What are the Important Fundamentals for a GSA Multiple Award Schedule Contract?

Understand Your Contract Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) 

• Know the awards and approved pricing on your Schedule Contract.
• Know your delivery schedule terms.
• Ask if prompt payment discounts are offered.
• Ask if volume discounts are offered.
• Ensure you know when each contract period expires and submit required contract option extensions. GSA will notify vendors 210 days before option expiration.
• GSA contracts consist of a base period and three five (5) year option periods for a total of 20 years. New contract offers must be submitted before the end of the 20-year contract period and in time to have a new contract awarded before it ends. The contract will lapse after the 20-year mark without exception.

Understand Your Contract Compliance Requirement Basics 

• Focus on meeting minimum GSA requirements to maintain the contract.
• Submit required monthly Transactional Sales Reporting (TDR) in the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) Sales Reporting Portal (SRP) Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) Sales Reporting Portal (SRP).
• Pay GSA Industrial Funding Fee (IFF) on time and ensure the payment is accurate.
• Monitor all GSA communications sent to your company’s authorized negotiators and respond as necessary to maintain your contract.
• For companies offering products: Monitor the monthly GSA Global Supply (GSS) Delivery Scorecards and address or correct any deficiencies as soon as possible with your GSA contracting officer/contracting specialist.
• For large businesses and not-for-profit Organizations: Maintain Small Business Subcontracting Plans. Maintenance includes annual reporting of subcontracting goals, submitting new plans annually (for Commercial Subcontract Plans only), accurate tracking of small business spending and maintaining an updated list of small business suppliers the company or organization purchases from.

Establish an Internal Compliance Program and Processes

• Develop a GSA compliance program, ensure internal understanding, and consistently follow processes and procedures as adopted.
• Ensure that approved pricing or lower is given to customers purchasing from the contract. Charging a higher price than the contract price is a compliance violation, and any overpayments must be returned to the Government.
• Offer customers products or services that are approved on your GSA contract:
• Understand that non-schedule offerings can only be provided if the customer is notified and clearly understands that those offerings are not approved by GSA. Also, clearly identify all non-Schedule items on the customer invoice.
• For service providers, ensure employees providing the offered services meet all defined education and experience requirements.
• For product providers, only items that are Trade Agreement Act (TAA) compliant can be offered to GSA under the Schedule contract.
• Track changes to the country of origin for all products on Schedule on a regular basis, and remove if determined not to be TAA-compliant.
• Segregate GSA sales from all non-GSA items sold through contracts for purposes of proper sales reporting.

Ensure Your Contract is Current and Up-to-Date at All Times.   

GSA Schedule contracts are not passive contract vehicles and must be maintained consistently over time through contract modifications to GSA as changes occur and approved by the agency. Modifications include:

• Administrative – For Point of Contact (POC) updates or other administrative changes
• Additions – Add latest offerings to the Government to remain competitive or relevant in the market
• Deletions – Delete offerings that are no longer sold commercially or relevant Government buyers.
• Economic Price Adjustments (EPAs) – To increase GSA Schedule prices
• Novation / Name Change – For companies that are purchased or where a company name is changed
• Price Decreases

Stay current on MAS

• Follow the Presidential Executive Orders
• Solicitation Refreshes
  • Accept GSA Mass Mods that incorporate solicitation updates on time, understand the contract changes, and adjust accordingly.
• Get engaged in the Federal Market and network with other GSA Schedule holders.
  • Join associations that focus on Federal Contracting (i.e., The Coalition for Common Sense in Government Procurement) for education and networking opportunities.
  • Attend Federal Industry Days, Federal customer events and Federal contractor-focused industry events and trade shows.
  • Read The Gormley Group’s weekly newsletter, The Tuesday Insight.
  • Actively use the GSA eBuy tool and SAM.gov to search for and research upcoming sales opportunities.

What is a Blanket Purchase Agreement?

A Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) is a simplified method of filling Government customers with anticipated and repetitive needs for products and/or services under GSA and VA Schedule contracts.

What are the Benefits of BPAs?

• Opportunity to combine repetitive purchase orders under a BPA reduces procurement lead time and administrative costs
• Increases Government customers flexibility to plan for anticipated purchases without immediate funding, no required minimum guarantee, or maximum ceiling
• Ability to offer agency-wide ordering through an established BPA increases the flexibility to quickly meet various or unique mission needs
• Offers no limitations on types of products or services, increasing flexibility to meet unique agency needs
• BPA’s can cover all products and/or services under a vendor’s GSA or VA Schedule contract or a subset of products and services under the GSA or VA Schedule contract.

What are the Types of BPAs

• Single Award BPA – These BPAs are awarded to a single vendor, and orders for this BPA are filled by that vendor and not competed at the task order level.
• Multiple Award BPAs – These are BPAs awarded to multiple vendors for the same or similar products and services. Ordering agencies under these types of BPAs compete for each task order among the various BPA holders.

What is a GSA Schedule Contractor Team Arrangement (CTA)?

A GSA Schedule Contractor Team Arrangement (CTA) is an arrangement between two or more GSA Schedule contractors to work together to meet agency requirements. The CTA document is a written agreement between team members detailing the responsibilities of each team member.

• The CTA allows the contractor to meet the government agency’s needs by providing a total solution that combines the supplies and/or services from the team members’ separate GSA Schedule contracts. It permits contractors to complement each other’s capabilities to compete for orders for which they may not independently qualify. A customer benefits from a CTA by purchasing a solution rather than making separate purchases from various contractors.

 What is a Contractor Team Arrangement (CTA)

A CTA is made up of two or more GSA or VA Schedule holders who work together to offer the combined GSA or VA Schedule offerings of each Team Member to Government customers. Typically, with a CTA, one teammate will be the Team Lead, coordinate task orders with Government customers, and act as a single point of contact for billing and invoicing. Each Team Member will report individual sales from the team order for purposes of the GSA Industrial Funding fee.

What are the benefits of a GSA Schedule

• Vendors can compete for task orders that you otherwise wouldn’t qualify for
• Satisfies the customer with a single solution and point of contact
• Increases competitive edge
• Increases market share
• Increases visibility
• Allows more opportunities for small businesses
• Team Members can focus on core capabilities and obtain complementary capabilities from other Team Members.
• Team Members integrates different skills.
• Team Members share risks and rewards.

The Gormley Group (TGG) is a government contracts consulting company with unparalleled government contracting domain expertise. TGG consultants and management team have over 350 years of accumulated contracting knowledge and have provided our services to thousands of businesses of all sizes. We provide offer preparation, compliance and contract management support for GSA/VA Multiple Award Schedules (MAS) and other federal and state contracting vehicles such as OASIS+, SEWP, 2GIT BPA, CMAS, TXMAS and US Communities. TGG is proud that the majority of our business is referrals which come from all areas of industry and government and we were named an Inc. Magazine Business to Business Power Partner Award Winner.