GSA Schedules

• Public Postings of GSA Schedule Purchases
  A new federal regulation requires that notices of GSA Schedule purchases be posted publicly at FedBizOpps. This will allow all to see what's be transacted through GSA Schedules.  It will give companies not holding Schedule contracts the chance to... read more
• Get Your GSA Schedule Contract for the Buying Season
  The federal government's fiscal year ends on September 30th. Although there are no guarantees, most federal contracting experts believe that the federal 4th quarter spending spree is going to take place later this year. Savvy... read more
• GSA Schedule Characteristics
  A GSA Schedule is an IDIQ that is ALWAYS open for bid.  GSA schedules are the grandfather of all IDIQs. All schedule contracts share the following four characteristics: They are open to small businesses. A services company can be virtually... read more
• GSA: The Home of the Oldest IDIQ
  About $40 billion, or 7 plus percent, of last year’s $535 billion in total federal procurement spending was awarded through GSA schedules. The General Services Administration is the central administrative agency of the federal government. GSA is the... read more
• Do Not Open Yourself Up to Whistle Blowers
  A whistle-blower exposure caused the federal government to claw back $200 million dollars from the Oracle Corporation for GSA schedule Price Reduction Clause violations. In many GSA schedule contractors, the sales organization may not want to know about... read more
• GSA Schedule Compliance, We have simplified the process
  Like learning to ride a bicycle, analyzing a federal contract to identify its compliance requirements is easy if you have done it before. Meeting the compliance requirements after they have been identified is easy if you: List the compliance... read more
• More Small Business Opportunities Under GSA Schedule Contracts
  Effective November 2, 2011, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) was amended to allow federal buyers who want to purchase through GSA Schedule contracts to set aside opportunities for small businesses. This new interim rule may... read more
• GSA Schedule Price Increases
  GSA Contract Modification: Simplify and accelerate GSA schedule contract modification preparation with Fedmarket's new GSA eModification. When asked about GSA schedule price increase, many of Fedmarket's customers say: "You mean we can increases... read more
• Are Your GSA Schedule Prices Up to Date?
  GSA Schedule prices can be increased according to the terms of a schedule contract. Seems simple but many GSA contractors do not increase their prices during the entire five years of their contract. Obviously, not requesting price increase can hurt... read more
• GSA Contract Compliance; Do it Right from the Start
  The most important aspects of contract compliance are: Compliance with restrictions on discounting practices (the biggest risk factor financially) Paying the GSA Industrial Funding Fee (IFF) on time Making best efforts to subcontract according to... read more
• PRC Compliance; the Most Misunderstood GSA Schedule Requirement
  Non-compliance with the Price Reduction Clause (PRC) clause (violating disclosed discounting practices) can result is return of money to GSA and the dollar amount can pile up if the non-compliance is caught late in the contract period. PRC problems have... read more
• The Sensitivity of GSA Schedule Contract Modifications
  GSA Schedule contract modification requests are comprised of a series of specific documents required by GSA to change a GSA Schedule contract, e.g., product or service updates, price changes, and name change. The content and format of modification... read more
• GSA Schedule Changes May Significantly Increase Small Business Contracting
  The federal government has not met its stated goal to send 23% of all federal contracting dollars to small businesses. The shortfall represents around $5 - $6 billion annually. Recently-enacted legislation requires the Small Business... read more
• Negotiating Your GSA Schedule Prices
  The General Services Administration Acquisition Manual (GSAM) that governs the evaluation of a GSA Schedule proposal contains the rules that govern the evaluation of a GSA Schedule proposal. See: 538.270 Evaluation of multiple award schedule... read more
• Feeling Restricted by the Number of Labor Categories That GSA will Award?
