In April, the GSA Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) issued a Request for Information (RFI) to better understand how to align Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) pricing with commercial practices. They recently posted an article on GSA Interact outlining their takeaways from this RFI, opportunities to strengthen policies, and their next steps. In this blog, we’ll go over the RFI itself, the GSA’s response, and what this means for contractors.

General Services Administration (GSA) recently released updated guidelines for Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Contractor Teaming Arrangements (CTAs) that clarifies administrative details, expectations on agreement documents, and GSA’s limits on oversight. In light of this, we’ll cover some of the most common points of confusion we see from prospective contractors, including what CTAs are and what they aren’t.

For small businesses looking to break into government contracting, teaming up with an experienced business through a Mentor-Protégé Program (MPP) can be a great strategy. In addition to the widely used MPP run by the Small Business Administration (SBA), contractors can participate in Mentor-Protégé Programs at specific federal agencies, such as the Department of Defense (DoD) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

So far in 2024, the federal government has spent over $13,479,101,845 billion dollars on contracts with roughly 12,000 small businesses vendors under the General Services Administration (GSA) Multiple Award Schedule.

GSA plans to end the year with another update to the Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Solicitation. Refresh #23 will be the third refresh of 2024, and includes several updates to both the entire solicitation as well as specific Large Categories and Special Item Numbers (SINs). The Refresh is expected to be released in December. Let’s review these updates so you are prepared when the Mass Modification is released.

Congratulations on being awarded a GSA Schedule contract—this achievement likely required countless hours of hard work navigating the requirements outlined in the Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) solicitation. However, the effort doesn’t stop here. As a contract holder, it's important to remain vigilant about several ongoing contract responsibilities.