Recoverable costs include court fees, deposition transcripts, expert fees, travel, and vendor charges. Guidelines commonly disallow overhead items such as clerical time, local phone, routine copying, and administrative charges.
Markups on vendor charges are typically prohibited.
Alternative Names:
Expense Recovery, Disbursement Recovery
Why it Matters?
Guideline restrictions on cost recovery are stricter than firms often assume, and items long treated as billable disbursements are now routinely disallowed as overhead. Vendor markups in particular are prohibited across most guideline sets and can generate serious disputes when discovered in an audit. Reviewing the specific disallowed items list before submitting expenses is faster than disputing rejections afterward.
Frequently Confused with
Related terms
Frequently asked questions
What costs are commonly disallowed?
Why are vendor markups a serious issue?