  Small companies are often handcuffed by GSA's requirement that a labor category cannot be offered to GSA until such time as it has been sold and you have an invoice to document the sale. And how does a small business acquire the required sales history... read more
• GSA Schedules: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
  GSA Schedule contracting has always been plagued by the impracticality of the "most favored customer pricing" concept and the restrictiveness of the Price Reduction Clause. Yet both haven't kept nearly 20,000 contractors from pursuing the award of a... read more
• GSA Schedule Compliance: Small Biz and the GSA
  Why not encourage and support small business participation in GSA Schedule contracting by loosening the experience and number-of-years-in-business requirements somewhat? Why not have 100,000 GSA Schedule holders rather than fewer than 20,000? Why... read more
• GSA Schedule Compliance: Eliminate Industrial Funding Fee
  One answer to this dilemma is to eliminate the Industrial Funding Fee as the funding method for the GSA Schedule Program. Dramatic, yes. But money could be funneled from the notoriously ineffective Small Business Administration to fund the GSA... read more
• GSA Hourly Rate Dilemma
  Most companies offer services to GSA on an hourly-rate basis. And then federal customers demand fixed-price bids based on your awarded hourly GSA rates. Most experienced federal contractors know that the hourly rate really doesn't matter that... read more
• Defining Discounting: Are There Any Answers Out There?
  For many, the idea of writing a proposal for a GSA Schedule contract ranks just short of "I'd rather stick my hand in a fire. Both hands. Up to the elbows." The same is true of proposals to extend GSA contracts for 5 more years. Why are GSA... read more
• Think Big and Team up with Other GSA Schedule Holders
  GSA encourages teaming arrangements among schedule holders to satisfy complex agency needs. Federal buyers often seek "complete solutions" through a single purchase, rather than multiple buys. Because most companies can't do everything, they... read more
• Defining Prices for a GSA Schedule Offer
  The single biggest problem in making an offer for a General Service Administration (GSA) schedule contract is defining prices. GSA's expectation is that companies have a standard price list, whether it's published, or a strictly internal... read more
• Disclosing Discounting Practices
  The biggest stumbling block for many companies in making a General Service Administration (GSA) schedule offer is GSA's requirement to disclose your "Commercial Sales Practices." Companies new to the federal market often respond, "Do what?"... read more
• Countering the "World's Biggest Customer" Argument
  The problem most companies face when trying to argue that GSA's prices should be higher than your Most Favored Customer is that GSA will almost always say: "We are the world's biggest customer, and we should have better than your best price even... read more
• GSA's Maximum Order Threshold
  A Maximum Order Threshold (MOT) is specified in the GSA Request for a Proposal (RFP). The amount of the MOT is negotiable, and its significance is often missed. The key is that the Price Reduction Clause does not apply to orders exceeding the MOT.... read more
• Participating Dealer Agreements
  GSA Schedules can accommodate products sold by resellers. Your business might elect to use resellers for a number of reasons: your product is a component of a larger system or larger product, your commercial sales are made through resellers, or... read more
• Riding Someone's Schedule
  To satisfy complex agency needs with a minimum of effort, federal buyers often seek "complete solutions" through a single purchase, rather than multiple buys. Because most companies can't do everything, they have to team up with other companies... read more
• Forming a Team
  So, when should you form a team? Form a team when procurements call for solutions that you can't meet all by yourself. A warehousing contract, for example, might require bar code equipment, software programming, logistics consulting, and a labor... read more
• Audit Fear is Gripping GSA
  Life for GSA schedule offerors and contract holders is becoming more difficult. Audit fear appears to be gripping the agency and this is reflected in: Long evaluation times and more proposal rejections Calls for unheard of levels of details in... read more
• Blanket Purchase Agreements
  Federal agencies can establish Blanket Purchasing Agreements (BPAs) under any GSA Schedule contract. A GSA Schedule BPA makes filling recurring needs for supplies or services simple, while leveraging a customer's buying power by taking advantage... read more
• Negotiating Profitable General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule Prices
  GSA schedule contracts are becoming even more popular because of federal contracting offices need to contract quickly with stimulus funds. Making a profit is the Holy Grail of most businesses. Negotiating pricing with GSA can be a remarkably trying... read more
• Protect Yourself from the Grim GSA Auditor
  GSA schedule contract compliance is not that hard but it takes careful day-to-day control of discounts and sales force transactions. Many GSA schedule holders find controlling discounting practices to be difficult in the daily fray of trying to... read more
