IDIQ, BPA, GWAC and schedule contracts: what the vehicle on a SAM.gov notice means, in the FAR's words

A task order buys services, and a delivery order buys supplies, against a contract that already exists. The FAR defines a task order as an order for services placed against an established contract or with Government sources. A delivery order is an order for supplies placed the same way. A multiple-award contract is one of three things. The first is a Multiple Award Schedule contract issued by GSA, or by an agency GSA has granted that authority, such as the Department of Veterans Affairs. The second is a multiple-award task-order or delivery-order contract issued under FAR subpart 16.5, governmentwide acquisition contracts included. The third is any other indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract entered into with two or more sources under the same solicitation (FAR 2.101).

The FAR prefers more than one awardee, and then makes them compete for each order. The contracting officer must, to the maximum extent practicable, give preference to making multiple awards of indefinite-quantity contracts. That means awards under a single solicitation, for the same or similar supplies or services, to two or more sources. The rule lists exceptions (FAR 16.504). Once there are several awardees, the contracting officer gives each of them a fair opportunity to be considered for each order above the micro-purchase threshold. That happens under placement procedures the solicitation and the contract set out, with price or cost as one factor in each selection. The competition requirements of FAR part 6 and the policies of subpart 15.3 do not apply to that ordering process. In general, the contracting officer does not synopsize orders under indefinite-delivery contracts. Every order must be within the scope, the period of performance and the maximum value of the contract (FAR 16.505).

A BPA is a standing arrangement for small, repeated purchases, like a charge account. Under simplified acquisition, the rule describes a blanket purchase agreement as a simplified method of filling anticipated repetitive needs for supplies or services. It works by establishing charge accounts with qualified sources of supply. It is set up for an organization that supplies its own operations or other offices, installations and projects (FAR 13.303-1). A contracting officer may establish one in four situations. A wide variety of items in a broad class of supplies or services is generally purchased, but the exact items, quantities and delivery requirements are not known in advance. Commercial sources are needed for offices or projects that do not have or need authority to purchase otherwise. The procedure would avoid writing numerous purchase orders. And there is no existing requirements contract for the same supply or service that the activity is required to use. A BPA may be established with more than one supplier for the same type of supplies or services. It may be established with a single firm from which numerous purchases at or below the simplified acquisition threshold will likely be made, or with Federal Supply Schedule contractors. The suppliers an officer considers are those whose past performance has shown them to be dependable. They offer quality supplies or services at consistently lower prices, and have provided numerous purchases at or below that threshold (FAR 13.303-2).

A BPA under a schedule works much the same way, on top of a schedule contract. Ordering activities may establish BPAs under any schedule contract to fill repetitive needs for supplies or services. They do so with the schedule contractor or contractors that represent the best value. The contracting officer gives preference, to the maximum extent practicable, to multiple-award BPAs over a single-award BPA. A BPA addresses the frequency of ordering, invoicing, discounts, requirements such as estimated quantities and work to be performed, delivery locations and time. Orders under a single-award BPA are placed directly when the need arises. Under multiple-award BPAs, the ordering activity gives each holder a fair opportunity to be considered for an order above the micro-purchase threshold. For an order above the simplified acquisition threshold, it sends a request for quotation to all holders offering the supplies or services. It lets them quote and fairly considers the responses. That step can be waived on a written justification. The rule also limits how long these BPAs run. A multiple-award BPA generally should not exceed five years, and a single-award BPA runs one year with options the rule caps (FAR 8.405-3).

A GWAC is a contract for information technology that one agency sets up and many agencies order from. The FAR defines a governmentwide acquisition contract as a task-order or delivery-order contract for information technology established by one agency for governmentwide use. It is operated by an executive agent the Office of Management and Budget designates, or under an older delegation of procurement authority from GSA. The Economy Act does not apply to orders under one (FAR 2.101). Orders placed under a task-order or delivery-order contract awarded by another agency, a GWAC or a multi-agency contract, are not exempt from acquisition planning. They may not be used to get around limits on the use of funds (FAR 16.505). So a GWAC is a particular kind of multiple-award indefinite-delivery contract, for information technology.

A schedule is a standing catalog of commercial supplies and services, at prices GSA has already determined to be fair and reasonable. The Federal Supply Schedule program is also known as the GSA Schedules Program or the Multiple Award Schedule Program. GSA directs and manages it. It gives federal agencies a simplified process for obtaining commercial supplies and services at prices associated with volume buying. Indefinite delivery contracts are awarded to provide supplies and services at stated prices for given periods of time. GSA may delegate parts of it, as it has to the Department of Veterans Affairs for medical supplies. Each schedule contractor publishes a pricelist of everything it offers under its contract, with the pricing and the terms for each special item number (FAR 8.402). Orders and BPAs placed against a schedule contract using the subpart's procedures are considered to be issued using full and open competition. So ordering activities do not seek competition outside the schedules or synopsize the requirement. GSA has already determined schedule prices to be fair and reasonable, though ordering activities may seek additional discounts before placing an order (FAR 8.404).

A notice that names a vehicle is usually about one of two things. One is the award of the vehicle itself, where the agency is choosing who will hold the IDIQ, the BPA or the schedule contract. The other is an order or BPA placed under a vehicle that already exists. In the second case, the rules above say orders under indefinite-delivery contracts are generally not synopsized. Orders and BPAs under schedules are not synopsized either. So a public notice about an order is the exception rather than the rule. The businesses that can be considered for it are the ones that hold the underlying contract or BPA. How to find federal contracts explains what the public list of notices does and does not include. Set-aside codes on SAM.gov notices covers the other label a notice carries, which can apply to an order as well (FAR 16.505).

What a business can do with a notice about a vehicle it does not hold is read it. A sources sought notice before a vehicle is awarded is a request for information, as Sources sought notices explains. An award notice names who holds it. Firmenza shows a notice's set-aside as SAM.gov publishes it and reports a change on a saved notice. It does not read a vehicle's own ordering rules, which live in the contract. Contract opportunity matches in Firmenza goes through what the matches show.

It cannot say what a particular contract's ordering procedures are, or who holds a given vehicle. It cannot say whether a business should pursue one, or what any contract's ceiling or minimum is. Each of those is in the solicitation or the contract itself. The FAR sections cited describe the types; the agency's own documents describe the instance.