Being on the GSA Schedule can mean a lot of business for your company and the value of the potential repeat business is extraordinary. However, getting on the Schedule isn’t easy—there is a long application process and complicated solicitations and reviews. But you shouldn’t let that stop you from getting on government contracts! At EZGSA, our GSA Schedule consultants will help you through the entire process from start to finish.

How GSA Schedule Consultants Can Help Your Company

Research & Preparation – Our GSA consultants take their time becoming familiar with your company and the products that you offer. We want to ensure we completely understand your core business so we’re able to create a GSA proposal that fully documents and showcases your company in the best possible manner.

Getting on a GSA Schedule is a long, time-consuming process-there's no single application to fill out and have approved or a simple phone call inquiry. That's why we have created a list of the steps explaining how to get on the GSA Schedule.

Eligibility

The first thing your company needs to do before attempting to obtain a GSA Schedule Contract is to determine if you are eligible. There are a few standards that must be met before you can begin the GSA Schedule proposal process.

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According to the Department of Defense Inspectory General, over 80% of the undefinitized contractual actions (UCAs) entered into over a six-year period did not meet statutory and procedural requirements. Consequently, the Inspector General has concluded that DOD assumed additional cost risk, may have paid excessive profits and may have paid more than fair and reasonable prices.

According to the DCAA/DCMA "rules of engagement" regarding forward pricing rates, forward pricing rate agreements (FPRAs) will be used by DOD contracting officers to set pre-negotiation objectives.  When no FPRA exists, if DCAA forward pricing rate audit recommendations (FPRR) are available, these should be used by the DCMA as a basis for the FPRRs provided to DOD contracting officers.  During negotiations, contracting officers may deviate from FPRAs/FPRRs when there are "solid" reasons for doing so.  For example, a contracting officer may, as a result of more current data, determine the contractor's FPRAs/FPRRs do not accurately reflect the amount of direct labor hours proposed for a current action, thus making the allocation base too low or too high.  However, DOD expects that contracting officers discuss such exceptions with the DCMA CACO or DACO (Ed. note: not DCAA) to document the rationale for their exceptions in their business clearance or negotiation memorandum. 

How to Get Government Contracts

If your business needs GSA Schedule services and is trying to sell to the government, contrary to what you might think, it’s actually quite possible with the right knowledge and tools. While a simple blog post won’t suffice, we can give you a few tips to keep in mind when it comes to selling to the government and getting a GSA Schedule.

Did you know 400 billion dollars worth of contracts go to private sector businesses? You must not only stand out but you have to be able to make a valuable proposition and communicate it to your prospects. Though it may seem obvious, don’t skimp on availability – make your business easy for the government customer to get to. After all, that’s the appeal of GSA Schedules. It simplifies the whole process!

DOD contractors must now display DOD inspector general fraud hotline posters in common work areas within business segments performing work under the contract and at contract work sites.  This DFARS rule takes effect immediately, implements the recommendations of the DOD inspector general by amending the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement to supersede Federal Acquisition Regulation 52.20314(c), which applies generally to federal contractors and exempts them from displaying agency fraud hotline posters if the contractor has implemented a business ethics and conduct awareness program including a reporting mechanism such as a hotline poster.

Click to view the DFARS and PGI 

If the objective of hiring an intern is to reduce cost, the result will be the opposite: unlimited legal and financial exposure for inaccurate disclosures; profit lost due to under-pricing, or deals lost due to over-pricing; time lost growing your business or serving your customers.

The Buy American Act & Government Contracts

Home Depot is facing a lawsuit for violating the Buy American Act (BAA). The suit, brought by whistle-blowers employed at a partner company of Home Depot, alleges that both companies supplied goods to government agencies through their GSA Schedules that were incorrectly identified as being compliant with BAA, but were actually made in China.

Buy American Act & GSA Schedules

When applying for a GSA Schedule, companies are required to certify the source of each product offered. GSA allows only items made in the United States or in Trade Agreement Act (TAA) compliant countries to be offered through the Schedules. The plaintiffs accuse Home Depot of misrepresenting the countries of origin of many of their items.

Federal Cloud Computing Solutions

Yesterday (May 11th), GSA issued a request for quotation (RFQ) for cloud-based email solutions for government and federal agencies. This is the first time the GSA has called for Email as a Service (EaaS) solutions in order to increase productivity and expedite the rate that agencies transition to a cloud-based email system.

