Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

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/

Recent GAO decisions underscore the need for precision in identifying corporate entities during the procurement process

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Many government contractors are part of corporate families consisting of multiple corporate entities.  One entity may be named as the official contracting party, but use the resources of affiliates, parents, or subsidiaries during performance.

The distinction between those members of the corporate family may not seem important in terms of day-to-day operations — in fact, the synergy and seamlessness between the corporate entities may be a selling point.

Two recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) decisions make clear, however, that when it comes to bidding on government work, it is important to precisely identify which corporate entity is going to do what and which corporate entity has which resources.

In BDO USA, LLP and Intermarkets Global USA, LLC, GAO’s decisions turned on a perceived misidentification of corporate entities at some point in the procurement process.  In BDO, the problem occurred during bid submission.  In Intermarkets, the problem occurred when the protest was filed.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2018/11/still-just-rat-cage-recent-gao-decisions-underscore-need-precision-identifying-corporate-entities-procurement-process/

You’d better ‘feed’ SAM regularly — especially before you submit a bid

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Effective October 26, 2018, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) requires businesses who are pursuing federal contracts to be registered in the System for Award Management (SAM) prior to their submission of a bid, proposal, or quote to a federal agency.

Think of this as the need to “feed” information about your company into the SAM database, including updates to that information, on a regular basis.

There are only a few exceptions to this new policy (exceptions may be found at FAR 4.1102).

In the context of federal contracting, SAM is essentially the federal government’s vendor database.  By registering in SAM, businesses indicate their compliance and agreement with the federal government’s standard “representations and certifications” requirements.  Updating your SAM record must be done at least annually for a vendor to maintain “active” status is SAM.

The new rule clarifies what had been ambiguity as to when vendors must be registered in SAM in order to be eligible to receive contract awards.  (See details in our earlier article on this subject here.)  With the FAR change, it’s now clear that registration must be accomplished before a vendor submits a response to an Invitation for Bid (IFB), a Request for Proposal (RFP), or a Request for a Quotation (RFQ).

If you need help with your company’s SAM registration, feel free to contact a Procurement Counselor with the Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center (GTPAC).  All of our contact information is listed by location at: https://gtpac.org/team-directory.

If you are located outside of the state of Georgia, you can find the procurement technical assistance center (PTAC) nearest you at: http://www.aptac-us.org/contracting-assistance.

Remember: There is never a fee to register in SAM as a government contractor. PTACs are available to provide you with no-cost help to get you through the process.

 

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