That contrasts VERY strong with most govt contracting which is under allowable cost or cost reimbursement setups where the absolute most important criteria is to bill enough costs to draw contract in the right cost buckets (which can be super annoying if local agencies require super complicated budget mod processes).
In the cost based contracts, the focus really focuses on the accounting for the costs and other compliance related items. Ie, did you send someone to a conference with govt money, how can you prove you didn't use the govt money in this way or that way etc etc. Bam, welcome to personal activity reports with fund codes that no one understands (ie, major universities have an insane number of codes), and all the nightmares that follow including a fair bit of rule pending that even normally ethical folks find themselves being asked to to get through the paperwork.
Seriously, you deliver the product at 50% of cost? You will get a nasty note from the head of your agency saying make sure you draw full contract because agency budget depends on the indirect portion of this award (ie, 30% to overhead) and even the govt agency supervising (who also budgeted based on a cut of full contract) AND other folks for whom leftover money makes life difficult (harder to close contract etc) AND because a lot of govt funding is on the repeat what we did last year model so drawing down everything avoids a cut next year when you may really need it.
You determine it would be cheaper to do x vs y and that required a budget mod? Wait 1-2 months for commission approval if you even bother trying to fight it through (changes < 10% often ignored thankfully).
I don't know how the accounting for SBIRs etc work, but somehow those projects always seemed more results oriented (so a LOT more fun to work on, focus is on getting a solution going).