The GSA Schedule acquisition process is difficult enough as it is—you don’t want to worry about whether you’re doing all this work just to get rejected by GSA. While the process involves a lot of documentation, preparation, and negotiation, it’s not an impossible feat to get your GSA Schedule awarded. However, rejection happens. It usually happens to companies with a lack of knowledge or preparation on the process. Some of our clients have come to us after trying to get a GSA Schedule on their own, or working with a scammy firm and they were rejected and had to start over. So, we put together 5 reasons your GSA Schedule offer could be rejected and how to avoid them.
Before you start preparing your GSA Schedule proposal, you want to make sure you are eligible first. You don’t want to get to the middle of your offer and find out that you don’t meet one of the requirements. While holding a GSA Schedule can be very beneficial to your company, it’s not for everyone.
GSA Schedule contractors must:
If you find that you don't quite meet all these requirements, or you're not sure about getting your own contract, you can also partner with an authorized GSA reseller on their GSA Schedule contract. This route gives you access to the Multiple Award Schedule Program buyers, but you don't have to assume the contract compliance risks and regulations on your own.
This might seem like a simple administrative step, but it’s a crucial one to getting a GSA Schedule. To become a GSA contractor, you need to be registered on the right platforms.
First, you’ll need to get a Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) from SAM.gov. SAM registrations are free and are required to do business with the government. If you haven't registered in SAM before, it may take some time to validate your entity, so we suggest you start before you even begin the GSA Schedule acquisition process if possible.
If you already have a SAM registration, you need to ensure it’s updated. You may think you’re in the clear if you registered on SAM.gov about a year ago, but you need to update your SAM registration annually.
A big part of successfully submitting your GSA Schedule proposal is knowing which GSA documents to submit. GSA is changing all the time, and if you are using outdated documents or missing any in the offer, it could be grounds for rejection.
Offer requirements are determined by several factors including business size, the Special Item Numbers (SINs) you are planning to offer, and what type of business you are. It's important you know which templates and supporting documents are required for your company. You can find the required templates on GSA's site.
Recent changes have also impacted offer preparation. The Letter of Supply requirements are changing to apply only to a narrow subset of contractors, and now many contractors are required to follow Transactional Data Reporting (TDR) practices over legacy commercial prices and reporting. These are both determined by the SINs you intend to offer on your GSA Schedule.
It's important you review ALL the offer requirements and make sure you are fulfilling every one before you submit your offer.
We get asked this question a lot: “Can I get a GSA Schedule on my own?” The short answer is, yes. There’s nothing in the GSA rules and regulations that say you have to hire a consultant to work with you. However, if you go through the GSA Schedule process alone and you don’t have the proper GSA knowledge, experience, or bandwidth, it could end up in a delay or a rejection.
GSA is not there to handhold you through the process and can reject proposals for small mistakes, meaning you’ll have to go back to square one and start the process all over again. GSA Schedule proposals take up a considerable about of time and it can amount to even more if you are wrestling through the requirements and documents on your own.
If you feel as if your company doesn’t have enough time or resources, hiring a GSA Schedule consultant to guide you through the acquisition process and stay on top of all the necessary requirements and due dates could be beneficial for you. Especially if you are stuck in the middle of preparing an offer, or if you have received an offer rejection in the past.
With the Multiple Award Schedule (MAS), companies can add any of the SINs to their GSA Schedule either during the proposal process or once they have their Schedule through a contract modification.
As a prospective GSA Schedule contractor, it’s important you pick the right Special Item Number that corresponds to your company’s scope. GSA may reject your proposal if you choose SINs that are out of your scope and do not match your products and/or services.
So, how do you make sure you choose the right SIN? First, you’ll want to check GSA’s Available Offerings and Requirements page to see what is offered through the GSA Schedule Program. There have been some changes recently with SIN consolidation, removal, and editing descriptions, so it's important you consult this first.
Once you have narrowed down to a SIN, you’ll want to check each SIN under their Large Category specific pages in SAM.gov. The Large Category attachments will tell you if the SIN you chose will require any additional technical evaluations, requirements for ordering, past project write-ups, etc.
You’ll want to pay special attention to your SIN requirements to ensure your documentation is accurate and complete. If you select a SIN that you can’t provide the right documentation for, or if you forget some requirements in your GSA offer, it could delay the process or end in rejection.
We also suggest that you don’t pursue too many Special Item Numbers of different disciplines, and you focus on your core competency. It can be tempting to select multiple SINs, but remember, you will need to demonstrate you fit within the scope by providing past performance examples. Past performance examples also have to be from within the last 2 years or a current project that has been going on for at least a year. So, in short, if you haven’t sold it before, you can’t offer it.
While a GSA Schedule can certainly be rewarding for your company, you want to make sure the process of acquiring one goes smoothly and it’s done right the first time. While we hope these tips will help you make sense of the process, we understand that you might still be feeling overwhelmed or unsure of where to start.
If you want to learn more about getting preparing a GSA Schedule offer, you can check out these blogs:
If you have any questions about getting a GSA Schedule or you need help with the process, one of our consultants would be happy to help you.