Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

Are you a GSA Schedule contractor? Expect changes next year in how you report sales and pay your IFF

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The General Services Administration (GSA) has announced that Federal Supply Schedule contractors will be required to use a new system beginning in 2019 to report their sales and remit their Industrial Funding Fee (IFF).

The present 72A Reporting System will be replaced with a Sales Reporting Portal (SRP).  The goal of the transition to the SRP is to provide a single reporting system for all contractors to use for reporting sales and remitting IFF.

GSA’s overall IT modernization efforts include improving its IT enterprise by building and maintaining a more modern and secure architecture for its IT systems.

The transition to the SRP system not only supports GSA’s modernization effort, but it streamlines the overall process of reporting sales and remitting the IFF, making it more efficient for GSA and its industry partners alike.

The Federal Acquisition Service’s Sales Reporting Portal currently houses all the Transactional Data Repository (TDR) contracts as well as all new quarterly reporting MAS contractors as of July 2018. GSA wants to complete the transition by moving more than 14,000 current contracts into the FAS SRP to allow for the sun-setting of the existing 72A reporting system.

GSA has developed and implemented a three-phase implementation approach that will be carried out over the next 12 months. This phased-in approach will let contractors start reporting in the new system while GSA transitions their historical data over from the legacy 72A system.

  • In Phase One, companies will be notified via email that their Schedule contract(s) have been assigned a FAS Sales Reporting Portal transition date. This date will be the first day of a reporting quarter.  No action will be needed until the end of that reporting period, when the contractor will begin reporting sales and remitting their IFF in the new FAS SRP.

Example: A contract is assigned the Jan. 1, 2019 transition date which is the first day of a reporting quarter.  No action will be necessary until the contractor has to report sales for that quarter in April 2019. That will be the first time the contractor would be required to log into the FAS SRP and report sales there.

  • In Phase Two, contractors complete their final reporting of sales and remittal of IFF in the legacy 72A System for the current quarter.

Example: FAS SRP Report Date: January 2019 – The contractor will report sales and remit their IFF in the legacy 72A system one final time for the period covering October 2018 thru December 2018.  This reporting will be due by January 30, 2019.  The company will report sales for the quarter January 2019 through March 2019 in the new FAS SRP during April 2019.

  • In Phase Three, all contract history will transfer over from the legacy 72A System into the new FAS SRP. This process will not happen until the last sales have been reported and the IFF is paid in the 72A System. Once complete, GSA will migrate the contract sales history over into the FAS SRP . If the contract has an overall variance (i.e., an imbalance between IFF owed and IFF paid) at that time, the contractor will be notified via email prior to migrating their history into the FAS SRP.

Contractors may direct questions related to this transition via email to: MASPMO@gsa.gov.

Employers required to file EEO-1 reports by Mar. 31st — Does this apply to you?

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Private employers with 100 employees or more and federal contractors with 50 employees or more and $50,000 in contract(s) are required to submit and certify an EEO-1 Report with the Joint Reporting Committee, comprised of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), not later than March 31, 2018.

The EEO-1 Report collects data on the race, ethnicity, and sex of workers, by job category.  The employment data used for the 2017 EEO-1 report should be collected using a payroll period in October, November, or December 2017, the fourth quarter of calendar year 2017.  This payroll period is what the EEOC refers to as the 2017 “workforce snapshot period.”

Employers submit EEO-1 reports via the EEO-1 Online Filing System on the EEOC’s website or will utilize this portal to electronically transmit a data file containing the EEO-1 data.  This website is accessible at: https://www.eeoc.gov/employers/eeo1survey/index.cfm.

Questions about this requirement and the process may be submitted via email to: eeo1.suggestionbox@eeoc.gov.

The EEOC had planned to collect additional information this year, including aggregate W-2 pay and hours-worked data.  However, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) stayed the additional requirements pending OMB’s review.

 

 

 

‘Big challenge’ ahead for procurement, grants reporting under DATA Act

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It took federal agencies’ four years to go from introduction to implementation of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, so what will it take to get 2,300 grant-making programs and 3,200 procurement offices to do the same?

The Office of Management and Budget recommends three steps to help expedite the process: continue to standardize data, use auto-populating technology, and use IT open standards for developing any new tools needed along the way.

The recommendations are part of OMB’s recent report on the DATA Act’s two-part Section 5 pilot, which covers federal grants and federal contracts. The grants pilot ended, but the procurement side will continue through February.

“The procurement pilot demonstrates that burden is reduced and efficiencies are achieved when data already provided to the federal government is re-used,” OMB said. “The procurement pilot results also demonstrate that reporting can be streamlined when technology standards are open. The grants test pilots demonstrate that the following conditions can reduce recipients’ burden: (I) required reporting data elements are defined in a central open repository, (2) reported data is collected centrally, (3) data can be re-used and auto populated across government, and (4) available resources explain requirements and business processes where needed.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsradio.com/open-datatransparency/2017/08/a-big-challenge-ahead-for-procurement-grants-reporting-under-data-act/

‘Fair Pay, Safe Workplaces’ rule for federal contractors appears endangered

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DOLAmong the many Obama administration regulations that President-elect Trump plans to eviscerate could be the “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” rule the Labor Department finalized in August.

Labor’s goal was to protect workers against abuses such as wage theft and health violations by instituting additional disclosure and reporting requirements for federal contractors concerning their compliance with 14 labor laws. Industry viewed the impact as a burdensome “blacklisting” of contractors whose reputations, in some cases, could suffer from unproven allegations of past worker abuse.

