Do You Need to Update Your GSA Contract After Award?
So, after tremendous efforts and months of hard work either all by yourself or with an agent, you have secured your GSA Schedule contract. Now you can heave a sigh of relief for the entire 5-year period of the contract. Or can you? In fact, you still need to keep your GSA contract fresh and up to date even post award. Read the article to learn what exactly you need to do and when.
- GSA issues mass modifications to contracts
- Some details of your company have changed
- You have changed your supplier/manufacturer
- Your prices have changed
- Specifications of your product have changed
- Labor categories have changed
- You haven’t updated your GSA Advantage catalog for two years
- How often should you update your GSA contract?
- What to do to update your GSA contract?
When do you need to update your GSA contract?
There are several situations when making changes to your GSA contract is crucial. Overall, keeping your GSA contract up to date is a pledge of long-term success in selling to the government. Also, in many cases failing to refresh your GSA contract in time can lead to losing your status of a legitimate GSA contractor! Hence, revising your contract periodically is a must. Here are several cases that require you to update your GSA contract.
GSA issues mass modifications to contracts
From time to time the GSA updates its terms and regulations that govern GSA Schedules. One of the most recent examples is upgrading of the whole MAS GSA contracting system that occurred under the MAS Consolidation procedure.
In such cases, GSA notifies all vendors about upcoming changes, this is called a Mass Modification notice. Sometimes, the MassMod notice is just for information, but sometimes vendors have to respond and do something. For instance, agree to the new terms of the contract, make some specified changes to the contract, or contact the Contracting Officer.
Some details of your company have changed
Whenever the address, e-mail, phone, fax and other details and contacts have changed, you need to reflect such changes ASAP in your GSA contract. This may sound minor, but in fact even the smallest changes can easily render your GSA contract invalid and question your eligibility as a GSA contractor. As a practicing agency that helps vendors acquire GSA contracts we’ve seen contracts suspended and cancelled for one reason: the email of the company has changed and nobody thought of letting GSA know about that.
You have changed your supplier/manufacturer
If you resell to the government products manufactured by some other companies, or if you assemble products in the USA from parts manufactured somewhere else, you should now about TAA compliance. When you apply for a GSA contract, every product you sell to the government must be TAA compliant. However, the crucial yet often overlooked thing is that TAA compliance must be maintained during the entire period of validity of the GSA contract. So, when you change you supplier you must make sure your products remain TAA compliant, and update your contract and/or catalog respectively by providing all necessary documents as a proof.
Your prices have changed
Your prices must be fair and reasonable and competitive, which means GSA expects you to review your prices and adapt them so that they were the same or lower than your commercial prices for the same items. In case of the Economical Price Adjustment, you also need to update your pricelists accordingly.
Specifications of your product have changed
If you added new products or improved specifications of existing products, you need to update your GSA Advantage electronic catalog to reflect these changes. Importantly, when you modify specifications of your products, you must make sure they still comply with the requirements, otherwise your contract can be cancelled.
Labor categories have changed
If some of your labor categories have changed, or if you have added new categories, your GSA contract must be updated promptly.
You haven’t updated your GSA Advantage catalog for two years
Keeping your GSA Advantage catalog fresh and up to date is a must. Here is why. If a catalog listing is not updated for two years, the GSA reserves the right to remove the entire catalog from GSA Advantage.
How often should you update your GSA contract?
Make a habit of updating your GSA Advantage catalog at least once a year and every time the changes to the contract are required (see above).
What to do to update your GSA contract?
Login to the Vendor Support Center of the GSA portal, to the Modification section. There you can see all Mass Modification notifications from the GSA, upload digital certificates, and make changes to your MAS contract. To make changes to your GSA Advantage catalog, login to your account at GSA Advantage and upload your new pricelists, modify product descriptions or ad images to products.
