Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

GSA providing automatic 180-day extension of expiring entity registrations in SAM.gov

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The U.S. General Services Administration is working to support the implementation of many aspects of the American Rescue Plan Act.  GSA’s Integrated Award Environment specifically is working to administer relief for certain entities already registered in SAM.gov in order to do business with the government.

To help reduce the burden, there will be a 180-day extension for SAM.gov registrations that have expiration dates ranging between April 1, 2021, and September 30, 2021.  This effort is intended as relief for those otherwise required to re-register during that time frame.  This does not impact entities registering for the first time during this time period.  No action is required on the part of registrants.

Continue reading at:  GSA Interact

New look and feel coming to beta.SAM.gov April 26th; SAM systems merge May 24th

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The General Services Administration launched beta.SAM.gov in 2017 as the modernized environment where the 10 Integrated Award Environment (IAE) systems will become one.  To date, three IAE systems have migrated into beta.SAM.gov completely and some functionality from a fourth system has also merged into the new environment.

Now, GSA is preparing to merge legacy SAM.gov into the beta.SAM.gov environment.  SAM.gov, IAE’s largest system, is where users register to do business with the federal government, find exclusion records, and perform other tasks.  After the merger, the system will be known only as SAM.gov (no more “beta”).

Phase one, scheduled for April 26, 2021, will change the look and feel of beta.SAM.gov to prepare for the SAM.gov merge that will happen a few weeks later.  The new look and feel will remain when the two systems merge.  Essentially, GSA is giving its current beta.SAM.gov users a head start and a chance to get used to the new design before SAM.gov functionality migrates over.

Phase two, scheduled for May 24, 2021, will migrate the functionality of SAM.gov into beta.SAM.gov (keeping the new design).  The term “beta” will be retired,  and there will be only one SAM.gov.  This change affects all SAM.gov users.

Read more at:  GSA Interact

Federal contract award data from FPDS will be on beta.SAM.gov before spring

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With FedBizOpps shuttered and shifted to beta.SAM.gov, the General Services Administration is readying for the next major transition to its centralized federal contracting site: moving the reporting function of the contract awards database, the Federal Procurement Data System, or FPDS.

By March 16, the reporting tools on fpds.gov site will be transitioned over to a new “Data Bank” page on beta.SAM.gov.  Other functionality, including “search, agency reporting, data extracts, etc.,” will continue to operate on fpds.gov, according to a transition fact sheet provided by GSA.

Continue reading at:  Nextgov

Disclosure of trust ownership may be required for family-owned government contractors

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Family-owned businesses are often owned and controlled by family trusts.  Trusts are used by families for estate planning, tax planning and asset protection.  Family-owned government contractors with trust ownership structures should be mindful of ownership disclosures required by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR).  Failure to comply with the required disclosures could result in False Claims Act or false statement allegations, loss of Facility Security Clearances, rejections of bids and proposals, and loss of bid protests.

Continue reading at:  Bradley’s BuildSmart Blog

FedBizOpps to move to beta SAM on November 8, 2019

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The General Services Administration (GSA) has announced that the Federal Business Opportunities website — commonly referred to as “FedBizOpps.gov” — will be decommissioned “starting on November 8, 2019” and that the website’s “critical functionality will be transitioned into beta.SAM.gov in the first quarter of the 2020 fiscal year.”

This transition will impact virtually every federal government contractor, as FedBizOpps.gov currently serves as the single government-wide point of entry for federal government opportunities over $25,000.

Continue reading at:  Bradley

FedBizOpps will retire on Nov. 8 2019, and move to beta.SAM.gov

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GSA has announced recently that FedBizOpps.gov (FBO.gov) will be decommissioned and its critical functionality will be transitioned into beta.SAM.gov on November 8, 2019.  GSA has published a fact sheet with important information about the transition.  You can access and download the fact sheet here:

FBO to beta.SAM.gov Fact Sheet

U.S. Government to ditch the DUNS

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Earlier this month, the GSA announced a new Unique Entity Identifier Standard for Federal awards management.  The new standard will go into effect December 2020.  It will replace the current DUNS number system as the official identifier for all businesses contracting with the U.S. Federal Government.  This should make registering to do business with the federal government a little easier, but the proof will be in the roll-out.

