Column: It’s Paperwork Check-up Time!

      We are off and running on fiscal 2021. We hope you’ve had contracting success in this weird environment and are looking forward to more in the next 10 months.

      The period from now through Dec. 31 will likely see a slowdown in new opportunities and a breather for everyone, so this is a great time to update your government paperwork-- System for Award Management (SAM) and Dynamic Small Business Search (DSBS) listings, contracting reports and filings and saved searches in federal databases.

Updating your SAM listing

     Is your SAM listing updated in every way? Enter your company name or DUNS number in the Search section of SAM.gov to assess your listing, and see what others see about your company.

• Do you have new points of contact?
• Have your business addresses changed?
• Are you using a Post Office Box for correspondence in the COVID19 era?

      If anything has changed, update it now. If your address has changed, go to your Dun & Bradstreet DUNS number listing to make the appropriate changes at https://www.dnb.com/ie/utility-pages/data-update.html.

      Your DUNS listing is free and there is no charge for making changes. Check back a few days after submitting changes to make sure the changes were processed into both SAM and into DSBS. (More on that below).

      By the way, Uncle Sam is once again preparing to drop reliance on DUNS. Having the correct information in your DUNS file will improve the chances of a seamless transition, when and if a new system is launched.

Selecting NAICS Codes

      Review your NAICS codes. Confirm every one of them and search for related corollaries.

• Are you in the wholesale or retail market? NAICS codes in the range of 42xxxx, 44xxxx and 45xxxx series are not used in federal acquisition markets. List your company under the relevant manufacturing NAICS codes.
• Do you have too many NAICS codes listed? If you’ve got codes for a broad variety of industries, your listing will be suspect. We’ve seen accounting firms that also do highway construction. Other firms list almost every known NAICS code in their profile. Would you do business with someone who claims to do everything?
• Are you searching beta.SAM.gov opportunities by Product/Service Code (PSC) along with NAICS? PSC searches in beta.SAM.gov are often more reliable than NAICS code searches. PSC codes were designed for federal procurement use and are part of almost every beta.SAM.gov bid listing. The full PSC list is available on fpds.gov.

      If you are not sure which codes apply to you, search beta.SAM.gov with relevant PSC codes to see if they properly identify your product or service.

Checking your DSBS listing

      The DSBS Web pages are used by many contracting officers and small business utilization offices to identify small firms to serve their requirements. If your company is small, your information is automatically posted in DSBS when you complete or update your SAM listing so you’re probably already listed, but check to see if updates are needed.

• Have you compared your DSBS listing with several competitors? I recommend doing this. Does your company description fade against the competition’s keywords, special capabilities and experience?
• Is your DSBS listing accessible by searching by company name or phone number? Try searching both.
• Have you put your best foot forward?

1. Include past contracts in the performance history section
2. Enter descriptive, searchable keywords
3. Note professional and industry certifications
4. List special equipment or processes (e.g., Agile, CAD, CNC)

      To enter changes to DSBS, go to beta.SAM.gov to the last action, which takes you to the Pro-Net interface for DSBS at dsbs.sba.gov.

Beta.SAM.gov review

     Have you reviewed your process for monitoring opportunities at beta.SAM.gov?

• Are you looking at all small business set-asides (and not just special categories such as 8(a), HUBZone, or women-owned)?
• Have you created Saved Searches that run daily? This function is again available but you have to set up a username and password and login to beta.SAM.gov beta.SAM.gov to access it.

        By the way, our Set-Aside Alert daily Contract Opportunities bulletins make it easy for you to be sure you have seen all available federal set-aside jobs.

• Did you complete your year-end filings? EEO-1 and other compliance reports are overdue. GSA Schedule sales reports and IFF payments: are they up-to-date? They are due quarterly during the year, and you risk contract termination if you don’t file them timely.

Conclusion

      The pace of new solicitations is winding down over the holidays. Use this time wisely to fine-tune your processes and highlight your best features on government databases.

Tom Johnson can be reached by email at  tjohnson@setasidealert.com.

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Column: It’s Paperwork Check-up Time!

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