Skip to content Skip to left sidebar Skip to right sidebar Skip to footer

Contract management

Scared of the CAV or IOA?

Is your GSA Schedule in good health? The government ensures that your GSA Schedule stays sound by performing occasional audits, checking that your business is following the rules under which the contract was awarded. While you may have the best intentions of remaining in compliance, new hires, misunderstandings about regulatory requirements, and price changes can trip you up, causing problems in the audit itself.

EZGSA offers a Schedule Check-Up that helps to prevent negative audit findings. Many of our clients utilize this service once a year, just as you get a physical once a year — as an objective view of your GSA Schedule’s soundness.

In the GSA Schedule Check-Up, we review:

  • invoices;
  • sales to your Most Favored Customer;
  • sales to all government agencies;
  • internal Commercial Sales Practices procedures;
  • 72A reporting and payments; and
  • open market sales.

If discrepancies are found, we assist you in correcting the problems as well as developing new procedures that will prevent replication of the problems.

Contact us at 301-913-5000 or sales@ezgsa.com to see if your business can benefit from a Schedule Check-Up, either as a yearly preventative or before the Auditor visits.

FAR Update

FAR Subpart 4.17, Service Contracts Inventory, requires service contractors with contracts containing either FAR clause 52.204-14 or 52.204-15 to submit a Service Contract Report (SCR) to the System for Award Management (SAM.gov) at the end of each Fiscal Year.

FAR clauses 52.204-14 and 52.204-15 should be contained in all of the following types of service contracts:

  • Cost-reimbursement, time-and-materials, and labor-hour service standalone contracts or orders with a total value above the simplified acquisition threshold (SAT);
  • Fixed-price definite-delivery service contracts with a total value at or above $500,000;
  • Indefinite-delivery contracts where the estimated total value meets either of the above criteria; and
  • First-tier subcontracts for services.

The initial service contract reporting window will remain open until December 15, 2016, and all service contractors are encouraged to submit their responses during that time-frame.  

It is extremely important that all service contractors comply with the reporting requirement. Contractors should be reminded that a failure to comply with the service contract reporting requirements must be documented as part of a contractor’s performance evaluation as required by FAR Subpart 42.15.

Further Information:

Please follow this link for an instructional GSA YouTube video on the SCR submission process.

Please review the SCR Quick Start Guide.

If you have any questions, please contact us at info@ezgsa.com or 301-913-5000

https://youtu.be/kMbcM9myWjo

Marketing Tip of the week: Expiring Contracts

When a government contract ends, there is a likelihood that the particular agency will again need the things they bought before. Like a yearly grocery list, they buy the same types of things over and over again.

Knowing contract end dates are essential to winning new business. By researching for existing contracts that will be expiring in the next 6 months, you’ll be able to determine:

  • the status of the current project
  • if it’s going to be up for “re-compete”
  • what the incumbent did to win the original
  • the likely parameters of the forthcoming RFP
  • the strengths and weaknesses of your competition

—and you’ll have this information well in advance of the RFP, giving your team ample time to prepare .

For more information or for research and marketing assistance, call EZGSA @301-913-5000

Need-to-Know Tidbits About Schedule 65IIA

In trying to modify a client’s GSA Schedule 65IIA, we have had to deal with some changes in the solicitation and wanted to make you all aware of potential problems.

First, Contracting Officers are no longer allowing distributors to provide Letters of Supply and now require all such letters to originate from the manufacturer only.

Secondly, the solicitation now requires that the facilities where all devices are manufactured be registered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

This has proven troublesome for resellers on the Schedule, especially those who have previously honored agreements with manufacturers that now balk at this extra level of administrative oversight.

If you have questions or need help dealing with an issue such as this, contact us at admin@ezgsa.com or 301-913-5000.

Dates to Mark on your GSA Schedule Contract Calendar

One-year point

If you have recently been awarded your GSA contract, congratulations. You are now on the clock. You have two years to generate $25,000 in GSA contract sales, a hard deadline which arrives more quickly than you’d expect (!).  Begin executing your marketing plan immediately, and at the one-year point, we suggest you  re-assess: Has your marketing plan generated the expected outcomes? Do you have enough potential business in the pipeline to meet your sales goal? It can take 12 months before you begin to see if a business development plan takes hold.   Mark the one-year point, and reassess your current trajectory. Your contracting officer will reach out to you several months before your two-year anniversary to indicate the government’s intention to either continue their contract or to cancel it due to lack of sales. Be prepared.

EPA Date

After having a GSA Schedule contract for 12 months, contractors may be eligible for an Economic Price Adjustment. For many Schedules, you can submit three price increases per 12 month period, so long as the combined  increases do not exceed the 12-month percentage cap.

Know the date you can submit your next EPA, and be forewarned. You are not able to recover missing a year’s EPA by doubling up on a request in subsequent years.  

Contract End

Note your contract end date. Approximately 210 days (seven months) before that date, you’ll receive information regarding an option to extend your contract. Prepare, and expect  this letter, as you have 45 days to respond.

Sunset Date

After your fourth and final renewal period goes into effect, you should begin to prepare a new GSA Schedule contract submission. Your current contract is still valid for the next five years, but every day past the renewal date shortens the length of time that a contract can be written against your GSA Schedule. If your company often wins one year BPAs with four year options, there’s bad news: when your  BPA doesn’t span five FULL years, you won’t be eligible to compete for 1+4 contracts. It is imperative, then, to be preparing your new GSA Contract as soon as possible after your final option to extend has been exercised.

For more information, contact EZGSA at 301-913-5000 or Iwohner@ezgsa.com.