In October, a Texas district judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking parts of the rule in response to a suit brought by a chapter of the Associated Builders and Contractors. The judge decided that the rule’s reporting requirements reach beyond executive authority and are otherwise preempted by federal labor laws. She left only the paycheck transparency provisions intact to take effect Jan. 1, 2017.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2016/11/obamas-fair-pay-safe-workplaces-rule-federal-contractors-appears-endangered/133436

New EEO-1 form aims to collect more employment data

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eeocNo sooner did employers submit their 2016 EEO-1 filings, than a new EEO-1 form requiring more detailed information was approved by the EEOC.

Generally, federal contractors and private employers with 100 or more employees are required to complete the well-established EEO-1 report each year. Employers currently provide employment data that identifies by job category demographic information about race, gender and ethnicity. The old EEO-1 form can be viewed here. The revised EEO-1 form now requires that employers also provide the aggregate of employees’ pay, as reflected in Box 1 of W-2 forms, by job category and broken down by race, gender, and ethnicity. You can view a copy of the new form here.

The EEOC announced its original proposal on January 29, 2016. A public hearing was conducted on March 16, 2016, and public comment was available until April 1, 2016. Hundreds of public written comments were submitted expressing concerns with the revised form.  Predominately, employers expressed concern with the burden imposed by the new reporting requirements, the potential for unwarranted inferences of discrimination based on newly compiled employment data, and the efficacy of the new data as it relates to protecting against discrimination. Ultimately, the EEOC was not persuaded and chose to move forward with the changes to the EEO-1 form. However, the timeline for filing future EEO-1 forms has now been extended until March 31, so employers can utilize prior year W-2s to provide the pay data.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=540708

DoD releases long-awaited final rule imposing cybersecurity obligations on Defense contractors

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US DoD logoOn October 21, 2016, the Department of Defense (DoD) issued its long-awaited Final Rule — effective immediately — imposing safeguarding and cyber incident reporting obligations on defense contractors whose information systems process, store, or transmit covered defense information (CDI).

The Final Rule has been years in the making and is the culmination of an initial rule issued in November 2013, two interim rules published in August 2015 and December 2015, and years of comments and experience by DoD and its contractors.  The new Rule materially alters the predecessor rule in a number of respects and clarifies several important issues relating to contracting for cloud computing services.

To see key substantive changes in the final rule, click this link: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2016/10/cybersecurity-update-dod-releases-long-awaited-final-rule/

To see a full analysis of the new Rule by Covington & Burling, LLP, click this link: https://www.cov.com/-/media/files/corporate/publications/2016/10/department_of_defense_issues_final_rule-network_penetration_reporting_and_contracting_for_cloud_services.pdf

New rule, effective Nov. 1, finalizes small business subcontracting changes

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Significant regulatory amendments related to small-business subcontracting will take effect on November 1, 2016.

Federal Register pixOn July 14, 2016, the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council issued a final rule in the Federal Register to implement regulatory changes that the Small Business Administration (SBA) made.

The final rule makes many important changes to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 19 and FAR clause 52.219-9 to implement the statutory requirements of Sections 1321 and 1322 of the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 (Pub. L. 111-240). These changes, which take effect on November 1, are summarized here.

EEOC releases updates to proposed EEO-1 reporting revisions

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EEOCAs anticipated, the EEOC has released updates to its proposed rule obligating certain employers and federal contractors who file annual EEO-1 reports to include employee pay data information in addition to already-required employee demographic data.

While the updated proposed rule would require the collection and reporting of the same general pay data information as initially proposed, the updated rule:

  • extends the due date for the first EEO-1 report to require this additional data from September 30, 2017 to March 31, 2018;
  • aims to simplify data collection by establishing a calendar year wage calculation period and moving the “workforce snapshot” period for purposes of counting employees to a pay period of the employer’s choice between October 1 and December 31 of the reporting year; and
  • provides guidance on reporting hours worked for exempt employees.

The updated proposed rule is subject to a 30-day comment period ending on August 15, 2016.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=509982

Top takeaways concerning GSA’s final rule on transactional data reporting

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GSA logoBy now the entire government contracting community is well aware that one of the most significant changes in Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contracting in years occurred just a few weeks ago, as the General Services Administration (GSA) issued its Final Rule on transactional data reporting.

The Final Rule amends the GSA Federal Acquisition Regulation supplement (GSAR) to require FSS contractors and others with certain GSA Government-wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs), and Government-wide Indefinite-Delivery, Indefinite-Quantity (IDIQ) contracts to report transactional data related to orders placed under those contracts.

As indicated over a year ago in a prior client alert, both the contracting community and the GSA Office of Inspector General had concerns with the draft transactional data reporting rule.  GSA has addressed some, but not all, of these concerns.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=507342

DoD cybersecurity rules expand DoD contractor obligations to safeguard sensitive data, report cyber incidents

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The United States Department of Defense (DoD) recently published two new rules that impose broader obligations to safeguard information that falls within specified categories of sensitive data and to report cyber incidents to the government.

cyber securityThese rules generally apply to companies that have been awarded new DoD procurement contracts, that hold subcontracts under such DoD contracts, or, in some cases, that have been awarded other types of agreements with DoD.

The rules:

  • expand contractors’ and subcontractors’ safeguarding responsibilities and obligations to report and investigate cyber threats;
  • modify the scope of data that contractors and subcontractors must safeguard and the universe of contractors and subcontractors to which the requirements apply;
  • establish requirements for contractors and subcontractors using cloud computing to provide information technology services to DoD, including requiring such contractors to keep government data within the United States, implement DoD-approved safeguards, and limit disclosure of and access to government data;
  • expand and make mandatory DoD’s previously voluntary cyber incident reporting system for defense industrial base (“DIB”) agreement holders; and
  • open DoD’s voluntary cybersecurity information sharing program up to a greater range of agreement holders.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=453834

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