The PPA and the mandate for seamless electronic processing of payment requests and payments seem to have paid off. In 2000, DoD paid approximately $27 million in in- terest due to late invoices (approxi- mately .0093 percent of total DoD budget request of $718.3 billion). In 2024, it was down to $19 million (ap- proximately 0.0023 percent of the total budget request of $842.0 bil- lion). JONES is an intermittent professor of contract management in the DAU South Region. She has worked in the defense contracting field for 46 years and holds a B.S. from the College of William and Mary. The author can be contacted at jennifer.jones@dau.edu . The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the Department of Defense. Reproduction or reposting of articles from Defense Acquisition magazine should credit the authors and the magazine.
When we do not make payments by the due date, the Act provides that interest is automatically owed. We must pay the company monthly compounded interest at a rate established by the Treasury Department every six months, ...
Department has a calculator for ven- dors’ use to determine how much
fense Logistics Agency in 2004. In 2008, it became mandatory for all of DoD as the only acceptable elec- tronic system for submitting invoices and receiving reports and, with limited exceptions, is mandated in DFARS 232.7002(b)(1). It has since been in- corporated into the Procurement In- tegrated Enterprise Environment, fur- thering consolidation of government information management systems. One of the beauties of WAWF is that it provides all the information needed to implement the PPA in one seamless system. No more rubber stamps or mailing things back and forth. The system captures invoice submission, receipt, acceptance of supplies/services, and payment. All parties have visibility of the entire process. And calculating payment due dates and the necessity for interest payments have become automatic.
interest they are due. DFAS and Wide Area Workflow
While an improvement, this pro- cess was cumbersome in the days of rubber stamps and mailing invoices back and forth. Technology has ad- vanced well beyond the tools of yes- terday. Since the advent of e-mail, in- ternet, electronic funds transfer, etc., government and industry are able to communicate more efficiently and effectively. Congress agreed and in October 2000 passed 10 U.S.C. 4601, which became effective for contracts awarded against solicitations issued after June 30, 2001. It required that invoices be submitted to and pro- cessed within DoD electronically, with limited exceptions per DFARS subpart 232.70. On a related note, in the late 1990s, DoD began the push for paperless contracting. Its goals included reduc- ing errors caused by repetitive data entry and use of multiple systems and reducing the use of paper. Na- tional Defense magazine published an interesting article on the history of this initiative: “Pentagon to Field Paper- less Procurement System in ‘04.” One goal of this initiative was to consolidate and link the numerous systems used by the various Services. One of these systems was Wide Area Workflow (WAWF), initially created by the De-
DAU Resources • Contracting • Defense Contract Management Agency Development (Web Event) • Accelerated Payments to Small Businesses
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