Government Contracting Blog

If you’ve made the decision to pursue a GSA Schedule contract, one of the first choices you will need to make is whether to go it alone or hire a GSA consultant to help. At first, your instinct might be to save money and handle it internally because you may have a sales or marketing team that deals with your commercial sales. However, it's important to remember that the government marketplace is a whole new world. The acquisition process is not easy or straightforward, and once you get your contract awarded, you have to manage it for up 20 years.

If you were recently awarded a GSA Schedule contract, you have likely been inundated with all the tasks required to manage your awarded contract. One key compliance requirement is completing your Baseline modification in GSA’s FAS Catalog Platform (FCP). GSA only recently made the change from the legacy SIP software to FCP for catalog management, so even contractors experienced with GSA may be unfamiliar with FCP. In this blog, we’ll go over the steps to complete an FCP Baseline modification.

If you’ve submitted a Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) offer before, you know that waiting for GSA to process and review your offer can feel like the hardest part. In the last few months, GSA has made some changes to how it reviews MAS offers, with the goal of streamlining the process for contractors and Contracting Specialists alike.

A key part of winning business in any market is drafting a strong and effective proposal. They may not all look the same, or are sometimes called by different names across industries, but the goal is always to win the reader over. But how exactly do you accomplish that? Requests for Proposals (RFPs) are a key part of your government contract, and while there's an entire rulebook on how to reply to them (the Federal Acquisition Regulation), there are some unspoken rules contractors should follow.

Are you a furniture manufacturer or Value-Added Reseller (VAR) of furniture products who wants to expand your business opportunities within the federal government? Competing on the open market can be a great way to secure stand-alone bids. However, many of the solicitations that federal buyers release, go through contracting vehicles designed to streamline the procurement process. The Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) program administered by General Services Administration (GSA) is the most prominent of these vehicles when it comes to furniture and furnishings. GSA MAS offers federal customers shorter procurement lead times and lower administrative costs than establishing a new contract.

With the Schedule Input Program (SIP) being obsolete, contractors are needing to become familiar with GSA’s FAS Catalog Platform (FCP). The FCP is a web-based application designed for MAS contractors to manage both product and service catalog data through a more streamlined reporting process. The General Services Administration (GSA) has been requiring Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) contractors to complete baseline modifications to transition contracts from SIP to the FCP. However, before using FCP functions as a new contractor on the FCP, you will need to update your Seller Profile before beginning the baseline modification. In this blog, we will be reviewing what the Seller Profile is in the FCP and how to navigate it to begin your contract’s transition to the FCP.