The GSA’s Office of Systems Management, Integrated Award Environment (IAE), published an official notice of this new “Unique Entity ID Standard for Awards Management” in the Federal Register on July 10, 2019.  The new standard will be considered “final” on that date.  The GSA plans to have the new system in place by December of 2020.

GSA’s notice announces:

“[T]he U.S. government is moving to a new unique entity identifier for federal awards management, including, but not limited to, contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements, which will ultimately become the primary key to identify entities throughout the federal awarding lifecycle, in SAM.gov, other IAE systems, on required forms, and in downstream government systems.”

GSA explains, “IAE systems will be transitioning from the DUNS® to a SAM-generated Unique Entity ID (UEI),” the new identification standard developed by an inter-agency working group.  The “new entity identifier will be the authoritative identifier once the transition is complete,” and the “DUNS® will be phased out as the entity identifier for entity record[s] within SAM.”  GSA’s website further details this transition-plan, including specifics of GSA’s plan to phase out the current Dun & Bradstreet Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS®) over the next 18 months.

Continue reading at:  SmallGovCon

GSA offers first look at unique IDs to replace DUNS

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By December 2020, every organization—vendors, grantees, coops—doing business with federal agencies will have a new, 12-character identifier, as the government moves away from the proprietary DUNS number.

The DUNS, created by Dun & Bradstreet in 1962, has been the official entity verification number since it was codified in the Federal Acquisition Regulation in 1998.  The General Services Administration, which administers the program, opened the contract to new vendors last year.

GSA awarded the new contract in March to Ernst & Young, which will administer the new ID number, including managing the transition from Dun & Bradstreet.

As that transition work begins, GSA released the technical details of the new numbers and set a virtual meeting for July 25 for all interested parties to learn more.

Continue reading at:  Nextgov

Wage Determinations Online is moving to beta.sam.gov on June 13, 2019

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The Integrated Award Environment has received approval from The Award Committee for E-Government and the Procurement Committee for E-Government to proceed with the plan to decommission Wage Determinations OnLine (WDOL.gov) on June 13, 2019.  Wage Determinations OnLine will migrate its functionality and data into the new beta.SAM.gov.  After June 13th, beta.SAM.gov will become the authoritative (or official) source for wage determinations.

To prepare for this decommission, we advise you to make note of your current WDOL.gov saved wage determination numbers so that you can re-subscribe in beta.SAM.gov.  Your current wage determination numbers will not migrate automatically to beta.SAM.gov.  When you log into your account on beta.SAM.gov, you can use a function called “follow” to resubscribe to your wage determinations and receive alerts when changes occur.  For detail steps on how to re-subscribe to your wage determination numbers in beta.SAM.gov please see this article.

To learn more about new Wage Determination functionality on beta.SAM.gov, please view the training video here.

Federal contractor numbering system gets first new managing vendor after 20 years

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A new vendor is taking over management of the vendor verification system run through the General Services Administration, ending a 20-year dynasty for the company that established the Data Universal Numbering System, or DUNS.

Through the Integrated Award Environment, GSA issues each vendor or organization that does business with the government a unique DUNS number. The system has been managed by Dun & Bradstreet since it was created in 1962 and the company has held the contract with GSA since DUNS became part of the Federal Acquisition Regulation in 1998.

After opening the contract to competitive bids last year, GSA announced Monday that a new vendor, Ernst & Young, would be taking over the entity validation system.

The new deal includes a one-year base period, with four one-year options, which, if exercised, would make the contract worth a total of $41.8 million.

With the introduction of a new vendor, GSA is taking the opportunity to reengineer the system. The DUNS number will be phased out over the coming months and replaced by the System for Award Management Managed Identifier, or SAMMI, number.

The standards for how that system will work are currently being hammered out by an interagency working group, a GSA spokesperson told Nextgov.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/analytics-data/2019/03/federal-contractor-numbering-system-gets-first-new-managing-vendor-after-20-years/155678/

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