Procurements Over $10,000

Buying something over $10,000 means that the Office of Acquisition (OA) needs to be involved in the process. A warranted Contracting Officer (CO) will help you through the process and get you what you need. This guide will get you started on how to work with OA and explain the steps you will take throughout the process.

Acquisition guide

1. Submit an , external,TTS-only, Intake Form

• Things you should know before submitting the Intake Form:
  • We will need funding for the buy in the form of a PR or a , external,TTS-only, memo stating funds are available.
  • Start thinking about who should be the Contracting Officer Representative (COR) on the project, someone to help manage the buy. They will need to be , external,TTS-only, FAC-COR certified.
  • If your request is for a software, please note that it is your responsibility to you get an Authority to Operate (ATO) or Fedramp Authorization. GSA IT asks technical and security questions, and you are probably the best POC to answer them. The steps to find or get an ATO is outlined in TTS Handbook-Software-ATO section.

2. Intro meeting

• If your request has been accepted, OA will contact you within 3 business days of submitting the intake form to introduce you to your CO, the person who will do the buying for you.
• The CO will need to better understand your needs, timeline, concerns, etc.

3. Define requirements/market research

• We want to work together to clarify what it is you need and check the marketplace to see how it is being offered.

4. Preparing the pre-award acquisition package

• You and the CO will work together to build the acquisition package. The package includes a mix of internal documents and external documents. Internal documents help with planning, justifications, etc. External documents will be shared with the public, so the vendor community knows exactly what we are looking for. Documents that can go in a pre-award acquisition package are:
  • Statement of Work (SOW)/Performance Work Statement (PWS)/Statement of Objectives (SOO)
  • Market Research Report
  • IGCE
  • Specific Justifications-if applicable (Brand Name or Time & Materials/ Labor Hour Contract Type)
  • Acquisition Plan
  • Request For Quote (RFQ)
  • Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan (QASP), if applicable

5. Posting the solicitation

• We documented what we need and what is required per federal and agency regulations, so now we can post it to the public and see who can deliver!
• The COs have several venues where we can post our RFQ and supporting documentation: GSA ebuy, , external,FedBizOpps, and/or , external,Github. The CO will be responsible for this action.

6. Evaluations

• Hopefully, we received interest from industry and have multiple responses from the vendor community. We will then review each quote from the vendors and evaluate in accordance with the evaluation criteria stated in the RFQ.
• We document our technical evaluations for each submitted quote and prepare a summary report.
• Typically, the CO will conduct the price analysis to make sure the apparent awardee’s quote is fair and reasonable.

7. Award prep

• At this time, we should have an idea who provides the best value to the government and will receive the award. We document this decision in the award decision memo.

8. Award

• The CO will use GSA’s contract writing system, ITSS, to make the contract award and receive the signed form by both the government and contractor) with the official contract number (Procurement Instrument Identifier).

Post award guide

CORs (Contracting Officer Representatives)

• Congratulations on the award, but the fun has just begun! It is the government’s responsibility to monitor the contractor’s performance to ensure the contract’s articulated outcomes are being achieved. In addition to monitoring the contractor’s performance, other post-award tasks may include: managing vendor/government relationships, issuing technical direction, reviewing and approving invoices, writing inspection/performance reports, tracking payments to indicate the remaining balance of funds, etc.

• We assign a COR, most likely from the customer’s team, to aid in the post-award contract management through a COR delegation letter.

• We have , external,TTS-only, guides and resources to help the COR with fulfilling their responsibilities.

Contract modifications

• Once your contract is awarded, it’s possible that you may need to modify the contract to reflect in-scope changes. Please note that only your Contracting Officer (CO) can modify the contract in two ways: unilaterally (the government CO signs) or bilaterally (the government CO and contractor sign).

• Here are some of the potential modifications we could make to your contract:

  • Administrative Modification (ie. New CO or COR)
  • Period of Performance Extension
  • Exercise of Option Period and/or Optional Services
  • Incrementally Fund Time & Material (T&M)/Labor Hour (LH) CLIN
  • Change Order/Supplemental Agreement for work within scope

• If you have a modification that needs to be made to your contract please fill out this , external,TTS-only, contract modification form as soon as you know the modification is necessary and your CO will contact you right away.

Contractor Performance Assessment Report (CPARS)

• For contracts over the simplified acquisition threshold (currently $250,000), the government is obligated to evaluate contractor performance. This evaluation will happen at the end of each Period of Performance (PoP). The CO will initiate the CPARS form and route it to you to evaluate the work of your contractor. Performance information should be entered directly into the CPARS, the Governmentwide evaluation reporting tool. Instructions for submitting evaluations into CPARS are available at , external,https://www.cpars.gov. After you submit the evaluation, it will go to your contractor POC for review. The evaluations are automatically finalized after 14 days, including any comments the contractor add to the review. This may sound overwhelming, but kindly note that your CO will guide you through the entire process. Please contact your CO if you have any questions.

Contract close out

After all work under a contract has been delivered, it is time to close out the contract. To initiate the contract closeout process, your CO will ask you for a final report of the services and/or products received and the contractor’s final invoice. The CO will also confirm with the OCFO that all payment has been made to the contractor. Generally, a contract will be considered complete after the CO receives this information and your CO prepares a contract completion statement. After your CO marks the contract closed in the contract writing system, the contract is officially closed and you are finished. On to the next!