About GSA Contracts

GSA Advantage Requirements

Once your company secures either a GSA Schedule or a VA Contract, you are required to upload your approved GSA price list or catalog onto a government e-commerce website called “GSA Advantage”, so that your products and services are made available to federal buyers. As a GSA / VA Contract holder, you are responsible for keeping your GSA Advantage catalog and pricing up to date. Any GSA contract modification such as product or labor category additions, deletions, or price changes, should be uploaded to GSA Advantage in a timely manner. If you are also registered on the DOD FedMall, your catalog will need to be updated on that platform to reflect any changes that have been made on GSA Advantage.

• So, what is the IFF?
• How to calculate the IFF?
• Is every product and service a subject to IFF?
• How and when to pay the Industrial Funding Fee?
• Why are reporting sales and paying Industrial Funding Fee important?

The Industrial Funding Fee is a fee the GSA applies to all reported sales, in order to cover its operating costs. In this article we will take a closer look at what the IFF is, how to calculate it, and what permissible ways there are, to pay this fee to the GSA.

• What is the FPDS reporting function?
• What are FPDS report types?
• How did the change affect contractors?
• How were older FPDS reports converted to beta.SAM.gov reports?
• What should you do upon FPDS-NG report function transition before Jan 31, 2020?
• What if something went wrong?
• How did ad hoc reports change after transition?

FPDS.gov has moved its reports to the new platform, beta.SAM.gov, in 2020. Since the transition finished, all the reporting capabilities of the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) are now available at beta.SAM.gov. The process required you to act by the end of January, 2020. In this article we will explain what you should know about the transition.

• What is Priority Purchasing?
• Do I need to be authorized before distributing AbilityOne products?
• How do I become an authorized AbilityOne distributor?
• Is there a cost or fee to become an authorized AbilityOne distributor?
• Once I am authorized, how do I obtain AbilityOne products?
• Can AbilityOne products be sold to commercial entities?
• How will becoming an authorized AbilityOne distributor benefit my firm?
• How can authorized AbilityOne distributors participate in federal electronic commerce?
• How can you join the AbilityOne program?

Blind and significantly disabled people face considerable obstacles when searching for competitive employment, leaving 70% unable to find a job in the U.S. But thanks to the AbilityOne program, over 45,000 people with blindness or serious disabilities, including 3,000 veterans, are now in stable employment. The training, wages and experience provided through AbilityOne allows them to participate fully in their communities, support their families, and gain independence.

• Eligible Ordering Activities
• Why 552.238-113 regulation is important?
• Trade Agreements Act
• Why is the Trade Agreements Act important?
• Industrial Funding Fee and Sales Reporting
• Why is GSAM 552.238-80 important?

Federal acquisitions are governed by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) – a scope of  rules and requirements, establishing the way GSA agencies procure, and regulating how GSA Schedule contractors should go about providing products and services. Success on the federal market depends largely on how well you understand the FAR. Here, we explain the three important regulations that every GSA Schedule contractor should know about.

• GSA Pricing Principles Overview
• Setting Your GSA Schedule Prices

GSA Pricing Principles Overview

GSA Schedule Contracts serve as essential government procurement vehicles for a wide range of services, products, and expendables. To facilitate this, the government issues solicitations and selects contractors offering the best value for their money. But how does the government determine what constitutes the best price? Here, we outline the fundamental principles of GSA pricing evaluation.

State and local governments or shortly STLOCs are somewhat restricted to use GSA Schedules to procure products and services they need. Before the pandemic, one of available ways for STLOCs to procure using GSA Schedules was the Cooperative Purchasing Program. In this article we explain how businesses can sell to state, local and tribal governments this way.

• Getting on a GSA Schedule
• Multiple Award Schedule Consolidation
• GSA Compliance

While COVID-19 is rampant and continues wreaking havoc all over the world, many businesses are struggling to survive and retain at least a zero balance if possible. During such hard times you can easily overlook great opportunities provided by the GSA – the only self-funding government agency in the U.S. In this article, we review pros and cons of entering the GSA Multiple Award Schedules program in 2021.

GSA contracts are a way to skyrocket your sales, but this spaceship requires lots of fuel. Properly done marketing is what propels earnings that you receive via a GSA Schedule contract. In this article we will not reveal any secrets, but simply present some very obvious marketing tips that many vendors nevertheless disregard, which results in wasted months of work, and lost contracts.