Drive a hole through the competition by Promoting Your GSA Schedule
Driving to work the other day, a truck for an electrical company caught my eye. It was just another work truck – except for the prominent display of the GSA Schedule Contract number on the side.
Because I work in the government contracting industry, that caught my attention. Many GSA contractors fail even to display their GSA contract numbers on their webpages – but this company’s advertising and promotion went far beyond that!
How are you promoting your GSA Schedule contract? Is your contract prominently displayed on your webpage – and linked to your GSA Advantage pricelist for easy ordering? Are you using GSA eBuy to respond to Request for Quotes – and using the opportunity (win or lose) to interact with customers and promote your services?
So… what ideas are you using to get your services and products in front of your customers? Maybe truck ads aren’t for you … but are you finding and doing what is?
If you are interested in identifying your company’s federal market sales potential and additional sales opportunities, Aronson & Company’s Federal Market Assessment provides a comprehensive look at the Federal marketplace and Agencies buying habits. Contact Vanessa Payne to learn more at vpayne@aronsoncompany.com or 301.231.6200.
2009 Federal Holidays add Inauguration Day for Washington, DC metro
2009 Federal Holidays
| Thursday, January 1 | New Year’s Day |
| Monday, January 19 | Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. |
| Monday, February 16 | Washington’s Birthday |
| Monday, May 25 | Memorial Day |
| Friday, July 3 | Independence Day |
| Monday, September 7 | Labor Day |
| Monday, October 12 | Columbus Day |
| Wednesday, November 11 | Veterans Day |
| Thursday, November 26 | Thanksgiving Day |
| Friday, December 25 | Christmas Day |
NOTE: Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009, falls on a Tuesday. A federal employee who works in the District of Columbia, Montgomery or Prince George’s Counties in Maryland, Arlington or Fairfax Counties in Virginia, or the cities of Alexandria or Falls Church in Virginia, and who is regularly scheduled to perform non-overtime work on Inauguration Day, is entitled to a holiday. There is no in-lieu-of-holiday for federal employees who are not regularly scheduled to work on Inauguration Day.
What’s the effect of Day 26, 2008 and Jan 20, 2009 federal holidays on your business? See our postings on the effect of special federal holidays on government contractors.
12/16/08 – President declares December 26th a Holiday – How does this impact you?
12/22/08 - Inauguration Day a Federal Holiday for DC-metro area – How does this impact you?
A list of public holidays for Federal employees through the year 2020 is available from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
Does your government contracting include the state and local market? While federal law cannot compel state, municipal or other local governments to observe or recognize federal holidays, most states do recognize all federal holidays, and some celebrate special statehood days of their own.
Inauguration Day a Federal Holiday for DC-metro area – How does this impact you?
Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009, falls on a Tuesday. An employee who works in the District of Columbia, Montgomery or Prince George’s Counties in Maryland, Arlington or Fairfax Counties in Virginia, or the cities of Alexandria or Falls Church in Virginia, and who is regularly scheduled to perform nonovertime work on Inauguration Day, is entitled to a holiday. There is no in-lieu-of-holiday for employees who are not regularly scheduled to work on Inauguration Day. How does this affect contractors with employees working at Federal sites? How do contractors treat this extra day off? A similar issue was addressed in last week’s posting related to the extra holiday, December 26th.
Factors to consider:
- What is stated in the contractor’s individual contract clauses regarding Holiday/Leave?
- Are the employees covered under the Service Contract Act (SCA)?
- Did your Contracting Officer issue a modification permitting invoicing for the extra holiday?
- What is the Contractors’ own leave and pay policies?
Possible solutions:
- Check your Holiday/Leave clause with in your contracts
- Check individual SCA covered contract wage determination for guidance.
- Check with your COs to request modification to contract to allow invoicing for direct and indirect costs. ** (no fee)
- Follow the contractor’s leave and pay policies for holiday or paid time off.
**Under Department of State’s DOSAR 652.237-72 “Observance of Legal Holidays and Administrative Leave” – a contract is allowed to be reimbursed all direct and indirect cost less any fee.
