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Frequently known as the “Amazon” of the government contracting world, GSA Advantage! is an important tool that government contractors use to publish their pricelist and market their approved GSA products. Within GSA Advantage!, you can find a wide variety of contractors who offer anything from printers and shredders to drones used to map the world. Federal agencies frequent this site because they can easily search for and order products within a few clicks, meaning it’s a crucial site for contractors to learn how to navigate.
This means that you should be keeping your pricelist, a list of your offerings as well as your terms and conditions, updated. Just like you expect the items you purchase on Amazon to have all the correct specifications such as size and color and look like the photos, the government expects the same from GSA Advantage!. So here’s what you need to know about your GSA Schedule pricelist.
What is Included in Your GSA Pricelist?
Your GSA Advantage! pricelist is the file that every contractor must upload to GSA Advantage! and GSA eLibrary. GSA has a predetermined format for you to list your company’s terms and conditions. These terms and conditions will list which terms and conditions are awarded to the contract. Within these terms and conditions, there is all kinds of important information such as:
- SINs (Special Item Numbers)
- Maximum/minimum order provisions
- Geographic Coverage of delivery
- Points of Production
- Volume Discounts
- Prompt Payment Terms
- Delivery terms
As part of GSA's ongoing efforts to modernize and simplify contract administration, updated Terms and Conditions templates no longer include contractor pricing information. Instead, pricing is maintained separately through pricing files found on both GSA eLibrary and GSA Advantage!, ensuring that product and service pricing can be found without requiring a complete Terms and Conditions refresh.
This change helps reduce the administrative burden on both GSA and contractors and minimizes the risk of discrepancies between contract documents and published pricing. However, contractors should still regularly review and maintain their GSA Advantage! pricing to ensure all awarded prices, descriptions, and catalog information remain accurate and compliant.
Maintaining Your GSA Pricelist
Did you know that contractors are required to update their pricelists regularly? GSA will remove GSA Advantage pricelists if the pricing hasn’t been updated in the last two years. This is for the benefit of both the contractor and federal agencies purchasing products and services off of the GSA Schedule. By ensuring that contractors are maintaining their GSA pricing, agencies buying off of GSA Schedules can be confident that they're getting the most recent and available pricing.
Plus, you are required to honor the pricing listed in your published catalog/pricelist. If you fail to do this, your catalog could be suspended, restricting access to not only GSA Advantage!, but GSA eBuy as well. So, it’s important to maintain your pricelist and keep it up-to-date with all of the changes you make to your offerings.
How Often Do You Have to Update Your Pricelist?
Once your GSA Schedule is initially awarded, you will immediately have access to the FAS Catalog Platform (FCP). You will have 30-days to upload your awarded GSA Pricing and Terms and Conditions File to the FCP.
After you submit a modification that has changed any aspect of your GSA-offered pricelist, you must make those updates to your online catalog and Terms and Conditions within 30 days. This can include your terms and conditions or changes to your products or services. If it’s not fully updated within 30 days, then your pricelist is at risk of being taken down. If there is no action on your Schedule, it must be updated at minimum every 2 years.
The transition from the Schedule Input Program (SIP) to the FAS Catalog Platform (FCP) has streamlined the process of maintaining GSA Advantage! pricelists. Under the previous SIP process, you were responsible for manually uploading catalog and pricing updates after a modification was awarded.
With the FAS Catalog Platform, awarded pricing changes are automatically reflected on GSA Advantage! as soon as the modification is approved, eliminating the need for additional contractor action. This automation helps ensure pricing accuracy, reduces administrative burden, and enables agencies to access the most current contract information without delay.
Benefits of Updating Your GSA Schedule Pricelist
There are two primary reasons to maintain an up-to-date GSA Advantage! pricelist: compliance and sales. From a compliance standpoint, keeping your pricelist current is essential to meeting the requirements of your GSA Schedule contract. However, your pricelist also serves as a valuable marketing tool for prospective government buyers. By ensuring your SINs, descriptions, and pricing are accurate and up-to-date, contractors can be in a better position to generate more federal opportunities.
Maintaining accurate and up-to-date GSA pricing can create additional marketing opportunities by ensuring your offerings remain competitive and visible to government buyers. Agencies frequently use GSA Advantage! to compare products and services across contractors, making your pricelist an important representation of your company's offerings.
Keeping pricing and catalog information current helps buyers make informed purchasing decisions and can increase the likelihood that your offerings stand out from the competition. An updated GSA offering will give you greater visibility and may lead to increased sales opportunities. Keeping this in mind, you can place some marketing information within your pricelist/textfile to bring more business through your contract. These marketing materials can include capabilities statements, experience in the field, or any way you think you can best represent your business and what it offers to the government.
Keeping Up with Your GSA Schedule Pricelist
Maintaining your GSA pricing or Terms and Conditions can be a complicated and confusing process. Ensuring that your terms and conditions are up to date, including any pricing information, can be overwhelming, especially because the FAS Catalog Platform is not an intuitive or easy-to-use program. However, it’s crucial to your success as a GSA contractor. If you need any help with this or have any questions about what can and can’t be in your Terms and Conditions, please feel free to reach out to one of our consultants.
