Monthly reviews a COR actually uses

What a COR does with your monthly report

A contracting officer's representative does not read a monthly report for pleasure. They read it to answer a handful of questions that someone above them will ask: is the work on schedule, is the money holding out, is anything about to go wrong, and does the government owe the contractor a decision. A twelve-page narrative of activities answers none of those quickly. A single page that answers all four, in the same place every month, becomes the document the COR forwards upward with a one-line note. That is the report you want to write.

The monthly review is also the contractor's best protection. It is the dated, written record of what you reported, what you asked for and when. When a deliverable slips because the government did not provide data, the monthly reports are where that history lives. Done well, the review is short, predictable and boring, which is exactly what a program in good health looks like.

The COR's job, and the limit on it

The COR is designated in writing by the contracting officer to monitor technical performance, inspect and accept work where delegated, review invoices and keep the contracting officer informed. The designation letter lists exactly what the COR may do on this contract. Ask to see it, or at least ask the COR what it covers.

What a COR may not do is change the contract. The Federal Acquisition Regulation states that a COR has no authority to make any commitments or changes that affect price, quality, quantity, delivery, or other terms and conditions of the contract. Only the contracting officer can do that, in writing, through a modification. A COR can give technical direction within the existing scope, clarify a requirement or accept a deliverable where the designation allows it, but a new task, a changed deliverable, extra hours or a moved due date comes from the contracting officer.

This matters in the monthly review because that meeting is where informal changes happen. A COR says "while you are in there, could you also look at the 2019 data," and the team says yes. Three weeks of unplanned work later, nobody has authorized it and nobody will pay for it. The fix is a habit: when a request in the review sounds like new work, write it down as a decision needed and route it to the contracting officer. That protects the COR as much as the contractor.

The one-page format

Use the same page every month, in the same order, with the same headings. Consistency is the feature. A COR who knows that risks are always in the fourth block finds them in seconds and notices immediately when a block that is usually empty has something in it.

Block	What it contains	Example line (illustrative)
1. Deliverables	Each contract deliverable: due date, status, percent complete, forecast date	Draft methods memo: due the 30th, in review, forecast on time
2. Hours and funds	By line item: hours or dollars used to date, ceiling, funded amount, projected at completion	Labor line 0002: 61 percent of ceiling used, 55 percent of period elapsed
3. Risks	Each open risk: what could happen, the date it would bite, owner, what is being done	Survey vendor may miss field start; decision needed by the 14th
4. Decisions needed	What the contractor needs from the government, from whom, and by when	Contracting officer: approve travel for site visits by the 10th
5. Field work ahead	Site visits, data collection, interviews and travel in the next sixty days	Two site visits planned in weeks 3 and 4, pending approval above
6. Invoices	Each invoice: period, amount, date submitted, status, date paid	Last month's invoice submitted, accepted, payment pending

Everything else, the narrative of what each analyst did, belongs in an attachment if the contract requires it. The page itself is the summary a busy reader takes away.

Progress against each deliverable

List every deliverable in the contract, not just the ones in progress. A deliverable due in five months that nobody has started is information, and seeing it on the page every month keeps it from becoming a surprise.

Report a forecast date alongside the due date. Percent complete is useful but easy to inflate, and the forecast is the number the COR actually needs. When the forecast moves past the due date, say so the first month it happens, give the reason, and say what decision or resource would bring it back. A forecast that stays on the due date until the week before and then jumps is the single most damaging pattern in contractor reporting.

Where a deliverable depends on the government, name the dependency. "Final report forecast depends on agency comments on the draft by the 20th" turns a vague risk into a date the COR can chase internally.

Hours and funds against the ceiling

On labor-hour and time-and-materials line items, the contract sets a ceiling, and the government is generally not obligated to pay beyond it unless the contracting officer raises it in writing. Many contracts are also funded in increments, so the amount actually available can be lower than the ceiling. The COR needs to see both, line by line, every month.

Report three numbers per line: what has been used, the ceiling and funded amount, and the projection at completion based on the current burn rate. Put the share of the period of performance that has elapsed next to the share of ceiling used. That pair of numbers tells the story at a glance. Sixty percent of the hours gone at forty percent of the period is a conversation to have now, while there are options, rather than in the last quarter when the only option is stopping work.

