At your 20 year mark? Say goodbye to a tedious proposal process!
Congratulations on your successful partnership with the Government, under the GSA’s Federal Supply Schedules (FSS). Not all contractors make it to the 20-year mark with their GSA Schedules Contract and even less will extend the partnership past that. You’ve gotten this far, let’s talk about the process in detail, and what you can cut from your streamlined proposal.
GSA allows for the award of overlapping or continuous contracts. These are identical contracts but with different periods of performance. Historically successful FSS contractors can acquire an overlapping contract to ensure contract continuity through what the GSA calls, a “streamlined process.” This applies to contractors that submit an offer for a new contract under the same schedule.
Streamlined Offers are shortened by pulling a few of the most time-consuming things together. This includes the Open Ratings Report which can take up to 3 weeks for the surveys to complete and Past Project Write-ups.
The five things you do not need to include in your Streamlined offer are as follows:
- Readiness Assessment
- Financial Statements (Balance Sheet and Income Statement for the prior 2 years)
- Dun & Bradstreet Open Ratings Report
- Corporate Experience Document
- Relevant Project Experience (Past Project Write-up)
You will eventually end up with a very slim Technical Proposal Section because you only need to submit a Quality Control Plan. To make things even better, the Administrative Section will also exclude the Readiness Assessment, Financial Statements, or the Open Ratings Report.
However, there are a few things you will need to add to the Administrative Section:
- Prior Contracts Statement with Current GSA Contract attached
- Dual Contracts Request Statement, outlining current contracts you have under your Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) contract, with a period of performance that extends past the expiration of your MAS contract.
The one section that is just as expansive as a normal offer, and by far the most important section of the proposal, is the pricing section. This is also where things can get very tricky depending on how your business is structured. If you sell your services or products both commercially and to the government, your pricing section doesn’t change much from a normal proposal. This is because you can show your commercial sales and discounts given to those customers. These prices should be in line with your old contract’s Commercial Sales Practices.
If you sell specifically to the government, on the other hand, pricing can become tricky during the streamline process. This is because your government price or your final year pricing will have to be proposed as your Most Favored Customer (MFC) price on you new offer and inevitably discounted from. This can throw a wrench into things and put your pricing back a year or two if you propose discounted pricing. The solution is to propose a discount but to have it at .75%. This is because you will be able to return your rates back to your current year when you add in the GSA required Industrial Funding Fee (IFF).
Here’s an example: Your 20th year pricing to the Government as your MFC is $100. From there, you offer a discount of .75%, to make your proposed price to GSA, without the IFF, $99.25. At the end, when you add the IFF back in, to show your GSA proposed price with the IFF, your price will increase back to your initial price of $100. Which saves you from having to decrease your rates and set your yearly escalation back by a year or greater.
Thought of any questions? We’re here to help!
