How to Read a Federal Contract Number

Data on 14 years of DoD contracts for small arms, ammunition and accessories can be found here. This article discusses the relevance of acquiring a GSA contract number for businesses. At first glance, a number of contract numbers in Annex GSA may appear to be automatically generated by a system. The format of the contract number is based on how the GSA contract is awarded. For example, Schedule GSA holders who received their contract last year have new contract numbers. You may be surprised to have different GSA contract numbers due to format changes in accordance with the amended rules of the Federal Acquisitions Regulations (FAR). Schedule GSA contract numbers assigned to companies prior to fiscal year 2017 consist of ten characters and five elements, including the following: Items 10 to 13 are the sequential serial number of the device. For the purposes of the Supply Gateway, orders are purchases valued at less than $100,000.00 (excluding commercial items, which can be up to $5 million) and typically include an ”M” or ”W” in the ninth place of the reward number. When entering the contract number in the search criteria, do NOT enter hyphens between numbers and letters. Far 4.1603 defines several types of procurement tools, literally from A to Z excluding the letters I and O. For example, A is framework purchase agreements, D is for supply contracts of indefinite duration, and P is for orders. According to far 4.1603, a solicitation number consists of 13 to 17 alphanumeric characters, which are grouped into several groups explained below.

The letter in the tender number for IFB is B. The agency had assigned different letters for each fiscal year, starting with the letter ”A.” However, some letters, including I, O, Q, and Z, have been ignored over the years. Finally, in fiscal year 2012, the agency ran out of letters based on the English alphabet. For this reason, the GSA began providing two characters each fiscal year. You change the number of characters assigned to the contract number from four to three. FBO SolicitationsFBO.gov was transferred to beta.SAM.gov on November 9, 2019 and is now known as Contract Opportunities. beta.SAM.gov is now the decisive place for the search for government contract opportunities. PIID stands for Procurement Instrument Identifier. And government advertising is just one of those tools.

Technically, the solicitation number is a special case of PIID. The PIID format is governed by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 4.1603. Unlike many other countries, the United States is relatively transparent when it comes to listing what it spends on defense. Thus, any citizen who has access to the Internet can get a glimpse of the firearms on which U.S. taxpayers` money is spent. All they have to do is go to the U.S. Department of Defense website and see the daily Department of Defense announcements or access the Department of Defense contract archives. The tender number is structured as follows:The first six digits identify the purchasing agency`s order office. The second two digits indicate the financial year in which the contract was issued. The letter defines the type of request and is crucial information.

The last four digits simply identify that specific contract and specific changes are made to the GSA contract number to keep up with the changes to the FAR rules. Overall, obtaining a GSA contract number may not be required to do business with the federal government. However, it can be extremely beneficial for exposing a business to federal buyers and accelerating sales. Some federal agencies use GSA schedules to streamline the purchase of products and services, so it`s worth signing up for the GSA calendar. The final format of the contract number in the GSA Annex consists of 13 characters and six elements, including the following: As you can see, reading the government application number can provide enough information about each specific application. And knowing what kind of prompt it is is simply crucial. There is a specific method of how the organization obtained this number, which is crucial for large transactions in the government market. IFBs, also known as ”sealed bids,” require the government to accept sealed bids posted on acquisition platforms. Suppliers place their bids on the open prompt, and the lowest bid usually wins. However, it is not enough to let the offer fall underground, as any offer below expectations will be checked for violations of labor laws, inferior materials, misunderstandings about specifications or other options that could lead to lower costs. That said, there`s nothing wrong with the lowest bid as long as you`re willing to prove it to the government. You must know the NAICS codes that apply to your business in order to register with the government.

You should also be able to identify the NAICS and CIS codes that apply to your skills to ensure your chances of success in doing business with the government. For example, government buyers looking for contractors use the codes of the products and services they want to purchase when searching for companies profiled on CCR and Pro-Net systems. With an avalanche of ongoing and promising government demands budgeting for the $30 billion in tears, companies and contract managers need a way to quickly find what they need. Searching for solicitation numbers is a handy tool to understand the basics of contract types and priorities as long as you can read them. The Federal Procurement Regulations (FAR) made some changes to establish a standardized format for Procurement Instrument Identifiers (FIDIs). PIIDs refer to the format used to determine the organization`s federal contracts, agreements and mandates. These figures are specific to each company. The new decision came into effect on October 1, 2017, prompting the GSA to make an adjustment. As a result, the agency followed the new FAR format on contracts awarded to the GSA Annex. Product Service Codes (PSCs). These are alphanumeric, from ”A” to ”Z”, where ”I” and ”O” are not used.

Three digits are added to the alpha to better define the type of service needed. Thus, an air force allocation by the issuing Board 10, which was assigned a PII number in fiscal year 2012 for a basic order agreement action that was the first action under this contract, would have a PII number of: In a typical NSN, for example, 4720-00-101-9817, the first four numbers are the Federal Supply Code (FSC), which places the article in a specific category. In this example, 4720 is pipe, pipe, pipe, and fittings because it starts with 47. The other two digits, 20, identify the element as a pipe and flexible pipes that include air ducts, metal, non-metallic and textile pipes and their assemblies, etc. The next two numbers, in our Example 00, identify the country that is purchasing the item. 00 or 01 is the code for the United States. The remaining NSN numbers, 101-9817, are referred to as the National Item Identification Number (NIIN) and are used to index the NSNs. If not, what about those with the same change number? Answer: A contract change can be made for delivery to multiple locations. First of all, the format of your GSA Schedule contract number depends on the date the order was placed.

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