On Tuesday April 28th 2015, I was able to attend the NASPO ValuePoint Vendor Kickoff Meeting, hosted by NASPO ValuePoint in Bloomington, MN. This meeting was intended to educate both current and newly awarded contract holders for the Computer Equipment, Peripherals & Related Services Contract under NASPO ValuePoint.
NASPO ValuePoint
You may be wondering what NASPO ValuePoint is and what this specific contract entails. NASPO ValuePoint, formally “WSCA-NASPO” is a cooperative purchasing program, which facilitates public procurement through signed agreements with participating state governments. These Participating Addendums (PA) agreements enable contractors to obtain greater volume-based price discounts for quantity one purchases by leveraging the purchasing power of multiple states and their political subdivisions.
Specifically for the Computer Equipment, Peripherals & Related Services Contract, it allows awarded vendors to sell their hardware and/or software directly to state and local entities through state purchasing. As a buyer, you must be aware of what you are buying, so to make purchasing clear, the Computer Equipment, Peripherals & Related Services Contract has the items offered within it, broken out into 5 bands.
These “bands” or categories represent the specific scope of the items offered through the contract and are separated into the following: Desktop, Laptop, Tablet, Server, and Storage. Currently this contract is comprised of 36 awarded vendors: 13 under the Desktop Band, 14 under the Laptop Band, 15 under the Tablet Band, 19 under the Server Band, and 23 under the Storage Band. These bands enable the 36 awarded vendors under this contract to seamlessly sell their specific product offerings directly participating states.
Sales Process Under the NASPO ValuePoint
The sales process under the NASPO ValuePoint is rather easy. When you have a PA in place with the state you wish to sell, the state has full access to your “baseline” pricelist, which is your total commercial offering. For states to obtain this full access, Vendors are required to make a webpage within their website, which is solely dedicated to NASPO ValuePoint. This webpage shows your contract terms, POCs for ordering, and it shows your baseline pricelist. Although your baseline pricelist is your commercial offering, it also shows your awarded minimum discount price as well.
It is at this price that state buyers will buy your products. So what is the minimum discount price? The minimum discount price, is the price that vendors are awarded through the NASPO ValuePoint award process. This price is developed from a percentage discount that stands as the lowest discount that a vendor can give a state customer. It is similar to federal contracts, as a vendor can always give greater discounts to its customers, but not lower than the minimum. So you’re probably asking yourself, once I have completed sales, how do I report them? Reporting sales under a NASPO-Value point contract is not the easiest of processes within the contract, but regardless of its difficulty with some knowledge and a little guidance, it becomes a quick task.
Sales Reports for NASPO ValuePoint
When doing sales reports for NASPO ValuePoint, you have to consider two factors: NASPO ValuePoint and the states. As a NASPO ValuePoint vendor, you are required to submit sales reports to NASPO ValuePoint, however, if you have PAs with several states, you are required to submit sales reports to them as well. This means you will be submitting multiple sales reports in any given quarter or depending on the state, every month. At the end of every quarter NASPO Value Point Requires three parts for sales reporting;
- A Summary Sales Report, which is the total sales for each state you have a PA with, not broken out by individual line item.
- A Detailed Quarterly Report, which is the total sales for each state broken out by each individual line item.
- A PA Status Report, which shows the status and completion of PA sales reports. This third NASPO ValuePoint report is an overall picture of the individual reports, in which you have to submit for each state.
You are required by the state terms to submit individual reports for each state you have a PA with. States sales reporting terms are separate too, so you may find yourself submitting monthly reports as well.
In Conclusion
The NASPO ValuePoint meeting was a great event to attend, not only because it was great to see the new contract unveiled, but because it provided great information. This blog post only captures a small part of what was discussed and touches slightly on the strategies on how to navigate this new and expanding contract. If you were able to attend the meeting, and have further insight, or if you were not there but want further information, please reach out to me - David Baldino, dbaldino@winvale.com or at 202-534-1744.
