48 CFR § 9904.418-40 - Fundamental requirements.
(a) A business unit shall have a written statement of accounting policies and practices for classifying costs as direct or indirect which shall be consistently applied.
(b) Indirect costs shall be accumulated in indirect cost pools which are homogeneous.
(c) Pooled costs shall be allocated to cost objectives in reasonable proportion to the beneficial or causal relationship of the pooled costs to cost objectives as follows:
(1) If a material amount of the costs included in a cost pool are costs of management or supervision of activities involving direct labor or direct material costs, resource consumption cannot be specifically identified with cost objectives. In that circumstance, a base shall be used which is representative of the activity being managed or supervised.
(2) If the cost pool does not contain a material amount of the costs of management or supervision of activities involving direct labor or direct material costs, resource consumption can be specifically identified with cost objectives. The pooled cost shall be allocated based on the specific identifiability of resource consumption with cost objectives by means of one of the following allocation bases:
(i) A resource consumption measure,
(ii) An output measure, or
(iii) A surrogate that is representative of resources consumed.
(d) To the extent that any cost allocations are required by the provisions of other Cost Accounting Standards, such allocations are not subject to the provisions of this Standard.
(e) This Standard does not cover accounting for the costs of special facilities where such costs are accounted for in separate indirect cost pools.