Government Contracting Blog

The short answer to this question? Yes, you’re able to sell to the Federal Government without being a GSA Schedule holder, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that you should due to a multitude of reasons.

Good news for General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule contract holders, as spending within the Multiple Awards Schedule (MAS) has reached new heights. It has been reported that in Fiscal Year 2018, spending on goods and services through the GSA MAS program grew to a record high of $33.1 billion. This is the highest spending level for GSA’s MAS program since Fiscal Year 2015, and with spending consistently averaging around $33 billion per year from 2015 to 2018, things are looking up.

Following the award of your GSA proposal, you’ll be required to fulfill several reporting requirements as well as ensure that your pricing stays up-to-date and in compliance with the Price Reduction Clause. Being a new GSA Schedule vendor, these new requirements may seem overwhelming at first, so that’s why it’s important to stay in front of the requirements by knowing when and how to handle them.

On November 27th, the General Service Administration announced its intention to modernize federal acquisition and transform the Multiple Awards Schedule (MAS) program as we know it. GSA plans to consolidate the agency’s 24 Schedules into one single Schedule for both products and services and operate under a single solicitation with compressed terms and conditions.

For nearly a year, GSA has been working on their vision for an updated System for Award Management (SAM.gov) website by directing beta testing and conducting focus-group testing with industry stakeholders on the website's functionality. In October of 2017, the Integrated Award Environment for GSA launched beta.SAM.gov as a test site.

In an effort to create a new online portal to procure commercial goods, the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), issued a notice announcing their interest in opening public dialogue. In the notice, GSA and OMB sent a request for information from industry stakeholders about Section 846 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2018. Section 846, dubbed the “Amazon Amendment”, would give government agencies the opportunity to procure commercial off-the-shelf products through online commercial portals such as Amazon, Overstock and Staples. The undertaking would provide agencies with a new alternative to GSA’s decades-old procurement vehicles such as GSA Advantage!, GSA eBuy, GSA Global Supply, and the Federal Supply Schedule.