416: Insurance Cost, and Why Contingencies Are Not a Cost Yet16 min
5.The Unallowables Workflow: Screen, Segregate, Document, Defend14 min
9

Module 9: The Disclosure Statement

Form CASB-DS-1: the binding written description of your practices, and the number one finding in the field

5 lessons
1.The Disclosure Statement: Your Practices, in Writing14 min
2.The Eight Parts of the DS-118 min
3.Adequacy and Compliance: Two Separate Reviews18 min
4.The Number-One Finding: Disclosed Versus Actual20 min
5.Keeping the Disclosure Statement Alive14 min
10

Module 10: The Indirect Rate Machine

How indirect cost reaches a bill: pools, rates, forward pricing, provisional billing, the incurred cost submission, and accounting-system adequacy

5 lessons
1.How Indirect Cost Reaches a Bill14 min
2.Pools, Bases, and the Rate18 min
3.From Estimate to Settled: The Life of a Rate18 min
4.The Incurred Cost Submission: Settling Up After Year End18 min
5.The System Underneath: Accounting System Adequacy16 min
11

Module 11: Living with CAS

The machinery after the standards: practice-change categories, cost impact (GDM and DCI), the 52.230-6 clocks, offsets, and materiality

5 lessons
1.Living with CAS: Change, Impact, Adjust14 min
2.Four Kinds of Change, Four Different Outcomes18 min
3.Measuring the Damage: GDM and DCI18 min
4.The Clocks and the Clauses20 min
5.Materiality and the Living-with-CAS Routine16 min
12

Module 12: What's Changing Now

The 2025-2026 GAAP-conformance wave, the 2026 NDAA threshold restructuring, the durable core that survives every rule change, and a capstone audit-day walk through all twelve modules

5 lessons
1.What's Changing Now14 min
2.The GAAP-Conformance Wave18 min
3.The Threshold Changes18 min
4.What Does Not Change16 min
5.Capstone: Audit Day22 min

Who Is This Course For?

Controllers and CFOs at defense contractors crossing the CAS thresholds
DCAA-compliance leads who own the Disclosure Statement and incurred cost submission
Govt contract accounting managers defending allocations and indirect rates
Finance teams preparing for the 2026 CAS threshold and GAAP-conformance changes
Audit-Ready
In Weeks
Lifetime
Workbench Access
30+
Years Experience
30+
Years Experience
60-80%
Less Than Classroom
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