The commercial sector uses blanket purchase agreements to reduce purchasing costs routinely. The counterparts of blanket purchasing agreements in the federal government are contracts with pre-approved vendor price lists, awarded to anumber of vendors (multi-vendor contracts). Purchases are made over the term of the contract (usually five) by placing individual orders as needs arise. Multi-vendor [...]
A whistle-blower exposure caused the federal government to claw back $200 million dollars from the Oracle Corporation for GSA schedule Price Reduction Clause violations. In many GSA schedule contractors, the sales organization may not want to know about the GSA schedule Price Reduction Clause discounting restrictions. “Let me make my commission today, who will know [...]
GSA schedule prices can be increased according to the terms of a schedule contract. Seems simple but many GSA contractors do not increase their during the entire five years of their contract. Obviously, not requesting price increase can hurt profits significantly particular when year-to-year price compounding could have been possible. Timely contract modification requests for [...]
Oracle must pay $199.5 million in damages to GSA for failing to accurately disclose their commercial sales practices when negotiating contracts and modifications to their GSA Schedule IT 70 contract. Can you afford to an oversight in your contract disclosures? Keep your GSA Schedule in compliance and up-to-date. For as little as $380 a year [...]
The most important aspects of contract compliance are: Compliance with restrictions on discounting practices (the biggest risk factor financially) Paying the GSA Industrial Funding Fee (IFF) on time Making best efforts to subcontract according to your small business subcontracting plan (large businesses only) Submitting required reports on time. Compliance with restrictions on discounting practices must [...]
Life for GSA schedule offerors and contract holders is becoming more difficult. Audit fear appears to be gripping the agency and this is reflected in: Long evaluation times and more proposal rejections Calls for unheard of levels of details in requests for proposal refinements Demands for information not specified in the GSA schedule solicitation Use [...]
Winning a GSA Schedule contract award is just the beginning, satisfying the requirements of the government’s General Services Administration (GSA) doesn’t end there. Obtaining a GSA Schedule contract award is a feather in any government vendor’s cap. The steps to receiving this coveted award involve the completion of a lengthy federal proposal and passing GSA’s [...]
Our experience in working with GSA schedule customers indicates that GSA is focusing more efforts on contract compliance. Our speculation is that the Obama administration has accepted GSA schedules as competitive procurement mechanisms with reluctance. Although competition is reduced significantly for schedule buys, the administration has to accept schedules or federal procurement efficiency would be [...]