GSA Administrator Martha Johnson said the new push to move federal agencies toward cloud solutions would help agencies significantly cut costs and offer a more easily accessible email and collaboration platform to better support missions and mobile workforces.

TAA Nonavailable & Exempt Items

25.104 Nonavailable articles (from https://www.acquisition.gov/far/current/html/Subpart 25_1.htm)

(a) The following articles have been determined to be nonavailable in accordance with 25.103

IceWEB, Inc. a provider of Unified Data Storage and building blocks for cloud storage networks, announced today that it is partnering with TST to offer the Enterprise visualization appliance powered by Google Earth on GSA contract, GS-35F-0084V, Schedule 70, providing government customers the ability to conveniently purchase and deploy the appliance and IceWEB Storage systems.

The IceWEB EVA Appliance, announced separately, offers customers high performance, easy to implement and managed enterprise GIS platform coupled with industry leading data storage that provides integrated SAN/NAS functionality on a single platform.

Last week, GSA released its “2011 First Quarter Sales Report for the IT Schedule 70 Multiple Award Schedule.”

Congress has approved a short-term stopgap measure that will keep the federal government funded until a longer term solution can be agreed upon.  

A GSA Schedule is a contract issued by the General Services Administration (GSA) of the U.S. government.  The contract may be used by any federal agency -- and many other federally supported organizations and entities -- to fulfill any product or service requirement, without limit.  Based upon a vendor’s offer (or proposal) to GSA, the contract specifies the products and/or services, prices, terms and conditions within which the vendor may sell and the agencies may purchase. 

When awarded by GSA, the Schedule each contract is initially unfunded.  Funding occurs from each agency at the time they orders against the contract.  Multiple vendors can each be awarded contracts for identical products and services (each with different prices).  A GSA schedule has a base period of 5 years, and has 3 5-year renewal options, giving each a potential life of 20 years. 

Congress’s five-month continuing resolution will be funding all federal agencies at 2010 levels with no increases for 2011. With expected reductions to travel budgets, one of the hardest hit events will be the General Services Administration’s Expo in San Diego.  More than 6,500 people attended the 2010 GSA Expo and officials at the GSA are expecting a fifty percent decrease in attendance this May.

Vendors on GSA Schedule 03FAC (Facilities Maintenance/Management) and GSA Schedule 871 (Professional Engineering Services) will see their subcontracting plan threshold increase, while all future modifications to their GSA Schedules will have to be submitted electronically.

The Department of Defense’ s Defense Logistics Agency Information Service has begun notifying over 600 Open Market Suppliers on DOD EMALL that their catalogs of products will be removed from the DoD’s online marketplace by October 29, 2010.

Remarks by
Martha N. Johnson
Administrator
U.S. General Services Administration
GovEnergy Conference
Dallas, TX
August 18, 2010

I want to say thank you to the high school dancers this morning. If we could bottle their energy we could probably power Texas for at least a week. They were terrific, and it’s always good to have that kind of community involvement when the federal government shows up, so I am delighted that they were here. Thank you.

The General Services Administration announced this week that it will suspend consideration of new offers for GSA Schedule 75 for office supplies on October 1, 2010. This GSA Schedule 75 suspension will last through October 2012.

The overwhelming demand for GSA Schedules is taking its toll on the Acquisition Centers. MOBIS has been advising vendors that their workload has tripled since last year. While they typically have 120 - 150 offers in process for award, they currently have over 400 offers.

The news of Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s announcement that the Pentagon will dissolve the U.S. Joint Forces Command and cut thousands of defense contractors from DoD payroll sparked opinions ranging from outrage to full fledged support.

During EZGSA's weekly production meetings, a few items continue to pop up time and again. One issue in particular should be of interest to two different classes of our clients: those who are in the midst of working on their GSA Schedule proposals as well as those who have their proposals already submitted to GSA but not awarded. This issue is turnaround time from submission to award at the GSA acquisition offices. The current economic climate is being blamed for many things, but most analysts believe that as business owners experience difficulty selling to the commercial marketplace, they turn to government buyers. Of course, the GSA Schedules promote the most efficient method of selling to the federal government, and subsequently, submissions to all GSA acquisition centers have increased tremendously. We wanted to update you about the following trends in some of the various GSA acquisition centers so that you can be better prepared for a realistic timeline with regard to your own submission.