In 2017, U.S. Senators Mac Thornberry (R-TX) and Adam Smith (D-WA) proposed a bill known as the Saving Federal Dollars Through Better Use of Government Purchase and Travel Cards Act of 2017 that concentrated on reducing waste, fraud, and abuse of Government spending on travel and when using purchase cards. This bill passed through the House and Senate when it was incorporated into the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 (or NDAA 2018). The Saving Federal Dollars Through Better Use of Government Purchase and Travel Cards Act of 2017 addressed three key issues with Government spends: (1) improper payments, (2) questionable transactions, and (3) strategic sourcing. Our focus today will be strategic sourcing.

The GSA Schedules Program provides expansive new opportunities and tools to help companies successfully sell to the government. Having a GSA Schedule opens a whole new world of contracting and networking opportunities that could help expand your business and may be your ticket into the government space. However, with new business opportunity comes new responsibility. It is important to realize the compliance and maintenance factors attached to the award of a GSA Schedule. While the advantages are clear, companies should ensure they have the bandwidth to keep up with the maintenance of a GSA contract.

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.

The GSA Information Technology (IT) Schedule 70 is not a traditional government contract. The GSA Schedules Program is meant to screen and approve specific products and services sold by contractors at fair and reasonable prices to customer agencies. Being one of the larger contracts across the federal government, and as the top-grossing vehicle out of all the GSA Schedules, Schedule 70 is used by GSA customers to fulfill their IT product and service needs, because it significantly reduces time spent on the procurement process. Most IT product, software and/or service companies wanting to sell to government customers have heard of or considered obtaining a Schedule 70 contract, and Winvale is breaking down the To-Do List:

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.

“If You Build it, They Will Come” Having your GSA Multiple Award Schedule Contract awarded can seem like the light at the end of a lengthy tunnel, but it’s not the end of the journey. Once awarded your contract, the real work has only just begun. The payoff for becoming a successful GSA MAS contractor can be huge, but only if the right steps are taken from post-award day 1.