Mitchell R. Plank, CPA
Mr. Plank is an Associate Director with the Government Contractor Services practice of Navigant Consulting, Inc. (NCI), resident in the firm’s Vienna, Virginia office. Prior to joining NCI, he worked as an auditor with a major international public accounting firm as well as an internal auditor for local government. Mr. Plank’s clients have included government and commercial contractors in a wide range of industries, including information technology, shipbuilding, healthcare, professional services, and engineering
Professional Experience
Mr. Plank has experience in several fields, including government contracts, audit, and fraud investigation. In the government contracts field, he has reviewed, analyzed, and constructed multiple incurred cost and forward pricing rate proposals, consulted with clients regarding cost accounting matters, including compliance with Cost Accounting Standards and Federal Acquisition Regulation cost principles, and performed an operational assessment and redesign of a government contractor’s business service functions. He has audited financial statements, performed various operational and cost assessments, and assessed the adequacy of internal controls in accordance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. In the field of fraud investigations, Mr. Plank has assisted in performing forensic accounting investigations on matters requiring discovery of financial data.
Mr. Plank has assisted a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing firm in multiple facets of their Public Services practice. He has reviewed, revised, and created multiple incurred cost proposals and multiple forward pricing rate proposals across several segments. He has also managed multiple staff and client resources in performing the booked to billed reconciliation process for numerous cost type contracts in coordination with the incurred cost proposal. He has assisted with retroactive and prospective cost impacts. He has assisted with various DCAA compliance and audit requests. In addition, he has consulted regarding cost accounting matters, including compliance with Cost Accounting Standards and Federal Acquisition Regulation cost principles.
Mr. Plank assisted a government contractor in performing an operational assessment and redesign of their various business service functions. In this regard, he helped conduct a detailed review of contracts (government and commercial), billing, procurement, pricing, government accounting, and finance organizations and assess their performance against industry best practices. Building upon the understanding obtained in the assessment, he helped develop a transition plan addressing the gaps identified. Mr. Plank assisted in the various transition plan activities, including mapping out new business processes, updating roles and responsibilities for each functional organization, standing up a new project control organization, and supporting management in staffing the organizations appropriately.
Mr. Plank audited contract revenue and accounts receivable for a large systems integrator in connection with its quarterly and year-end financial statement preparation. He worked with key project and finance personnel to ensure adjustments were properly booked to the general ledger on an individual contract basis to accurately state revenue.
Mr. Plank has audited the financial statements of government contractors and other companies with annual revenues ranging from $10 million to $2 billion, and he has consulted on other complex financial reporting and accounting issues. He has also conducted accounting research to improve his clients’ accounting procedures and to help ensure proper compliance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).
Mr. Plank has analyzed and assessed internal controls of both public and private organizations to ensure procedures are appropriately designed, operating effectively, and in accordance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. He documented critical business processes, evaluated the related controls, indentified control deficiencies, and worked with the client to develop and implement best practice solutions.
Additionally, Mr. Plank has experience performing forensic accounting investigations on matters requiring discovery of financial data. He has performed investigations into allegations of accounting irregularities and financial statement fraud. These efforts involved reviewing complex revenue recognition calculations and assessing the realizability of certain assets. Furthermore, he has assisted clients in investigating and quantifying the impact of fraudulent financial reporting and assessing the related internal control implications as a basis for taking corrective action.
As an internal auditor, Mr. Plank reviewed various county contracts and their related operational processes, and then identified control deficiencies and lost revenue to the county during various operational audits. In addition, he performed yearly budget duties and completed various financial audits involving inventory and cash counts.