Government Contracting Blog

A key strategy for taking full advantage of the GSA Multiple Award Schedule’s contracting opportunities is partnering with other contractors. Of the partnership options available, Joint Ventures (JVs) are a great choice for companies that want to form a new legal entity in order to pool each other’s capabilities, past performance, and even small business designations.

The General Services Administration (GSA) Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Program receives regular updates throughout the year by GSA, and this year the changes have been major. As is, it’s already easy for federal contractors to get behind on the changes that come through the several recent Solicitation Refreshes. In combination with other common misconceptions surrounding the MAS Program, existing vendors and prospective vendors alike may have a hard time parsing old from new, and myth from fact. Here, we’ll clarify both old and new misconceptions that cause some of the most confusion for MAS contractors and prospective contractors.

Many government contractors are undoubtedly familiar with SAM.gov (System for Award Management). One of its most important functions is the entity registration process, in which federal contractors are required to be active on SAM and continue to keep company information up-to-date. Due to this, many scammers have targeted companies needing to register or renew their SAM entity. In the blog, we’ll walk through what the contractors must know when utilizing SAM, such as how to register in SAM, what some of the more common scams contractors will run into, and how to stay compliant with changing regulations.

A very common question we receive as GSA consultants from contractors, especially in their first option period of their GSA Schedule, is “Are there any consequences to no or low GSA sales?” Or “What are some good tips or tricks to generate GSA sales and ensure we are remaining complaint with GSA regulations?” In this blog, we will address the current rules in place for minimum sales on the GSA Schedule, potential repercussions or actions GSA may take if these criteria are not met, and best practices to generate or increase GSA sales and remove any concerns regarding our former mentioned points.

Not all offerings under Transactional Data Reporting (TDR) are created equal. Two categories, Highly Configurable Products and the Cloud Special Item Number (SIN) 518210C, have unique reporting rules under TDR. These categories require different reporting elements and approaches. In this blog, we’ll cover what TDR is, define Highly Configurable Products and the Cloud SIN, and explain how to navigate TDR reporting for these categories.

GSA utilizes Special Item Numbers (SINs) to categorize the product or service offerings contractors can have awarded on the Multiple Award Schedule (MAS). Many SINs require contractors’ or offerors’ services to meet specific standards or regulations to have the SIN awarded. A popular SIN that limits the types of services vendors can provide is the Engineering Services SIN or SIN 541330ENG. For example, traditional architect-engineer (A-E) services are not allowed to be sold through this SIN or any other SIN in general. However, the Engineering SIN is not the only SIN that limits engineering firms in their service offerings; the Environmental Consulting Services SIN also requires contractors or offerors looking to add this SIN to meet a few requirements.