General and Administrative

Definition

G&A (General and Administrative) is an indirect cost pool for company-wide expenses: executive management, accounting, HR, legal, marketing. Applied to total cost input. Typically the last pool applied before fee.

Where this matters in federal contracting

General and Administrative is a measurement used in federal contract evaluation, source selection, oversight, or performance management. Understanding General and Administrative matters because evaluators use metrics like it to compare proposals quantitatively, score past performance, set award-fee outcomes, and decide who gets the next option year. Contractors who track how General and Administrative is calculated — and what target values look like in their NAICS or service area — write proposals that are concrete and defensible instead of generic and easily dismissed. General and Administrative also has implications for contract administration: getting the calculation methodology wrong post-award is a common source of disputes and contracting-officer modifications. Pair General and Administrative with the related metrics above to see how the federal government composes evaluation criteria into source-selection narratives.

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