Guidance

Reporting guidance and DefCARS

The Defence Contract Analysis and Reporting System (DefCARS) allows contractors to meet the reporting requirements for contract and supplier reports.

From:
Single Source Regulations Office
Published
15 March 2017
Last updated
10 October 2024 — See all updates

See guidance provided by the SSRO. See our guidance on inflation and our note on applying SSRO guidance to costs affected by COVID-19

Current system status: Live

The statutory requirements for contract and supplier reporting was introduced by the Defence Reform Act 2014 (the Act) and defined in the Single Source Contract Regulations 2014 (the Regulations). The Defence Contract Analysis and Reporting System (DefCARS, the system) is an online, web-enabled system which facilitates submission of statutory reports to the SSRO and MOD. When preparing reports, contractors must have regard to guidance issued by the SSRO.

Updates to the guidance applicable from 10 October 2024

The SSRO has updated its three guidance documents in support of the amendments made on 1 April 2024 to reporting requirements set out in the Single Source Contract Regulations and following consultation with stakeholders. The guidance documents can be accessed at the links below:

The changes made to the three documents are explained in Appendix 1 of our consultation response document.

Notification templates for Qualifying Sub Contract (QSC) assessments

The guidance on aggregation principles included in the contract report guidance references notification templates which contractors can use once a QSC assessment has been undertaken. These templates are available on the SSRO Support page of the SSRO website.

Guidance on validation warnings in the system

DefCARS includes validation checks to help contractors comply with the reporting requirements and reduce the amount of data entry required by eliminating duplication. The SSRO has published a list of all the validation checks which are currently applied within the system and these were last updated on 10 October 2024 DefCARS validation checks – published October 2024 (PDF, 401 KB, 9 pages).

Qualifying Business Unit (QBU) templates

Copy and paste functionality is currently available in many parts of DefCARS. To allow contractors with QBUs to understand their reporting requirements and prepare their QBU Cost Analysis Reports (QBUCAR), a copy and paste template is provided: QBUCAR template (76.5 KB).

The Defined Pricing Structure (DPS)

Contractors or MOD staff who do not currently have access to DefCARS but wish to understand the DPS cost breakdowns, may access the DPS templates that preceded DefCARS. These previous templates are substantially the same as the current versions within DefCARS.

Analysis of DefCARS information

Under Section 36(3) of the Defence Reform Act, the SSRO must when requested to do so by the Secretary of State for Defence analyse reports provided to it under Section 24 or 25 and provide the results of the analysis to the Secretary of State or an authorised person. The SSRO has published details of example management information products which it supplies to the MOD: Example DefCARS MI products published on 10 October 2024 (PDF, 1.52 MB, 13 pages).

Contractors may also require access to previous reporting templates and user guides.

If you have any questions about how to access DefCARS or the guidance please contact the SSRO at helpdesk@ssro.gov.uk.

Updates to this page

Published 15 March 2017
Last updated 10 October 2024 + show all updates

  1. Version 13 of contractor and functionality and Version 11 of supplier guidance published.

  2. Updated reporting guidance following the MOD’s changes to the legislation

  3. Example MI products supplied to the MOD document updated

  4. Version 11.2 of contract and DefCARS functionality and version 9.1 supplier reporting guidance published

  5. Para 2.31 of functionality guidance updated

  6. Version 11.1 of the contract guidance published along with examples of how the amendments spreadsheet can be completed

  7. Version 11 of contract and DefCARS functionality and version 9 of supplier guidance published

  8. Version 10.1 contract and functionality guidance docs published

  9. Version 10 of DefCARS functionality guidance published

  10. V10 of contract reporting guidance published

  11. Published version 9.1 of contract reports and DefCARS functionality guidance and version 8.1 of supplier reports guidance

  12. Version 9 of reporting guidance published

  13. Added link to COVID-19 note

  14. Version 8 of reporting guidance published

  15. Version 7 of reporting guidance published

  16. Version 6 of reporting guidance published

  17. Version 5 of reporting guidance published

  18. Version 4 of reporting guidance published

  19. Version 3 of the guidance published

  20. First published.

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