Resources for Government Contracting

Government agencies use the GSA Schedule to purchase over $40 billion in products and services every year. Most every credible government contractor has a GSA Schedule in their contracts portfolio because they understand that the more contract vehicles you have available to government buyers, the more successful you typically will be. If your company sells commercially available products or services, you should consider acquiring the GSA Schedule.

Not sure if your company needs a GSA Schedule? Coley has helped companies get on GSA Schedule for over 20 years. Contact us for a free consultation.

GSA Schedules are used by every government agency, so more than likely your customer, or target customer, uses the GSA Schedule to buy what you sale. A search of USASpending.gov will disclose how much your target customer spends through GSA Schedule and what they buy. Researching USASpending.gov can also reveal upcoming contract expirations that are potential targets of opportunity.

If you decide to submit an offer to GSA to be considered for a MAS contract, you will need to complete several steps and be prepared for a three-to-six-month process, or longer. Steps include:

• Determine Your Eligibility
• Complete GSA’s training
• Conduct Market Research
• Prepare a Readiness Assessment
• Download, Review, and Understand the Solicitation Requirements
• Build Your Compliant Offer, to include Financials, Experience, Past Performance, Quality Control, Pricing, and Substantiation Documentation
• Register with GSA’s eOffer System, including obtaining necessary Security Certificates
• Submit Your Offer through the eOffer System
• Respond to GSA’s Request for Clarifications
• Negotiate Pricing with GSA CO
• Finalize your Offer and Upload to eOffer
• Obtain Award documents
• Upload Your Approved GSA Catalog to GSA Advantage and eLibrary

Maintain Compliance with GSA’s terms and conditions

Is there more to getting on GSA Schedule than you thought? Coley has helped companies get on GSA Schedule for over 20 years and we can help you too. Contact us for a free consultation.

The government does not charge a fee to accept a submission for a GSA Schedule solicitation. However, you can spend hundreds of hours over three-to-six months doing the work required to obtain a GSA Schedule. And once you’ve been awarded a GSA Schedule, consider the hours required to properly maintain and market your contract. Remember, sales through the GSA Schedule is not guaranteed and you will have actively market your products and services to win orders.

Is there more to getting on GSA Schedule than you thought? Coley has helped companies get on GSA Schedule for over 20 years and we can help you too. Contact us for a free consultation.

If you decide to submit an offer to GSA to be considered for a MAS contract, you will need to complete several steps and be prepared for a three-to-six-month process, or longer. Steps include:

• Determine Your Eligibility
• Complete GSA’s training
• Conduct Market Research
• Prepare a Readiness Assessment
• Download, Review, and Understand the Solicitation Requirements
• Build Your Compliant Offer, to include Financials, Experience, Past Performance, Quality Control, Pricing, and
• Substantiation Documentation
• Register with GSA’s eOffer System, including obtaining necessary Security Certificates
• Submit Your Offer through the eOffer System
• Respond to GSA’s Request for Clarifications
• Negotiate Pricing with GSA CO
• Finalize your Offer and Upload to eOffer
• Obtain Award documents
• Upload Your Approved GSA Catalog to GSA Advantage and eLibrary
• Maintain Compliance with GSA’s terms and conditions

Once a GSA Schedule is awarded to a contractor after completing the long process outlined above, the award SF 1449 will include a designated number which is better known as your GSA Schedule contract number.

Is there more to getting on GSA Schedule than you thought? Coley has helped companies get on GSA Schedule for over 20 years and we can help you too. Contact us for a free consultation.

Before the Multiple Award Schedule or MAS was consolidated, there used to be well over 20 GSA Schedule types you could pursue. Now, there is one GSA Schedule and the scope of your contract will be determined by the SINs or Special Item Number you are awarded.

A Special Item Number is a number that identifies the product or service that are purchased through a GSA Schedule contract. This table shows how SINs are associated with NAICS Codes.

Opportunities published on GSA eBuy are only available to approved GSA Schedule holders that have the matching SIN’s awarded to their contract.

Need to expand your GSA Schedule to include more SINs?  Coley has helped companies expand and manage their GSA Schedules for over 20 years and we can help you too. Contact us for a free consultation.

A new GSA Schedule can take anywhere from 3 months to over a year. When you use a consulting firm like Coley GCS, we estimate anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks to complete your submission package. Once the offer is submitted to GSA, some of the determining factors include the level of complexity of the contract offer, how quickly you respond to clarification request or updates to meet the modifications to the solicitation or responding to changing requirements that happen along the way, the workload a particular GSA office, among many other factors. Our clients’ average time to award typically varies between 3 to 6 months. The GSA IT Category FAST Lane program can shorten the processing time by half.

Is there more to getting on GSA Schedule than you thought? Coley has helped companies get on GSA Schedule for over 20 years and we can help you too. Contact us for a free consultation.

GSA Advantage! is the online storefront for approved GSA Schedule vendors to publish their product and service catalogs so that they can be found by federal buyers who want buy their products and services.  Read More…

Need help uploading your approved GSA Schedule catalog to GSA Advantage!? Coley has helped companies manage their GSA Schedules for over 20 years and we can help you too. Contact us for a free consultation.

The CAGE Code is a five-character ID number used by the Federal Government to identify vendors. CAGE stands for Commercial And Government Entity. Read More…

TAA stands for Trade Agreement Act compliant country. To be TAA compliant, a products or services needs to be manufactured or substantially transformed in the US or in a TAA designated country.  Find the latest list of the TAA designated countries here.

The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) places the responsibility of making the determination solely on the contractor thereby making TAA a self-certification. If a contractor is reported to have non-TAA products on their GSA Schedule, the GSA Contracting Officer will require the company to provide proof that their products are TAA compliant or remove them from their GSA Schedule. If there is a question as to whether the products are TAA compliant, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection may get involved to make a determination.