Read the payment and limitation clauses of the contract for the notice requirements. Many require written notice to the contracting officer before the ceiling or the funded amount is reached, and the trigger point is in the clause. The monthly review is where you see the trigger coming. The written notice itself goes to the contracting officer.

Risks with dates

A risk without a date is a worry. A risk with a date is something the COR can act on. Write each one as what could happen, when it would start to cost the program, who owns it, and what is being done about it.

Keep the list short and real. Five risks that might each move a deliverable are useful. Twenty generic risks copied from a template ("staff turnover," "data quality") train the reader to skip the block. When a risk closes, move it off the page and note it once in the minutes. When a risk becomes an issue, say so in the deliverables block too.

Decisions needed from the government

This block is the most valuable on the page and the one contractors most often leave out, because asking the government for something feels like complaining. It is not. It is how the government learns what it must do for the work to stay on schedule.

Address each decision to the person who can make it: the COR for technical clarifications within scope, the contracting officer for anything touching scope, schedule, price or terms, a data steward for access, a program manager for priorities. Give the date the decision is needed and what happens if it does not come. Then carry each item forward month to month until it closes, with the date it was first raised. A decision first requested three months ago and still open is a fact the COR will want to escalate, and the page makes that easy.

Field work and invoice status

List field work in the next sixty days: site visits, interviews, data collection windows, conferences. Field work often needs government action, such as travel approval, facility access, a letter of introduction or a data agreement, and the lead time for those is longer than people expect. Seeing the next two months on the page gives the COR time to start them.

The invoice block is short. Each recent invoice, its period, its amount, when it was submitted, whether it has been accepted and whether it has been paid. CORs review invoices, and a rejected or stalled invoice is far easier to fix when it appears on the page the month it happens.

The twenty-minute meeting

The meeting walks the page. Send it two business days before, so the COR reads it before the call and the call is spent on the items that need talk. Twenty minutes is enough when the page is good. When the meeting runs long every month, the page is not doing its job.

Send minutes the same day: attendees, decisions made, action items with owners and dates, and any request that was routed to the contracting officer. Ask the COR to reply with corrections. A reply, even "looks right," turns the minutes into a shared record.

Raising problems early

Every program has bad news at some point. A data provider is late, an analyst leaves, a method does not work on the real data. The only question is when the government hears about it. Bad news that arrives in the month it happens is a management problem. The same news arriving three months later is a trust problem.

Raise it on the page the first month you see it, with three things: what happened, what it does to the schedule or cost, and what you propose. Then, if the fix needs a change to the contract, say plainly that it needs the contracting officer, and send the request in writing. A COR who hears about a problem early can usually help. A COR who learns about it from someone else stops trusting the page.

Avoid softening. "Slight delays in data acquisition" in a report that later turns into a two-month slip makes every earlier report look misleading. "Data from the state arrived three weeks late; the analysis deliverable forecast moves from the 15th to the 6th of the following month unless we add an analyst, which needs contracting officer approval" is a sentence the COR can act on.

What belongs in the file

The COR keeps a file for the contract, and the contractor should keep a matching one. Monthly reviews are among the most important records in both. Each month, file these together.

• The one-page status as sent, with the date it went out.
• Any required narrative report or attachment the contract specifies.
• Minutes with attendees, decisions, action items and the COR's confirmation.
• Every request routed to the contracting officer, and the written response when it comes.
• Written notices required by the contract, such as approaching a ceiling or funding limit.
• Deliverable submissions and acceptances logged in the month they happened.
• Invoices submitted, and their acceptance and payment dates.

A file built this way answers almost any later question in minutes: when the government learned of a slip, when a decision was requested, when it was made and by whom. It is also the record an evaluator or reference contact will remember when the next contract is competed.

Where monthly reviews go wrong

• Reporting activity instead of progress. "Held six meetings" tells the COR nothing about whether the deliverable is on time.
• Burying the funds picture. A ceiling problem discovered in the final quarter has no good options left.
• Agreeing to new work in the meeting. Route it to the contracting officer and wait for direction in writing.
• Changing the format every month. The reader loses the ability to see what moved.
• Leaving the decisions block empty. If the work depends on anything from the government, it belongs there.
• Skipping the minutes. An undocumented decision is a decision someone will remember differently.

Frequently asked questions