There is no easy answer to this issue. The affected employees: 1.) work at an alternate location, if available, 2.) take the day off as leave with pay, or 3.) are paid an extra holiday. The extra holiday pay is an allowable fringe cost.
Check back tomorrow for the entire 2009 Federal Holiday calendar.
Please post any questions or comments or contact Donna Dominguez, Government Contracts Consultant at 301-231-6200 ext 6726 or ddominguez@aronsoncompany.com.
(posted by Donna Dominguez)
Uncovering The Competition That Lurks Within
One key to winning business in today’s increasingly complex and demanding environment is to assume that your competition may already be ahead in completing selling efforts with same end-users you are going after. This strategy helps in many ways, because it forces you to assemble the kind of information that you will need in order to have a decent chance of being considered amongst a select list of companies for a given contract. The success rate increases for companies who have a defined process to do this, versus ones that don’t.
In the federal contracting arena, this is relatively easy to achieve if you are experienced enough, but for newbies and many small businesses, it may not seem so. One such piece of competitive information that is a must have for any organization is to know the companies winning business in the industry sector that it specializes in. For example, if you are a veteran owned business in NAICS Sector 54 for professional services and are looking to bid on a US Army contract, click the link below to see who may be your competition and how much business they won in FY 2008:
For the latest on what’s new in federal contracting data visit www.fedmine.us or email amehan@fedmine.us.
GAO Establishes Hotline for Reporting Small Business Fraud and Abuse
The General Accountability Office (GAO) has established an E-Mail hotline so citizens can report potential fraud and abuse in the Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUB Zone), the Service Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business, and the 8(a) programs. Anyone, including a competitor can report potential fraudulent activities in any of these programs by sending an e-mail, with as much information as possible to smallbizfraud@gao.gov. GAO is especially interested in these programs after several recent reports concluded that the programs were vulnerable to abuse. In a “sting” operation, GAO was easily able to register 4 fictitious firms into the HUB Zone program. Most recently, GAO discovered that 10 firms, that were ineligible for the HUB Zone preferences received more than $100 million in HUB Zone awards in 2006 and 2007.
President declares December 26th a Holiday – How does this impact you?
President Bush issued an executive order closing all executive branch departments and agencies of the Federal government and excusing most Federal employees from work on December 26, 2008. How does this affect contractors with employees working at Federal sites? How do contractors treat this extra day off?
Factors to consider:
- What is stated in the contractor’s individual contract clauses regarding Holiday/Leave?
- Are the employees covered under the Service Contract Act (SCA)?
- Did your Contracting Officer issue a modification permitting invoicing for the unplanned holiday?
- What are the Contractor’s own leave and pay policies?
Possible solutions:
- Check the Holiday/Leave clauses in your contracts to see if they address handling of this situation.
- Additional paid holidays may qualify as a fringe benefit for Health & Welfare calculation.
- Check with your COs to request modification to contract to allow invoicing for extra holiday.**
- Follow the contractor leave and pay policies for holiday or paid time off.
**Under Department of State’s DOSAR 652.237-72 “Observance of Legal Holidays and Administrative Leave” – a contract is allowed to be reimbursed all direct and indirect cost less any fee.
There is no single solution or easy answer to this issue. The affected employees may: 1.) work at an alternate location, if available, 2.) take the day off as leave with pay, or 3.) are paid an extra holiday. The extra holiday pay is an allowable fringe cost.
Check back next week for a posting regarding DC-metropolitan area federal government closure for the Presidential Inauguration.
Please post any questions or comments or contact Donna Dominguez, Government Contracts Consultant at 301-231-6200 ext 6726 or ddominguez@aronsoncompany.com.
(posted by Donna Dominguez)
FAR – Audits: AICPA National Construction Industry Conference Follow-Up
Aronson & Company had the opportunity to present at the AICPA National Construction Industry Conference on the topic of Federal Acquisition Regulation – Audits. Two questions posed during that presentation are answered here.
- Question 1: “What should be included in labor burden? How should contractors charge for bonuses?”
- Question 2:”What is paid for workers’ compensation insurance, is it actual cost (annual premium minus rebates and discounts) or simply the annual premium amount?”
