A ratification is the official act of approving an unauthorized commitment after the fact, so the government can legally pay for something it already received. This topic covers what an unauthorized commitment actually is (and what it is not), the six criteria that have to be met before one can be ratified, who signs at which dollar level under the current DAF delegation, and how to walk a clean package through the seven-part AF template. If one of these just landed on your desk, read the next section before anything else.
Ratifications get a reputation as a gotcha mechanism. That reputation is earned by COs who treat every weird transaction as a hunt for wrongdoing. Do not be one of those COs. The vast majority of unauthorized commitments are accidents: a customer in a time crunch, a new employee who did not know the rules, a facility manager in an actual emergency. Fraud cases exist and they get handled differently. Everything else is a professional problem to be solved professionally.
FAR 1.602-3 defines an unauthorized commitment (UC) as "an agreement that is not binding solely because the Government representative who made it lacked the authority to enter into that agreement on behalf of the Government." That definition has two pieces, and both have to be present at the same time.
Both elements. If either one is missing, it is not an unauthorized commitment, and the package does not belong in the ratification channel. It might be a policy problem, a training issue, a split requirements question, a procurement integrity matter, or nothing at all. Section 3 walks through a common example of something that looks like a UC in hindsight but is not one.
Here is a common mistake and a clean counter-example. A GPC holder in an office orders toner for the printer in January. The purchase is under their micro-purchase threshold and within their card authority, so the transaction clears normally. In March, they realize they need more toner and buy it again, also under the MPT, also within their authority. The GPC office later looks at the aggregate and decides the holder split requirements to stay under the MPT. The card office writes it up. Somebody suggests it should be treated as a ratification.
It should not. Neither purchase was unauthorized at the moment it was made. The cardholder had authority on day one and authority on day two. The card office can run a split requirements analysis and train or counsel the holder, and if they are right about the split, they can make the holder do the next buy as a priced order through normal channels. None of that turns a legally authorized card purchase into an unauthorized commitment after the fact. Ratification is not a retroactive label for "this transaction looks bad."
A note on what actually happens in practice. Plenty of squadrons shove things through the ratification template that do not belong there. A GPC split-requirements question gets written up as a ratification because the card office wants a paper trail and nobody wants to say "this is not actually a UC, route it differently." Legal sometimes says "just ratify it to be safe" because ratifying a non-UC is cheap and letting a real UC slip through is expensive. Both of those are real, both are common, and both are sloppy. Part of the CO's job on a package that lands on the desk is to read the facts and push back when the label on the folder does not match what is inside. If it is not a UC, say so and route it to the right mechanism. The FAR points nonratifiable matters to 31 U.S.C. 3702 (GAO settlement of accounts) and FAR subpart 50.1 (extraordinary contractual actions under Public Law 85-804) for a reason. Those are the right tools for some of the cases that get mislabeled as ratifications.
Once the two elements are actually present, the fact patterns are usually one of these:
Notice what these have in common. Almost none of them start with a contracting professional. They start with someone on the requirements side making a decision in the moment to get the mission done. That does not excuse the action, but it does frame the conversation. The person who created the UC is usually the person most embarrassed about it.
FAR 1.602-3(c) lists the criteria that have to be met before a ratification can be approved. In plain language, all of these have to be true:
FAR 1.602-3 says ratification authority can be delegated, but cannot go below the level of the chief of the contracting office. That is the federal-wide floor. The RFO version at 1.405 keeps the same floor.
The Air Force delegation in DAFFARS MP5301.601(a)(i) got more restrictive with the move to a threshold-based split. The current delegation is:
| Dollar Value of the UC | Ratifying Official | Further Delegable? |
|---|---|---|
| Below the Simplified Acquisition Threshold | COCO (Chief of the Contracting Office) | No |
| At or above the Simplified Acquisition Threshold | SCO (Senior Contracting Official) | No |
A CO does not ratify their own package. The CO prepares the recommendation, legal concurs, and it routes to the COCO or SCO depending on the dollar value. "Not further delegable" means exactly that: the COCO cannot push a below-SAT ratification down to a squadron CO, and the SCO cannot push an above-SAT one down to a COCO. The signature has to land on the right desk.
