Government Contracting Blog

If you’re a regular reader of our blog, you’ve likely seen hundreds of articles on the GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS), how it works, and how to participate. But what about the VA Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) Program? Most of the questions our consulting team receives are about the GSA MAS Program, but today we’ll be shining some light on the MAS Program’s not-so-little sibling: the VA FSS Program, managed by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

GSA’s rollout of its new catalog management system, the FAS Catalog Platform (FCP), is well underway, with more and more Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) contracts being moved to the new platform. While FCP is more user-friendly than its predecessor, the Schedule Input Program (SIP), it still takes some getting used to.

Contract compliance should always be a priority for Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) contractors, but it’s now more important than ever. The new administration has recently issued Executive Orders and initiatives aimed at increasing both government efficiency and taxpayer savings. As a result of these federal policies, GSA is enforcing contract compliance more heavily, with the goal of increasing the MAS program’s efficiency.

Over the last two years, GSA has gradually introduced a new catalog management system, the FAS Catalog Platform (FCP). As the replacement for the Schedule Input Program (SIP), FCP enhances the user experience of managing a GSA Schedule catalog – but how is it different from SIP specifically? In this blog, we’ll compare and contrast the two catalog management systems, so you know what changes to expect as a GSA contractor who currently uses or will soon be using FCP.

We’ve talked a lot in recent blogs about the Trump administration’s impact on the federal market, but you may be wondering what its impact will be on state, local, and education (SLED) markets. While the recent Executive Orders (EOs) have created some uncertainty around federal funding to state and local governments, we’ll still see spending opportunities in SLED markets, specifically in areas aligning with the new administration’s priorities.

In the past year, we’ve seen several changes to government contracting regulations that affect small businesses specifically, including updates from the Small Business Administration (SBA) and amendments to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS). Many of these changes benefit small business government contractors by increasing their government contracting opportunities and streamlining the acquisition processes.