The GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) program can give your company a whole new world full of opportunities. Not only is it the leading contract vehicle for the federal government, government buyers often prefer purchasing through the GSA MAS program because contractors are pre-vetted and government buyers know they are getting the best prices available. However, this also means access to the program is not entirely unfettered. Before you can become a federal contractor, you need to make sure you are eligible to sell to the government through a GSA Schedule contract. Contractors must meet a number of requirements before they can pursue a GSA Schedule contract.

First, congratulations on your GSA award—your GSA Schedule contract will prove to be a valuable contracting vehicle for your organization over the next twenty years. We know you went through a lengthy process to receive your GSA Schedule contract, but unfortunately, the work doesn’t stop there. Now that you have received an award, you’re probably asking yourself how to start selling.

This month marked the third and final phase in the General Services Administration’s (GSA) big changes to the Multiple Award Schedule Consolidation. In Phase 1 of the consolidation which wrapped up in September 2019, GSA worked on consolidating the 24 legacy Schedules into one Schedule. In Phase 2, GSA sent out a Mass Modification for contractors to begin to align their contracts under the new consolidated Schedule. Phase 3, which began on August 1, 2020, impacts GSA Schedule contractors with multiple MAS contracts under one Unique Entity Identifier (UEI), e.g., Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number. We know it’s a lot to keep up with these major changes, but it’s our job to stay on top of these important updates for our clients. Let’s dive in to see how Phase 3 will impact you and what next steps you’ll need to take.

If you are a regular reader or subscriber to our Winvale weekly blog series and monthly newsletter, you have seen us cover Special Item Numbers (SINs) at length in the past, especially the newly formatted MAS Consolidation SINs. One of the first logical steps in submitting a new offer proposal to GSA in any MAS Large Category is to select the SINs that are applicable to your company. With the MAS Consolidation, GSA made SIN selection a little easier by narrowing 900+ SINs down into a list of just over 300. However, there is something to be said for a deeper level of separation.

The Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), a new set of cybersecurity standards the Department of Defense (DoD) will be implementing on all their contracts, is included in the General Service Administration’s (GSA) $50 billion 8(a) STARS III Request for Proposal (RFP). 8(a) STARS III (Streamlined Technology Acquisition Resource for Services) is a multiple-award IDIQ contract set aside for small businesses that will give the federal government access to a wide range of information technology (IT) services-based solutions. Although STARS III isn’t a contract vehicle specific to the DoD, the DoD was one of the biggest buyers of STARS II, the predecessor to STARS III.

The GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) program allows federal agencies and other eligible entities to purchase products and services from commercial businesses, but what about state and local governments? State and local government entities have their own contract vehicles, but they can also purchase under the GSA MAS Program with certain stipulations. While they do not have access to everything on the GSA Schedule, they can purchase from certain categories determined under the Cooperative Purchasing Program.