In essence, a GSA schedule is a pre-approved price list for use by any federal buyer.

Pre-approved (pre-negotiated) pricing is the key. In making a buy, GSA schedules allow:

• Unprecedented speed and minimal paperwork.

• Limited competition (this is what makes it fast).

• Avoidance of a public bid (averaging 270 days and at least one large tree's worth of paper work).

These benefits are all outlined within the rules and buying is about following the rules. Price and competition is important in federal purchasing but so is purchasing speed, efficiency, and product/service value.

GSA buys are transacted silently without much scrutiny by non-participating vendors. This cuts down on costly and time consuming vendor protests and makes buying easier and more pleasurable from the buyer's viewpoint. That is if buying could be considered pleasurable in any way.

Buyers can stay out of trouble, reduce their workload, and make federal end users happy. What more could a buyer want? You guessed it; a similar mechanism for their own agency to collect an industrial funding fee. (Vendors pay GSA 0.75% of GSA schedule sales for administering the schedule program.)