Look for these topics and much more in future Aronson & Company events and future blog postings. We are leading our clients to total harmony, total solutions, and total success in the government marketplace. For more information please contact Nicole Mitchell at 301.222.8231, nmitchell@aronsoncompany.com, or post a comment.
8A Contracts Review – Sole Source vs. Competed
There are two main categories of 8A contracts used by the federal government to make awards to SBA certified 8A companies. They are 1) “8A” Competed and 2) “8AN” Sole Source. Other categories exist, but those are either deprecated or on the verge of being deprecated. The report below is a spreadsheet containing all aggregate 8A contracts totaling $7,469,072,243.52 that were issued to 237 companies by agency code in FY 2008 that ended September 30, 2008 for transactions recorded as of Dec 1, 2008:
The most common and sought after award by 8A companies is the second kind, because competition is virtually eliminated when the agency chooses to make an award directly to an 8A company without the need to follow competitive procedures associated with other non Sole Source contract awards.
Looking at a single agency, the Department Of Commerce in FY 08, we see a total of $86,657,375 in 8AN Sole Source contracts were issued vs. $42,074,199 for 8A Competed contracts. The ratio of 8AN:8A, which is 2:1 in the first report, is more or less consistent in this report and across most government agencies.
To suggest a report for a future blog posting, please email amehan@fedmine.us. Also visit www.fedmine.us for other information and reports.
Who is Exempt from Pro-Forma Corporate Group Reporting and Penalties?
The Pro Forma corporate combined information report (or an exemption report) was due on December 1, 2008. If your business has received a “Notice of Failure to File” and your business is not a member of a corporate group, no penalties will be assessed if an exemption is filed as soon as possible. To file for an exemption access the Maryland Comptroller’s corporate reporting system. Next, in the “File for an Exemption” box enter the entity’s FEIN and reason for the exemption (e.g. “Other” and type “Pass-through entity”) and click on “Submit.” A confirmation number will be generated and should be record and kept for future reference.
For more information see our postings on the Pro-Forma issue or contact Henry F. Chiwaya, Senior Tax Manager at Aronson & Company via email or phone (301) 222-8215.
Contractor Employees Working in Iraq Will Now Be Subject to Iraqi Law
The Status of Forces agreement recently executed by the United States and Iraq eliminated an important legal protection previously available for contractor employees. The agreement reverses a 2003 ruling by the then governing Coalition Provisional Authority. That ruling granted U.S. Government contractor employees immunity from criminal prosecution in Iraqi courts for actions taken in the course of performing their jobs. Effective January 1, 2009 contractor employees will be subject to Iraqi law and the Iraqi justice system. Though Iraq has improved its justice system in recent years, some experts still do not believe it meets international standards for fairness and transparency.
There are about 190,000 contractor employees working in Iraq. Approximately 39,000 of these are U.S. citizens. Most employees and contractors seem to be taking a “wait and see” attitude. However, some analysts predict that many employees will leave Iraq and replacements will be difficult and more expensive to recruit, if any U.S. citizens are “mistreated” by the Iraqi justice system.
Update: The Iraqi Government has announced that contractor employees will not be subject to certain Iraqi laws during the “transition” period. During this undefined period, Iraq will take no legal action against contractors in the area of licensing and registration of security contractors, vehicle registration, licensing of pilots and aircraft, customs duties, tariffs, and inspections, and the procedures for entering or leaving Iraq. All other Iraq laws will apply to contractors starting on January 1, 2009.
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What We Are Writing
- A Marriage of Inconvenience: GSA Schedule Contracts & The Contractor Code of Business Ethics & Conduct Clause
- Emerging Small Businesses: To Grow Your Business, You Must Plan For Growth
- Government Contracting: Look Before You Leap!
- GSA Schedules – Strategies for Success
- New Employee vs. Independent Contractor Considerations
- Pay on Display – Understanding the Executive Compensation and Subcontractor Data Reporting Requirements & Ramifications
- The GSA Schedule: Your Ticket to the Federal Market (May 2010)
- The New FAR Codes of Conduct and Compliance Program Provisions
- The Seven Deadly Sins (of contract compliance)