Last month, the General Services Administration (GSA) announced that there are some major changes coming to several of their Schedule solicitations.

GSA eBuy helps streamline the RFQ process for Federal Buyers. Read to see what that means for Government Contractors! Once awarded a GSA Schedule, you’ll have access to a number of tools that will allow you to see specific agency needs. One of the most exclusive tools for GSA Schedule holders is GSA’s e-Business novelties website called eBuy. EBuy is an electronic Request for Quote (RFQ) or Request for Proposal (RFP) system, designed to allow government buyers to request information, find sources, and prepare RFQs and RFPs for millions of services and products offered through GSA’s Multiple Award Schedule (MAS). Government buyers can use eBuy to obtain quotes or proposals for services, large quantity purchases, big ticket items and purchases with complex requirements. Government contractors who do not have a GSA Schedule won’t have access to eBuy and are unable to see or respond to the opportunities posted there.

THE TIME IS NOW. You may or may not be aware that by submitting a proposal for a GSA Schedule 70 contract with the new GSA Cyber Security SINs (Penetration Testing, Incident Response, Cyber Hunt, and Risk & Vulnerability Assessments) it will take you on average 45 days to be awarded a schedule. In the commercial world this may sound like an ordinary time to award, but since we are dealing with the US Government, this is extremely expedited. The average time-to-award for a GSA Schedule 70 proposal including other SINs under the GSA’s IT Schedule 70 is 4-6 months.

As new needs and challenges arise, the General Services Administration (GSA) considers adding new Special Item Numbers (SIN) to preexisting Schedules before creating new ones. We’ve seen this most recently with the addition of a new Schedule 70 Health IT SIN, and will be seeing it again shortly as the government works towards releasing the Highly Adaptable Cybersecurity Services (HACS) SIN to the IT-70 schedule beginning September 12, 2016.

In an effort to increase efficiency and encourage savings, GSA published a final rule on transactional data reporting on June 23, 2016. This new requirement instructs vendors to report transactional data from orders placed against certain Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contracts, Government Wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs), and Government Wide Indefinite-Delivery, Indefinite-Quantity (IDIQ) contracts.