Wednesday 20 May 2020

IND AS 115: Whether Covid Lockdown expenditures at Project sites are abnormal costs?


Covid lockdown has inflicted a very severe damage on the businesses (may be short time impact for most of the businesses). But in some cases, the hit is like a double edged sword where they have lost the revenue but can’t avoid the expenses. Project sites are one such casualty. Infrastructure projects generally recognize revenues under percentage completion method (Input method) as per the guidelines of IND AS 115. Here the issue is whether the expenditure incurred by any company at a project site during the covid lockdown is abnormal expenditure without having any impact on contract performance and these are not reflected in the contract price. So these covid period costs should be charged off into the profit and loss account directly and should not be considered as part of contract costs and to evaluate the percentage completion of the contract. This view has been stemmed from the following Para from IND AS 115:-


Para 98: An entity shall recognise the following costs as expenses when incurred:
(b) costs of wasted materials, labour or other resources to fulfill the contract that were not reflected in the price of the contract;

First of all, wasted material and labour cover the cases like when we supply some wrong dimension steel to site which is not used at all for the work and so this is wasted material and an abnormal cost as this incurred cost of steel will not impact the work progress neither there is any clause for the reimbursement of the same in the contract. Same is the case for a transmission tower erected at wrong location with material given by customer so the labour is wasted and the entire tower will be required to be erected again. So we can see abnormal costs are those whose incurrence does not have any impact on the future work progress and contract price.

But can we say that the costs incurred for minimum site running expenditures like labour retention costs, crane rent, electricity bill, car hire charges are abnormal and have no bearing on the progress of the work like abnormal costs we have explained above. But this is not the case because if the management had decided to cancel these contracts (clause in the contract?) to save these costs and then re-arrange these resources after the end of lockdown but in that case they would have incurred much higher costs due to demobilization and mobilization costs and labour would have been more difficult to rearrange and that would have impacted the work progress very badly after the lockdown. So we can see that these expenditures are incurred in order to save the contract from over costs and delays which can result into penalties (even after considering lockdown period as force majeure). So this expenditure is not abnormal as non-incurrence of this expenditure will hinder the objectives of the contract (costs and timely completion) and by this way it is different from the two cases we have mentioned above where non-incurrence of wrong steel and labour will not have any impact on future work progress. By incurring these costs, the contractor keeps the project site ready for functioning after the end of the lockdown and so these costs have do have a bearing on future work progress.

Further, in many contracts there is a clause for reimbursement of minimum expenses incurred during force majeure period (over run charges, ORC). This lockdown is a force majeure event (due to an act of Government). Hence we can see that if there is such clause of ORC payment o to contractors during force majeure period then these expenditures incurred during lockdown is taken care by contract revenue in the form of ORC payment and one can say that these are not abnormal. But force majeure events are not abnormal events in the sense that even though they are difficult to foresee but still these can be taken care in the contracts by having adequate clauses in the contracts. It is just like we take project insurance because loss/damage events are impossible to foresee and prevent so these are taken care in the form of insurance and insurance has a cost to the contract. And when insurance is in the scope of the contractor then he builds the same into his bid price. Hence, if insurance is in the scope of contractor then even if there is no explicit price mentioned against insurance cost but it is treated as if insurance cost is built into the contract price. Hence, when there is a damage or theft of a material the same is not considered as abnormal cost because it is insured although in many cases firms do not get any insurance claim from the insurance company for the loss.

Same thing is true for force majeure costs also. Force majeure event can be in the form of flood also. In the areas prone to heavy rains there are always chances of heavy flooding (force majeure). So if there is no ORC clause in the contract for taking care of extra costs due to floods then the contractor will have no choice but to build the same into the price. So it all depends upon the judgment and assessment of the contractor in each case because the events like lock down are once in a century type of events and if contractor decides to build the probable costs in the contract price there is every chance for his bid to be lost. So inclusion or non-inclusion of force majeure costs becomes a commercial or business decision and so this is not an abnormal event. Like if management specifies a clause in the crane rental contract that they can cancel the contract any time then the same will result in higher cost because some people will not bid as they would settle for somewhat lower price for a fixed period contract elsewhere with some other customer. So this firm may either get sub-standard crane or higher price due to less competition. In order to avoid this management may continue without mentioning such a clause in the contract just to save the force majeure period costs because this can become counterproductive. So as we can see not having a contract cancellation clause is a commercial and business decision. The risks of force majeure events are well known but not taking care of the same in the contract does not make them abnormal events instead these are business decisions only.

But buying a large quantity of wrong dimension steel or erecting a transmission tower at wrong location are abnormal events because firms do not bid for contracts (building these mistakes in the price) thinking that they will do these types of mistakes which are in fact the essence and purpose of their business. Hence as we can see there is this fundamental difference between abnormal costs and business decision. So incurring unavoidable costs to keep the project sites ready for functioning after the end of the lockdown is not abnormal costs not having any impact on the future work progress but in fact these costs will ensure the timely completion of the contract along with avoiding heavy mobilization and demobilization costs and penalties due to delay in the contract completion.

Hence expenditures incurred during covid lockdown should be considered as part of total estimated cost to fulfill the contract and be treated as incurred for the purpose of revenue recognition.

Further, due to increase in the cost of labour and material due to lockdown a contract may become onerous. An onerous contract is a contract in which the aggregate cost required to fulfill the contract obligations exceed the economic benefits expected to be received from it. In such cases, the contract shall be accounted for as per IND AS 37 and a provision/liability is to be provided in the books.


( Views are Personal)

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