The Air Force uses a seven-part template for ratification packages. Every part has to be filled in and signed by the right person before the package is complete. The parts are laid out in sequence because each one builds on the last.
| Part | Who Fills It Out | What Goes In It |
|---|---|---|
| I | Individual who made the UC | First-person statement of facts. What happened, in order. Who called whom. What was said. Why the acquisition rules (FAR, DFARS, AFFARS, mandatory procedures) were not followed. This is the hardest part to get right and the most important. |
| II | Individual's supervisor | What action the supervisor took once the UC was discovered, and what preventive measures are in place so this does not happen again. Counseling, training, process change, whatever is true. |
| III | Receiving activity | Statement that the supplies or services were actually received and accepted. Ties directly to criterion 1 above. |
| IV | Accounting and finance | Funds availability certification. Right color of money, then and now. Ties directly to criterion 6. |
| V | Contracting officer | CO's review and recommendation. Price reasonableness determination, confirmation of receipt, recommendation for or against ratification. Checkboxes and a narrative. Section 8 below walks through this. |
| VI | Legal | Legal sufficiency review and concurrence. Legal is not rubber-stamping; they are checking that the criteria are actually met and the narrative supports the action. |
| VII | Ratification approving authority | The COCO or SCO signs here, citing the AFFARS delegation authority. This is the act of ratification. |
Part V is where contracting does its work. The template lays out a series of determinations the CO has to make, usually in a checkbox format, and then a narrative recommendation. The determinations track the FAR criteria:
The narrative portion of Part V is where the CO explains the recommendation in plain language. What happened, what analysis was done, what the CO is recommending, and why. Keep it factual. Keep it short. The goal is a reviewer who reads Part V and immediately understands the case.
A ratification package fails when one or more of the six criteria cannot be met. Common reasons:
When a package cannot be ratified, the matter does not just disappear. The government may still owe the vendor something under a different theory. FAR 1.602-3(d) points to 31 U.S.C. 3702 (settlement of accounts by GAO) or FAR subpart 50.1 (extraordinary contractual actions under Public Law 85-804) as possible paths. Those are legal-heavy routes that the CO supports but does not drive alone.
A mission-critical data center at Wildhorse AFB houses servers supporting base communications and a tenant flying unit's mission planning system. On Saturday, 6 March 2027, at approximately 0630, the facility's primary HVAC unit failed. Interior temperatures began climbing and the facility manager, TSgt Delia Ramirez (7 CS/SCX), was notified by the duty controller. TSgt Ramirez confirmed the failure in person, attempted to reach the base civil engineer on-call line, and reached a voicemail. Knowing that thermal shutdown of the racks was imminent, she called Arrow Mechanical LLC, a local HVAC vendor that had serviced the building under a previous contract, and asked them to come fix the unit immediately. Arrow dispatched a two-person crew within the hour. The crew replaced a failed compressor and recharged the system. They left the site at 1815 Saturday with the unit running normally.
On Monday, 8 March 2027, TSgt Ramirez walked into the contracting squadron with an invoice from Arrow Mechanical for $18,240. She had no contract, no PR, and no warrant. She told the CO, "I know I did this wrong. I didn't have time to wait." The squadron opened a ratification package that day.
On Saturday, 6 March 2027, at approximately 0630, I was notified by the Bldg 340 duty controller that the primary HVAC unit serving the data center had failed. I responded to the building and confirmed the failure. Interior temperature in the main server room had risen to approximately 82 degrees Fahrenheit and was continuing to rise. I attempted to reach the base civil engineer on-call technician at [number] and reached voicemail. I did not attempt to reach the contracting squadron after-hours line because I did not know one existed.
Knowing that continued thermal rise would force an automated shutdown of the servers and cause a loss of base communications and mission planning systems, I made the decision to call Arrow Mechanical LLC, a vendor who had serviced the same unit on a previous contract. I asked them to dispatch a crew to repair the unit as quickly as possible. Arrow arrived on site at approximately 0745 with two technicians. They diagnosed a failed compressor, sourced a replacement from their local shop, and completed the repair and recharge by 1815 the same day. I signed an informal work ticket on site acknowledging the work was completed.
