3 Things You Need to Know About GSA’s FASt Lane Pilot Program

GSA’s IT Schedule 70 not only boasts the largest amount of awarded contracts with more than 4,700, and the largest amount of dollars procured at $14 billion, but it’s also one of the quickest schedule contracts to be awarded.

GSA, in collaboration with the Center for Schedule 70, the Federal Acquisition Services (FAS) and Integrated Technology Services (ITS), launched the FASt Lane Pilot Program in March 2016. This program aims to further streamline the contract acquisition process, improve agency-client communications and reduce wait times for contract resolution and modification.

What You Need to Know

FASt Lane aims to reduce the award process cycle from 110 days to 45 days and accelerates add-modifications of new hardware to as little as 48 hours. It also strongly advises vendors to respond quickly to requests, preferably within 24 hours. Eligibility is reserved for vendors offering Health IT, cybersecurity and other high demand technology services.

In addition to the standard documents required by GSA for the proposal review, there are three critical documents needed to ensure efficiency with the FASt Lane Program.

• Financial Statements - Financial statements are required for proposal review. Two key parts of the financial statements include Income Statements and Balance Sheets for the past two fiscal years. The documents must be certified by a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) at minimum.
  1. Please note, audited financials allow for an expedited GSA Financial Review within the FASt Lane Pilot Program. In addition, a GSA Form 527 must be completed, as well, to demonstrate further financial qualifications.

• Comparison Chart Spreadsheet -- This price comparison spreadsheet catalogues the offeror’s prices against that of three competitors with awarded Schedule 70 contracts. Within the spreadsheet, the participant will need to ensure the competing firms used for comparison equally match, or are very similar, in business size, years of experience and years of education. GSA utilizes these comparisons to ensure fair and reasonable pricing for goods and services.

• Commercial Practices Chart -- The Commercial Practices Chart is designed to facilitate the offeror’s response to fair and reasonable Pricing. The space provided is for the offeror to explain both standard discount and pricing policies, as well as any non-standard business practice for each Special Item Number (SIN) offered.

For companies new to the process, GSA has provided a FASt Lane Program checklist to outline the necessary documents required in the process.

The FASt Lane Program is a recently launched program designed to expedite Schedule 70 contract proposal process and reduce the burden on companies looking to conduct business with the government.

If your organization is looking to expand into to the federal marketplace, please reach out to Winvale. Our expert consultants can outline GSA’s current FASt Lane Program and guide you through the proposal process.