Administrative documents are written for readers who were not present, and DA Form 5605-5-R is no exception. Titled LIFE CYCLE COST ANALYSIS - PRESENT WORTH: ONE-STEP APPROACH (LRA), it is used to life cycle cost analysis - present worth: one-step approach (lra) — a transaction that means little in conversation and a great deal in a file. The published edition here carries the date 12/01/1986 and the status ACTIVE. Its 1 page(s) and roughly 200 fields are sized to what the record must prove years later, which is always more than the moment appears to need.
Two offices stand behind the form, and the distinction between them explains most of what follows. USACE is the proponent: it decides what the form asks and revises it when the underlying process changes. TM 5-802-1 is the prescribing authority: it decides when the form is raised at all and where the completed document travels. Content and occasion are separated deliberately, so that a change in procedure does not require redesigning the page.
Identification precedes substance for a structural reason. Name, identification number, organisation and date of preparation are how the finished document is located in a file or a database; the body of the form is what someone reads after the search has succeeded. Spell the name as official records spell it, since the search runs against those records and not against habit.
Much of the form's behaviour follows from its being a fixed page. Tab order was set at build time along the reading sequence, which is why tabbing catches boxes a pointer passes over. Exclusive groups release one choice when another is made because a record cannot carry two answers to a single question. Single-line fields refuse to wrap because every entry must print where the layout expects it — text beyond the width is lost at the margin, visible on screen to the end. That is what remarks areas and continuation sheets are for. Marking a field that does not apply matters for a related reason: emptiness is ambiguous, and a reviewer reading the file later cannot distinguish an omission from a decision.
Signing is the act that makes the document evidence, and until it happens the entries are only a proposal. Additional signatures — reviewer, approver, witness — each stand for a separate judgement, dated when applied so the record shows who accepted what and in what order. The common faults all damage that record in the same way: a blank mandatory field breaks the chain of required answers, swapped digits in an identification number detach the document from its subject, an inverted day and month misplaces it in time, and stale data from a reused copy states things nobody meant to state.
The Privacy Act statement is on the page because collecting personal information requires the collector to disclose the terms first — the authority relied on, the purpose, the routine uses, and whether an answer is required or may be withheld. That order is the point: the statement is read before the entries it governs, since consent given afterwards is not consent. Once completed, the copy is a personal record and carries the handling obligations that attach to one.
Download the form
Formats exist because completion happens under different conditions, not because anyone wanted variety. The published set is PDF, XFDL. A fillable pdf carries live entry objects, so typed text lands in fixed positions and stays legible whoever reads it later. A printable pdf drops those objects and leaves the page as an image, which is what an office needs where a screen is unavailable and a pen is not. The document itself is unchanged between them; what differs is the circumstance each anticipates.
Software determines whether an entry lasts. A browser viewer is designed for reading, and several will take typed input into fields without any means of writing it back — the text is simply absent when you reopen. A standalone reader handles the form structure properly. The xfdl file is IBM Lotus Forms, carried in Army systems for the routing and signature support it provides, which is why the Lotus Forms Viewer is its only reader.
Downloads are free and unregistered. The material was published for general use, and the files are passed on unaltered.
What the form asks for
- ABD
- AED
- ALT_NO
- ANN_COST
- ANN_COST_1
- ANN_COST_10
- ANN_COST_11
- ANN_COST_12
- ANN_COST_13
- ANN_COST_2
- ANN_COST_3
- ANN_COST_4
- ANN_COST_5
- ANN_COST_6
- ANN_COST_7
- ANN_COST_8
- ANN_COST_9
- ANN_CST
- ANN_CST_1
- ANN_CST_10
- ANN_CST_11
- ANN_CST_12
- ANN_CST_13
- ANN_CST_2
Disposition is prescribed, not chosen. TM 5-802-1 names the destination, whether that is a specific office, the unit administrative channel or the personal record, and the applicable records schedule governs how long it survives there. Both rules exist to keep the file consistent across offices with different habits. Take your copy before the document leaves, since it will not come back.
Forms cluster by series and number for the same reason files do: shared proponency and a shared prescribing directive usually mean a shared process. So a document in the DA series referenced on the face of another is generally part of the same transaction, and continuation sheets, cover sheets and transmittals belong to the package from the outset rather than arriving after a query.
An edition marks the form at a point in a process that keeps moving, and the date printed on the page is what distinguishes one from another. Since a saved file never announces its own obsolescence, compare its date against the current edition before using it again. Prior executions remain valid: the change applies forward, and a record is read against the edition it was written under.
It is worth being plain about what this page is within all of the above. The files are reproductions of published Department of the Army documents, offered for download by a site with no official standing and no part in issuing anything. That matters because the machinery described here — proponency, prescribing directives, records schedules — runs entirely elsewhere. Nothing written here is legal advice, and no statement can be made about whether an office will accept a given document. USACE and the administrative office servicing your unit answer questions of entry, requirement and eligibility, and they are the ones positioned to.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 5605-5-R?
- LIFE CYCLE COST ANALYSIS - PRESENT WORTH: ONE-STEP APPROACH (LRA)
- Which edition is current?
- 12/01/1986
- Who is responsible for this form?
- USACE
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL, PDF
Publisher notes
- 41-ITEM ALSO PRODUCED IN ELECTRONIC MEDIA