Qualifying for a GSA MAS Contract

GSA Schedule goal for 2022 of becoming a GSA Schedule holder [avg sales per small business GSA Schedule holder is $1MM per year.] A great place to start if this is a goal, is to quickly review the qualification. So this week I am going to attempt to remove at least one roadblock for some of you! The criteria for obtaining a GSA Schedule are the following:

Criteria 1 – Product or Service must fit on an existing Schedule
Your products or services must be sold on the GSA Schedule system. The federal government uses the schedule system for routine and repetitive purchases. Maintaining a various category has costs associated with it. With that said there are over 8 million products and services on the GSA.

Certain novel products or services do not find a place on schedule system and certain large categories such as architecture and general contracting are not found on the schedule system due to federal acquisition regulations.

Criteria 2 – Financially Stability of the GSA Applicant
The purpose of the GSA Schedule system is to provide a high quality and reliable system for government employees to purchase from. As a result, the GSA must consider a balance between increasing the number of offerings to federal buyers as compared to the reliability of service. Therefore, the GSA does review the firm’s financial capabilities as part of their application process. The GSA will place higher scrutiny on firms that have any of the following issues.

Causes of Higher Scrutiny by GSA

1. Higher scrutiny is placed on firms that are not currently profitable
2. Higher scrutiny is placed on firms that do not have positive working capital, (current assets less current liabilities)
3. Higher scrutiny is placed on firms that do not have a positive net worth (total assets less total liabilities).
4. Higher scrutiny is placed on firms that lack access to capital, typically seen in the form of a bank line of credit or other credit faculty.

Criteria 3 – Goods must be for sale in the commercial marketplace

1. The GSA will review the firm's past invoices to insure you are selling to the GSA at the price you are offering the same product or service in the commercial marketplace.
2. The GSA wants to ensure that the firm has demonstrated some level of competency, quality and reliability in the delivery of the product.

To meet these two criteria the GSA’s general guidelines are that the firm has at least four customers and sold at least $25,000 in the past 2 years. For IT firms this duration of time is cut to 1 year and past work performance in some cases can be used.

Criteria 4 – Your Products Pricing Must be Consistent

A firm must be able to provide the government with consistent year-round pricing. This can be difficult for suppliers of good such as coffee where the price of the commodity varies dramatically from week-to-week or month-to-month.

Criteria 5 – Your firm must be of High Moral Character

The company and its principal owners/managers must not have been disbarred from doing business with the Federal government within the last three years. Additionally, your company and its principles must not have a civil or criminal conviction as a result of performance on a federal, state, or local contract.