I did not follow FAR 13.201 simplified acquisition procedures, and I did not obtain authorization from a warranted contracting officer before directing Arrow Mechanical to perform the work. I am not a warranted contracting officer and I hold no contracting authority. I did not follow the after-hours emergency acquisition procedures in the 7 CONS/CC emergency procurement memorandum because I was not aware of them at the time of the event. I have since been briefed on those procedures by the 7 CONS/CC.
TSgt Ramirez notified me of the unauthorized commitment on Monday, 8 March 2027, as soon as the squadron opened. She self-reported and cooperated fully. I counseled her on the correct after-hours escalation path, which is to contact the 7 CONS/CC after-hours duty phone and request an emergency contracting action. I have added the after-hours contact information to the 7 CS/SCX recall roster and the Bldg 340 emergency response binder. I have also requested that the 7 CONS schedule a recurring emergency acquisition brief for all 7 CS facility managers within the next quarter.
The HVAC repair services described in Part I were received and accepted on 6 March 2027. The replaced compressor and associated work were visually inspected by 7 CES/CEOIE (mechanical) on 9 March 2027 and found to be installed correctly and operational. The unit has operated continuously since completion of the repair. Government benefit from performance is confirmed.
Funds in the amount of $18,240.00 were available on 6 March 2027 within the 7 CS FY27 Operation and Maintenance (3400) appropriation, facility maintenance sub-account, and remain available for obligation as of this date. Funds will be cited on PR 7CS-27-R-0041 at ratification.
Recommendation: I recommend ratification of the unauthorized commitment in the amount of $18,240.00. All six criteria in FAR 1.602-3(c) are met. Dollar value is below the Simplified Acquisition Threshold, routing to COCO for signature.
The proposed ratification has been reviewed for legal sufficiency. The record supports that the criteria in FAR 1.602-3(c) are met. The matter does not involve a claim requiring processing under FAR subpart 33.2. Legal concurrence is provided.
Pursuant to the authority vested in me by AFFARS 5301.602-3(b)(2), I hereby ratify the act of TSgt Delia M. Ramirez, 7 CS/SCX, who on or about 6 March 2027 authorized Arrow Mechanical LLC to perform emergency HVAC repair services on the primary cooling unit serving Building 340. The dollar value of the transaction is $18,240.00. Ratification is deemed to be in the best interest of the government and is within the authority and limitations of FAR 1.6 and supplements thereto.
A few things about the Arrow Mechanical package that a reviewer would notice on a first read:
Part I is in first person TSgt Ramirez wrote it herself. She said what she did and why. She admitted she did not know about the after-hours contracting line. That honesty is what Part I is supposed to look like. A Part I written by someone else in passive voice, full of hedging, is a Part I that legal will send back.
Part II has a real fix MSgt Castellanos did not just write "counseled individual." He identified the actual gap (awareness of after-hours procedures), added the contact info to the recall roster and the building binder, and asked for a recurring brief. That is what a supervisor action is for.
Price comparison is documented The CO did not just write "prices appear fair and reasonable." She compared against two historical invoices, a rate card, and a fresh telephone quote. Any reviewer can retrace the analysis.
The government was going to buy it anyway This is the criterion that separates "emergency in good faith" from "unnecessary work someone wanted to pay for." Base communications and mission planning would have been lost without the repair. The analysis in Part V names that specifically.
Routed to the right signature $18,240 is below SAT, so Part VII goes to the COCO. Not the SCO, not the squadron CC, not a delegated alternate. The right desk.
When a real one lands on your desk, you do not start from scratch. The Air Force has an existing ratification template that walks through all seven parts. Download it here, route it to the right people in the right order, and build the package off of that.
Ratification_[Vendor]_[Date]_WORKING.pdf. Do not work out of the downloads folder. You will be handing copies to the individual, their supervisor, finance, legal, and the approving authority, so give yourself a clean source document from the start.