Government Contracting Blog

GSA Schedule acquisition isn’t a simple process, but fortunately, GSA has developed resources to help make it more manageable. Whether you're a seasoned GSA contractor working to maintain your contract or a prospective contractor pursuing your first one, the resources listed below will be valuable to your company throughout both the acquisition and maintenance phases.

Upon award of your Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) contract, you’re likely to be greeted with many tasks and terms you’ll need to get familiar with quickly. Sales reporting, Minimum sales requirement, Order Level Materials Special Item Number (SIN), Mass Modification—these are all terms that might get thrown around by your Contract Specialist during the award process. But what do they actually mean for you? What action items need to get done following the award of a General Services Administration (GSA) MAS contract? As a proposal writer that manages the post award process on a regular basis, I’ll let you know the best way I’ve found to get started on managing your GSA MAS contract.

The age-old question when researching services is: does paying more for a high-end service make it worth the investment? When companies decide to pursue a GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS), it doesn’t take long to see there’s no shortage of firms offering GSA Schedule consulting. But if you haven’t noticed already, the pricing ranges wildly. This leaves many companies wondering if they can get just as good of a service if they select a cheaper option. It really depends on what kind of support you’re looking for and what kind of long-term investment you’re trying to make.

In the recently released Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Solicitation Refresh #28, GSA restructured the requirements for new offerors or existing contractors proposing products that they do not manufacture, and instead, resell. Prior to this Solicitation Refresh, new offerors or current contractors adding products they did not manufacture to their GSA Schedule contract or proposal were required to submit a Letter of Supply to demonstrate they have the authority to distribute these products. However, GSA has now restricted the Letter of Supply requirement to only resellers under Large Category F (Information Technology) and the Printing and Photographic Equipment Subcategory within Large Category A (Office Management).

If you hold a GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) contract, there’s more to keeping it than just winning federal orders. While the MAS Program is a well-known vehicle for connecting with federal buyers, you also have a great opportunity to sell to state, local, and educational (SLED) entities with your GSA Schedule. For contractors who are struggling to reach their minimum sales requirement or those who want a stronger sales pipeline, state and local purchasing programs within the MAS program can be an untapped market. The two main programs we’ll discuss in this blog are Disaster Purchasing and Cooperative Purchasing, but we’ll also mention other additional programs you may be eligible for as a GSA MAS contractor.

More changes are coming for GSA Schedule contractors—GSA will introduce a new consolidated Economic Price Adjustment (EPA) clause in Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Solicitation Refresh #29. Once added to the solicitation, this clause will replace and eliminate the legacy EPA clauses 552.216-70 and I-FSS-969. With this change, GSA hopes to make price changes more standard across the MAS Program, and give Contracting Officers (COs) as well as contractors more flexibility in GSA Schedule pricing.