Since last summer, federal contracting officers have been able to check the past performance of a potential contractor through the Past Performance Information Retrieval System at www.ppirs.gov.

Companies can also check their own performance reports through the system, but you cannot see any other company’s reports.

Performance assessment reports are not required on every contract. The report card is not filed until one year after a contract is awarded and it may not be posted until some time after that.

To access information in PPIRS, contractors must log in using their DUNS number and Marketing Partner Identification Number (MPIN). On the “Assessment Reports” selection screen, click on “Submit” to view all the PPIRS information for your company.

PPIRS, known in government-speak as “Peepers,” collects performance information from the Army’s Past Performance Information Management System; the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System used by the Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and other defense agencies; NASA’s system; and the Contractor Performance System managed by the National Institutes of Health, which is used by most civilian departments and many independent agencies.

The website is accessible only to source selection officials. It cannot be used for market research.

In announcing the rollout of the system last summer, Angela Styles, administrator of federal procurement policy, said, “A government-wide past performance retrieval database supports the administration’s E-Government initiatives to ‘unify & simplify’ and reduce burden by eliminating collection redundancies.”

The website is administered by the Naval Sea Logistics Center Detachment Portsmouth.