• Make Accurate Discounting Disclosures
  Implementing an internal GSA management system within your company is the only foolproof way to protect against adverse audit consequences. An effective management system is not difficult to establish. Simply follow basic management principles-... read more
• The GSA Schedule Ties That Bind
  A GSA proposal is a monstrous document full of red tape. And yet when you cut through all the legwork-the information gathering, writing, exhibit preparation, document formatting, the seemingly endless questions that have to be answered... it all... read more
• Negotiating as a Market-Based Discounter
  Companies that discount based on market conditions-i.e. indiscriminate discounting-face a difficult path when negotiating with GSA. The GSA pricing policies are based on the principle of set price and discounting practices. The exact opposite... read more
• GSA Puts the Pressure on Compliance
  Our experience in working with GSA schedule customers indicates that GSA is focusing more efforts on contract compliance. Our speculation is that the Obama administration has accepted GSA schedules as competitive procurement mechanisms with... read more
• Letters of Supply and Commercial Sales Practice
  For a variety of reasons, product vendors may choose to become suppliers to another company that holds a GSA Schedule contract. In such cases, GSA requires that the GSA Schedule holder-who in this instance would be a reseller-obtain a Letter of... read more
• Structuring Teaming Deals
  It is not within the purview of GSA to approve team arrangements; any contract arrangements are between the team members. The only real restriction is that the team agreement cannot conflict with the underlying terms and conditions of the GSA... read more
• New Developments at GSA
  You may have noticed several developments at the General Service Administration (GSA). Offer and modification evaluation times are increasing. Solicitation refresh frequency is increasing. Electronic offers and modification requests are gradually... read more
• Install a GSA Schedule Compliance System
  GSA schedule contract compliance for most companies can be accomplished with a set of policies and procedures accompanied by sales staff training. In some cases an online database may be required for sales people to know what prices can be offered... read more
• Procrastination: Putting Off Preparing a GSA Schedule Offer
  Imagine this scenario. Your CEO has assigned a person in your organization to prepare your GSA Schedule proposal and upper management expects the same person to administer the resulting contract. The designated point person has business development... read more
• GSA Schedule Price Reduction Clause
  The GSA Schedule Price Reduction Clause (PRC) makes almost everyone scratch their head. A simplified example may help to clear up some of the confusion. A company sells a single product with a list price of $100. The company discounts according... read more
• Selling to the Feds
  Federal end-users, such as human resource program managers, engineers, or facility managers, make most purchasing decisions. As the term implies, the end-user is the person who will actually use the service. Services and complex products and... read more
• GSA: The Rules Governing GSA Schedules
  The rules governing GSA Schedules are set out in Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 8.4. Hopefully, this newsletter will keep you from having to read Subpart 8.4. The key points of the GSA Schedule regulations from a sales perspective... read more
• Full and Open Competition
  Public bids under the federal government's "full and open competition rules" are horrendously inefficient. End-users and official buyers do not like to use public bids. Once a program administrator has identified a need, or reached a decision to... read more
• GSA Moves to Electronic Submission
  Traditionally most GSA schedule proposals (offers) have been submitted in paper form. Gradually GSA has been moving toward electronic submission, and this movement has accelerated during the last few months. The following table shows that many GSA... read more
• What Drives Companies to Pursue GSA Schedules Part III
  When companies ask us if we think they need a Schedule, we ask the following questions: Are you currently doing business with the feds? Has your contracting officer asked whether you have a GSA Schedule, or suggested that it would be a lot easier... read more
• What Drives Companies to Pursue GSA Schedules Part II
  It's not just size of market that drives a company to pursue a GSA Schedule. Companies attending the Fedmarket GSA eLabPlus tell us that they decided to pursue a Schedule contract for the following reasons: The company currently does business with... read more
• GSA Schedule Price Reduction Clause (PRC) Compliance
  Our previous newsletter discussed the importance of identifying price reduction clause compliance early before the potential money claw back risk piles up. Obviously, preventing violations by maintaining the capability to monitor discounting... read more
• Contract Management and Pricing Compliance
  In plain English, the GSA Schedule Price Reduction Clause says: GSA negotiated a Basis of Award customer(s) with you. You specified in your proposal and during negotiations the discounts you give to your Basis of Award customer(s). GSA used these... read more